5
the victorian Age
(1837-1901)
Extra Material
Extra Material
The Victorian Age (1837-1901)
Charles Dickens
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Hard Times (1854)
Written after Oliver Twist this novel is divided into three parts – Sowing, Reaping and
Garnering. These recall quite clearly the words from the Bible: ‘As ye sow, so shall ye
reap’. The ‘sowing’ (which includes the extract we are going to look at) in Hard Times
is represented by family values and the education system of the time; a system which
posed an opposition between fact and fancy. Dickens exaggerates the rigid Victorian
emphasis on facts in education as a criticism to the harsh, yet popular, utilitarian
attitude to life at the time, promoted by the philosopher and economist, John Stuart Mill.
It was an attitude which praised success, the self-made man and hard work and despised
poverty, lack of initiative and anything which was not productive or useful to the
community. These two conflicting poles – facts, production, wealth versus imagination,
feelings and emotions – are represented in various ways throughout the novel.
Coketown and the factories within it create a gloomy, grey and often heartless backdrop
to the developments of the novel and is a constant reminder of how an economic
dependency on industry has now been created and how it can come to govern the lives
of people.
The plot
The events of the novel all take place in a fictitious industrial northern town called
Coketown, coke being a form of coal. The story centres around the lives of some of the
people who live there: school teacher Thomas Gradgrind and his family, Sissy Jupe,
whose father worked in the circus, Josiah Bounderby, a wealthy factory owner, and
Stephen Blackpool, a worker in Bounderby’s factory.
Gradgrind brings his children up just as he teaches his pupils, by suppressing all
imagination and insisting on the importance of facts. Sissy Jupe attends his school
but was brought up in the fanciful world of the circus and cannot fit into his form of
teaching. Gradgrind’s daughter, Louisa, marries Mr Bounderby, thirty years her senior
to please her father but also to help her brother Tom, who is given a job in Bounderby’s
bank. Tom is the only person she cares for. But Tom is not like his sister and steals
from his employer, blaming an honest factory worker, Stephen Blackpool. Gradgrind is
forced to face up to the consequences of his children’s upbringing when Louisa leaves
Bounderby and her unhappy marriage going back to her father for protection and when
Tom is shown to be a thief. Gradgrind is reconciled with his daughter and is one of the
few Dickensian characters to have changed by the end of the novel.
BEFORE READING
❶In pairs make a list of the elements which in your opinion make up the following.
1.
the ideal teaching environment
2.
the necessary teaching qualities to create the ideal atmosphere for learning
❷When you have finished compare your lists to see what you agree about and
discuss where you differ.
❸Now read these lines from the beginning of the novel. The teacher, Thomas
Gradgrind, is speaking.
‘Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts
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alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out2 everything else. You
can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will
ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own
5children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to
Facts, sir!’
1.nothing but:
nient’altro che.
2.root out: sradicare.
What are his principles of good teaching and how are they similar to his ideas of
parenting? Would you like him to be your teacher?
Hard Times
Text 1 Mr Gradgrind questions his class.
‘Girl number twenty,’ said Mr Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his forefinger, ‘I
don’t know that girl. Who is that girl?’
‘Sissy Jupe, sir,’ explained number twenty, blushing1, standing up, and
curtseying2.
5‘Sissy is not a name,’ said Mr Gradgrind. ‘Don’t call yourself Sissy. Call yourself
Cecilia.’
‘It’s father as calls me Sissy, sir,’ returned the young girl in a trembling3 voice,
and with another curtsey.
‘Then he has no business to do it,’ said Mr Gradgrind. ‘Tell him he mustn’t.
10 Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?’
‘He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir.’
Mr Gradgrind frowned4, and waved off the objectionable calling5 with his hand.
‘We don’t want to know anything about that, here. You mustn’t tell us about that,
here. Your father breaks horses, don’t he?’
15‘If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break horses in the
ring6, sir.’
‘You mustn’t tell us about the ring, here. Very well, then. Describe your father as a
horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?’
1.blushing:
arrossendo.
2.curtseying: facendo
un inchino.
3.trembling:
tremante.
4.frowned: aggrottò
le ciglia.
5.calling: lavoro.
6.ring: del circo.
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7.farrier: maniscalco.
8.behoof: vantaggio.
9.pitchers: anfore,
qui si riferisce agli
scolari.
10.grinders: molari.
11.sheds: perde.
12.coat: pelo.
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‘Oh yes, sir.’
20‘Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier7 and horsebreaker. Give me
your definition of a horse.’
(Sissy Jupe was thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.)
‘Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!’ said Mr Gradgrind, for the general
behoof8 of all the little pitchers9. ‘Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, in
25reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some boy’s definition of a horse.
Bitzer, yours.’
The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on Bitzer, [...].
‘Bitzer,’ said Thomas Gradgrind. ‘Your definition of a horse.’
‘Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders10, four eye 30teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds11 coat12 in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds
hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in
mouth.’
Thus (and much more) Bitzer.
‘Now girl number twenty,’ said Gradgrind. ‘You know what a horse is.’
35She curtseyed again, and would have blushed deeper, if she could have blushed
deeper than she had blushed all this time.
Over to you
❶ Complete the summary below by choosing from the following words.
h orses • detailed • Sissy • Jupe • classroom • ring • definition • number • difficult• does
answers
The scene takes place in a ............................................ (1). Mr Gradgrind asks who .......................................... (2)
is. He does not call her by name but by ..................................................... (3). He asks her what her
father ..................................................... (4). She answers that he works with ......................................................... (5) in
the ................................................... (6). Gradgrind asks her to give a ................................................ (7) of the animal.
She finds this ............................................. (8) so Gradgrind asks another boy who ............................................. (9)
by giving a very ............................................. (10) description.
