The Victorian novel – the individual in society and values in action

A GREAT deal of Victorian intellectual effort was spent in trying to hold together a universe which was exploding. It was an age of conflicting explanations and theories, of scientific and economic confidence and of social and spiritual pessimism, of a sharpened awareness of the inevitability of progress and of deep disquiet as to the nature of the present. Traditional solutions, universally acknowledged truths, and panaceas were generally discovered to be wanting, and the resultant philosophical and ideological tensions are evident in the literature of the period from Carlyle’s diatribes of the 1830s and Dickens’s social novels of the 1840s to Arnold’s speculations of the 1870s and Morris’s socialist prophecies of the 1880s, from the troubled early poetry of Tennyson to the often dazzled theology of Hopkins. Like all great comic writers, Dickens allows humour to subvert assumptions, both general and particular. More significantly, the very vitality and variety of his comedy confronts, and to a degree subsumes, the potential anarchy he saw around him. Dickens’s novels are multifarious, digressive and generous. In an important way, they reflect the nature of Victorian urban society with all its conflicts and disharmonies, its eccentricities and its constrictions, its energy and its extraordinary fertility, both physical and intellectual.David Copperfield is central to Dickens’s career in more than simply the chronological sense; its evocation of suffering derives directly from the novelist’s acute awareness of his own boyhood reverses, but its wit, its detailed observation, and its description of the slow ‘disciplining’ of the heart give it a confident vitality and a progressive optimism which allow for the transmutation of tragedy. Although the novel examines a series of relationships and marriages, happy and unhappy, its satire and its treatment of social problems are marginal compared to those of the complex and demanding Bleak House of 1852-3. Here the use of a double narrative, one narrator employing the present, the other the past tense, helps create a sense of unfolding mystery, even confusion. The confusion itself reflects that of the main object of the novel’s satire, the convoluted workings of the Court of Chancery, but the legal obliquity is in turn echoed and re-echoed in the words and actions of a succession of purblind characters muddling their way through a miry, fog-bound London. While private mysteries, lawsuits, and crimes are solved, the underlying problems of dirt, disease, and urban decay remain intractable.Dickens uniquely transferred his concern with the modern condition of England out of London in his succinct and often bitter satire on the effects of the Industrial Revolution in northern England, Hard Times (1854). Private pasts, private secrets, illusions, and the corrupting power of possession equally haunt his most sombre novel, Little Dorrit (1855-7). Dickens’s Hard Times still remains the most vivid and familiar of the novels which deal with the social and industrial problems of mid-Victorian England but it was, in its time, neither unique nor necessarily the best informed. Dickens himself was well aware of the earnest propaganda disseminated by one of the most gifted of his women contemporaries, Harriet Martineau (1802-76), whom Carlyle had described as ‘swathed like a mummy in Socinian and Political-Economy formulas’. The moral theme of Great Expectations is quite simple: affection, loyalty, and conscience are more important than social advancement, wealth, and class. Dickens establishes the theme and shows Pip learning this lesson, largely by exploring ideas of ambition and self-improvement—ideas that quickly become both the thematic center of the novel and the psychological

