Victorian Society

Source:Sparknotes http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/jekyll/themes.html

This society prizes decorum and reputation above all and prefers to repress or even deny the truth if that truth threatens to upset the conventionally ordered worldview. Faced with the irrational, Victorian society and its inhabitants prefer not to acknowledge its presence and not to grant it the legitimacy of a name


Source:BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/prosegreatexpect/0prose_greatexpect_contrev4.shtml

The 19th-century social, historical and cultural setting
The key social and cultural influences of the time were:
1. Ambition
In 1859, Samuel Smiles published his book Self-Help, which told people that if they worked hard they could improve their station in life. The 19th century was the age of the 'self-made man'.
2. Social class
In Victorian times, society was strictly layered - not only into rich and poor, or even upper, middle and lower class, but hundreds of 'grades'. People were expected to 'know their place', and the Church taught them to be content in their 'station'. Dickens did not like the effects of social class.
3. Social problems
At the time, many people were becoming aware of the need to improve the condition in which the poor found themselves. Dickens was a great supporter of social reform - especially in education and prisons.
4. Church and religion
In Victorian times, Britain was overwhelmingly Christian. The Church dominated religion and the morals of the time. Dickens, however, disapproved of the power the Church had over people's lives.
5. Family
Family was at the centre of Victorian society. People had large, extended families - although Dickens was aware that not all families were happy families.


Source:Sparknotes http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/browning/analysis.html

This apparent moral decay of Victorian society, coupled with an ebbing of interest in religion, led to a morally conservative backlash. So-called Victorian prudery arose as an attempt to rein in something that was seen as out- of-control, an attempt to bring things back to the way they once were. Thus everything came under moral scrutiny, even art and literature.


Source:Sparknotes http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/jekyll/canalysis.html

Stevenson depicts Victorian society’s general attempt to maintain the authority of civilization over and against humanity’s darker side. Stevenson suggests that just as Utterson prefers the suppression or avoidance of revelations to the scandal or chaos that the truth might unleash, so too does Victorian society prefer to repress and deny the existence of an uncivilized or savage element of humanity, no matter how intrinsic that element may be.