To evaluate my assignment please click here
Name : Gausvami Surbhi A.
Assignment Topic : “Obstacles for women writers in Victorian age.”
Paper: Victorian Literature
Roll No. : 24
Submitted to : Dr. Dilip Barad, M.A. Department of English
MKBU University.
Email id: gausvamisurbhi17@gmail.com
Batch Year: 2016-18
Introduction:-
Victorian age symbolized by the reign of British monarch queen Victoria. Women did not have any right to vote, sue, or own property. They were considered inferior to men. In Victorian era women were seen as belonging to the domestic sphere. They have only domestic duty. Their prime concern is to serve their husband and children and this stereotype required them to provide their husband with a clean home food on the table and to raise their children women have less rights in this era. When a Victorian man and woman married, the rights of the woman were legally given over to her spouse. In addition to losing money, Victorian wives became property of their husband. They could not do anything they like without their husband’s wish.
Rights and privileges of Victorian women were limited. And both single and married women had hardships to live with. Victorian women had disadvantages both financially and sexually enduring inequalities within their marriages and social statuses. Men were provided with more stability. Financial status and privilege. Women endured their husband's control cruelty targeted against their wives including sexual violence, verbal abuse and economic deprivation. While husbands were allowed to have affairs with other women. For them there was no question of character,
“Dag achhe hai”
for them. The ideal Victorian woman was pure, chaste, refined and modest.
“Chaste and modest wives”
We find great paradox in Victorian period. That all higher class women, those who belonged royal family live very luxuries life. Even there was rule of queen Victoria. While middle class and lower class woman suffered a lot as being woman of this era.
* Poets and novelists of Victorian Era:
“This which is the age of so many things of enlightenment of science of progress is quite as distinctly the age of female novelists… The vexed questions of social morality the grand problems of human experience are seldom so summarily discussed and settled as in the novels of this day which are written by women”
[Margaret Oliphant, novelist, 1855]
The list of 19th century novelists and poets is long. Jane Austen, Charlotte, Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett, Browning, George Eliot, Christina Rossetti and many other women took up their pens to become serious contributors to what had been a male dominated literary scene. Many of these women used writing to tackle complex political and social issues.
Novels and poetry had long been popular genres for female writers. But many such works had been belittled as comparatively trivial and insignificant. Women continued to produce vast numbers of sentimental and sensationalist romance novels throughout the century in response to huge public demand making it difficult for women as a group to achieve recognition as serious writers. Furthermore, strict gender roles made it difficult for women to justify a literary career.
* For women writers in Victorian era :
“What was the definition of women in the Victorian era ?”
The novel concentrate on the role of women in the Victorian era and their rise of the new women. It is a semi biography and closely reflects the society of that time. The novel takes us through the life of a low class woman struggling to create her identity in a make dominant, misogynistic world.
In the 19th century women in general had the same rights and duties but there was a very fine line dividing the lower class from the middle class and middle class from the upper class. In general women had very little rights regarding education, marriage and properties. They were considered their husband’s property. Charlotte Bronte depicts all three classes of women and their rights and duties profusely in her novel “Jane Eyre”
By becoming professional writers, they challenged the notion of the domestic sphere and the idea that women were mainly supposed to be wives and mothers as a result, women writers had the ability to empower other women and influence the course of history.
19th century society known as the Victorian period, regarded men as the superior sex and women as inferior. There were many women that challenged these beliefs and among them were women writers. They faced numerous obstacles’ when they stepped out of their spheres by becoming professional writers. Critics and men such as John Stuart mill declared that women could never be innovators and therefore they would always fall into the category of imitators. In general, women were commonly thought to leak certain characteristics that made a good writer. The reason for that is that women were usually categorized into either angelic beings or monstrous beings. It was believed that they could not feel passion, ambition anger or honor. Infect critics commonly” did not believe that women could express more than half of life”. However there were many women writers that challenged these views and among them wear the Bronte sisters.
Bronte sisters novels addressed many of the issues that society in the 19thcentury faced. Especially issue regarding gender equality and they showed world that women did indeed have passion and were not inferior to men. There were separate spheres for man and woman being a woman was considered to be a career in itself and therefore, their highest goal was to become mother and a wife. In addition the concept of
“Angel in the house”
“Household fairy”
Become very popular.
It was believed that women were small and weak because of female body. This claim was supported by Victorian physicians and anthropologists. Women that had passion. For learning and going more knowledge were looked down on and were in the danger of being known as “Bluestocking” This was the name given to women who had devoted themselves too enthusiastically to intellectual pursuits. And blue stocking were considered unfeminine.
However there were women in this period that fought against the injustice that they faced one such woman was “Barbara Leigh smith Bodichon” in 1857, “women and work” She wrote “crises are heard on every hand that women are conspiring that women are discontented that women are idle, that women are overworked and that women are out of their sphere, God only knows what is the sphere of any human being women writers that wrote about gender quality were challenging the structure of the male dominated society that they lived in. As a result many of their novels can indeed be interpreted as feminist novels.
In the 19th century men dominated the world of often referred to as the age of the female novelist. There were several women novelist such as Jane Austen, George Eliot, Elizabeth browning, Mary Shelly, and the Bronte sisters. Women writers faced many obstacles when trying to write novels. Since girls were restricted from reading various types of literature. As a result the range of novels offered to men were far more than offered to girls. For eg. novels offered to men not to women were adventures novels with strong spirited heroes. If a girl showed passion or behaved badly she was considered to be heinous. However if a boy behaved badly he was just exhibiting his masculine traits.
These novels came to be known as didactic fiction novels that reinforced gender roles. A good example of writers of didactic fiction is Maria Edgeworth. Another author who wrote didactic fiction was Christina Rossetti. Many of her works, such as “speaking likeness” that was published in 1874, serve as a warning that a girl can only reach salvation through” the death of desire.” Overall didactic fiction was used by parents as a tool to educate girls.
This created a difficulty for women writers, For they supposed to follow certain rules when writing novels and there were limits to what was considered socially acceptable. Nevertheless, there were writers such as Bronte sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot that deliberately went against these rules. and through their characters they proved that woman called be passionate and strong. In a way these female authors themselves challenged the norm by entering the public sphere when they decided to become writers.
However if a woman wanted to be a writer she had to understand that her priority was to be a woman and that was always supposed to be her main profession. Therefore, her career as a writer always come second to that, even though men could make it their first and foremost carrier because of that self sacrifice not self sufficiency was the mark of professionalism for women.
Hence women often used a male pseudonym to escape the limit that were placed on them. Such was the case for George Eliot and Bronte sisters. Anne Bronte went under the name “Action Bell” and her novels were published by T.C. Newby, a minor publisher. The reason for publishing under pseudonyms was so that they could cross over the boundaries that had been laid on women writers.
Furthermore they wanted to be valued and ranked on the same level as men, Women writers were judged for being women usually, because of the stereotype that women were inferior and not as intellectual as men. For instance George Eliot was afraid to make her gender known when she noticed that the tone of the criticism changed when the discovery was made that career. Bell was in fact a woman. However as novels by women became more common, men had to acknowledge that there were women that had a great talent for writing fiction.
* Conclusion :
It can be conclude that women in 19th century were supposed to behave according to tradition be gender roles. Therefore Women faced the struggle of expressing their take self and the women who challenged the notion of gender, were in the danger of being isolated and viewed as monstrous. As a result women who stood up against patriarch society showed remarkable courage and endurance.
*Citation:
popularromanceproject.org/victorian-women-writers/
https://en.wikipedia.org
No comments:
Post a Comment