mechanism that encourages much of Pip’s development. At heart, Pip is an idealist; whenever he can conceive of something that is better than what he already has, he immediately desires to obtain the improvement. When he sees Satis House, he longs to be a wealthy gentleman; when he thinks of his moral shortcomings, he longs to be good; when he realizes that he cannot read, he longs to learn how. Pip’s desire for self-improvement is the main source of the novel’s title: because he believes in the possibility of advancement in life, he has “great expectations” about his future. Dickens' chief rival for fame during his later lifetime and afterward was Thackeray, who presents a strong contrast with him, both as man and as writer. His first masterpiece, Vanity Fair, 1847-8, appeared in monthly installments. Its setting is England during and after the Napoleonic Wars, but its panoramic view of folly and vanity is universal. Becky Sharp, the unscrupulous governess whose adventures dominate the book, is generally recognized as one of the most vividly drawn characters in the English novel. Hard on the heels of Vanity Fair came the publication in numbers of Pendennis, 1848-50, the history of an amiable and extravagant young man whose early career is a clear parallel to Thackeray's own. Thackeray was always gregarious, and he loved the easy life of the upper classes, with whom he was friendly but who were frequently the butts of his satire.  Jane Eyre , by Charlotte Bronte, is a major nineteenth century novel that has gothic themes. Jane Eyre was, and remains, an extraordinary phenomenon: a totally assured, provocative, and compelling piece of realist fiction. This is very much the story of a quest to be loved. Jane searches, not just for romantic love, but also for a sense of being valued, of belonging. Thus Jane says to Helen Burns: “to gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest” . Yet, over the course of the book, Jane must learn how to gain love without sacrificing and harming herself in the process. Throughout the novel, Jane struggles to find the right balance between moral duty and earthly pleasure, between obligation to her spirit and attention to her body. She encounters three main religious figures: Mr. Brocklehurst, Helen Burns, and St. John Rivers. Each represents a model of religion that Jane ultimately rejects as she forms her own ideas about faith and principle, and their practical consequences.Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, centers around the story of Heathcliff. The first paragraph of the novel provides a vivid physical picture of him, as Lockwood describes how his “black eyes” withdraw suspiciously under his brows at Lockwood’s approach. Nelly’s story begins with his introduction into the Earnshaw family, his vengeful machinations drive the entire plot, and his death ends the book. The desire to understand him and his motivations has kept countless readers engaged in the novel. Catherine and Heathcliff’s passion for one another seems to be the center ofWuthering Heights, given that it is stronger and more lasting than any other emotion displayed in the novel, and that it is the source of most of the major conflicts that structure the novel’s plot. The book is actually structured around two parallel love stories, the first half of the novel centering on the love between Catherine and Heathcliff, while the less dramatic second half features the developing love between young Catherine and Hareton. In contrast to the first, the latter tale ends happily, restoring peace and order to Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. The differences between the two love stories contribute to the reader’s understanding of why each ends the way it does. Thomas Hardy is one of the few writers (Lawrence was another) who made a significant contribution to English literature in the form of the novel, poetry, and the short story. He creates

unforgettable characters and orchestrates stories which pull at your heart strings. It has to be said that he also relies on coincidences and improbabilities of plot which (though common in the nineteenth century) some people see as weaknesses. However, his sense of drama, his powerful language, and his wonderful depiction of the English countryside make him an enduring favourite. The Return of the Native (1878) It's often said that this is one of the most Hardyesque of all the novels. There are some stand-out characters: Eustacia Vye, a heroine who patrols the moors looking out for her man through a telescope; Clym Yeobright, a hero who can't escape his mother's influence; and Diggory Ven, an itinerant trader who wanders in and out of the story covered in red dye. Improbable coincidences and dramatic ironies abound - and over it all presides the brooding presence of Egdon Heath. But underneath the melodrama, there are profound psychological forces at work. Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) is probably the most popular of Hardy's late, great novels. The sub-title is 'A Pure Woman', and it is a story which explores the tragic consequences of a young milkmaid who becomes the victim of the men she encounters - both the spiritual but flawed Angel Clare, and the physical but limited Alec Durberville. This novel has some of the most beautiful and the most harrowing depictions of rural working conditions - and a wonderfully symbolic climax at Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain. There is poetry in almost every page. This is Hardy at his best. Tess is Hardy’s most widely known book, neither it nor Jude is really thoroughly characteristic. JUDE THE OBSCURE was published in 1895, parts of it having already appeared serially under the title Hearts Insurgent. To attempt to appraise it is a difficult task. It has been ridiculed; it has been seriously controverted; it has been indulgently regarded as an unfortunate blunder on the part of a once-great artist; it has been called "one of the most illustrious things in literature." This much may be safely said, that the judgement of posterity upon it will be partly determined in accordance with whether the novelist's function is held to be the impartial and impassive reflection of life or whether he may take as his mission the promulgation of new and important ideas. Structurally Jude belongs mid-way between The Woodlanders and The Return of the Native on the one hand, and The Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess on the other. Like the latter books, it concentrates attention upon one leading figure; yet, as in the former books, there is a complex situation arising out of the love-life of four closely allied people: two men and two women.