❷ What is Sissy’s real name?
❸ Why do you think Gradgrind does not like the nickname Sissy?
❹ What does Gradgrind think of Sissy’s father’s job?
❺ Gradgrind is very satisfied with Bitzer’s definition of a horse, why?
❻Look at the first sentence of the extract. The word ‘square’ is used to describe
Gradgrind’s movement and finger. Why is this word appropriate for him?
❼Look at Gradgrind’s speech. What linguistic device does Dickens use to give the
idea of authority? (Choose.)
the imperative
the conditional
the interrogative
❽The reader understands that Sissy Jupe is a very shy, polite girl. What words
does Dickens use to tell us this? Complete the following.
1.
We know she is polite because of the use of the words ................................................................................ .
2.
We know she is shy because of the use of the words ................................................................................ .
➒How does the reader know that Gradgrind is not impressed by Sissy’s father’s
job? What gesture does he use?
��Why do you think Gradgrind does not want to hear anything about the circus
��The pupils are described as ‘little pitchers’. How does this fit into Gradgrind’s
view of the role of a teacher?
��After Bitzer’s definition of a horse Gradgrind says, ‘Now girl number twenty...
You know what a horse is’. Bearing in mind Sissy’s upbringing why is this ironic?
��Although Dickens is considered a ‘man of his times’, from the two extracts we
have seen in Oliver Twist and Hard Times we can see that he had a lot to say
about the Victorian period. In pairs summarise the criticisms/observations you
have seen in the two extracts you have read.
��Again, in choosing the name Gradgrind Dickens was giving the reader a clear idea
of how this person is. The name is made up of two words, ‘grind’ means ‘trittare’
and also something hard or boring while ‘grad’ could be the first half of the
words ‘gradient’ or ‘gradually’. Discuss in class and explain why you think this is
a suitable name for this character.
��What type of student do you think Bitzer is? Would you like to have him in your
class? Discuss in class.
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ring in the classroom?
Charles Dickens
Hard Times (1854)
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Hard Times
Text 2 1.got uncoiled: si
srotolavano.
2.dye: tintura.
3.persuasion: credo.
4.warehouse:
magazzino.
5.jail: carcere.
6.infirmary:
infermeria.
You are going to read the description of Coketown, the fictional name where the novel is set.
Let us strike the key-note, Coketown, before pursuing our tune. It was a town
of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had
allowed it; but, as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the
painted face of a savage.
5It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable
serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled1.
It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye2, and
vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling
all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously
10up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It
contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets
still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who
all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same
pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as
15 yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.
These attributes of Coketown were in the main inseparable from the work by
which it was sustained; against them were to be set off, comforts of life which
found their way all over the world, and elegancies of life which made, we will not
ask how much of the fine lady, who could scarcely bear to hear the place
20 mentioned.
The rest of its features were voluntary, and they were these. You saw nothing
in Coketown but what was severely workful. If the members of a religious
persuasion3 built a chapel there as the members of eighteen religious
persuasions had done they made it a pious warehouse4 of red brick; with
25sometimes (but this only in highly ornamented examples) a bell in a bird-cage
on the top of it. The solitary exception was the New Church; a stuccoed edifice
with a square steeple over the door, terminating in four short pinnacles like
florid wooden legs. All the public inscriptions in the town were painted alike, in
severe characters of black and white. The jail5 might have been theinfirmary6,
30the infirmary might have been the jail, the town-hall might have been either, or
both, or anything else, for anything that appeared to the contrary in the graces of
their construction.
Over to you
❶List the main features of the town pointing out the dominant colour/s, sound/s
and smell.
Sound/s
Smell
................................................................................
................................................................................
................................................................................
................................................................................
................................................................................
................................................................................
................................................................................
................................................................................
................................................................................
❷Now list the main buildings and any difference between them.
❸What kind of life do the inhabitants lead?
❹‘Let us strike’ (line 1): who is speaking?
❺Mark similes and metaphors in the text. Which of them become symbols of
industrialised life? What effect do they produce?
❻What peculiar aspects of Dickens’s realism emerge in these pages?
❼The name ‘Coketown’ is made up of ‘coke’. which is a type of coal, and ‘town’. Do
you think this name is appropriate to the place? Discuss in class. Give reasons for
your answer.
❽Consider the general impression the reader gets of Coketown. Do you think the
description conveys approval or criticism on the process of industrialisation?
Discuss in class.
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5 The Victorian Age / Extra Material
Colour/s
Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre (1847)
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Jane Eyre
Text 2 Jane and Mr Rochester are about to get married when Jane discovers he already has a wife.
Mr Rochester suggests they live together regardless of this fact. But Jane’s reaction is not
what he expected.
1.ordeal: dura prova.
2.fiery iron grasped
my vitals: sentii
come un ferro
infuocato che mi
afferrava gli organi
vitali.
3.thus: così.
4.worshipped:
adorava.
5.drear: terribile.
6.duty: dovere.
7.broke me down: mi
abbatté.
8.grief: dolore.
9.turned me stonecold: mi gelò.
10.ominous: sinistro.
11.pant: ansimare.
12.rising: che si alza.
13.bending towards:
volgendosi verso.
14.forehead: fronte.
15.extricating myself
from restraint:
liberandomi.
16.wicked: crudele.
17.raised his brows
– crossed his
features: aggrottò
le sopracciglia,
attraversò il suo viso
(i tratti del suo viso).
18. he forebore yet: si
trattenne tuttavia.
19. give one glance: dà
un’occhiata.
20. will be torn away
with you: sarà
portata (strappata)
via.
21. in yonder
churchyard: in quel
cimitero.
22. yield: cedere.
23. wretched:
disgraziato.
24. accursed:
maledetto.
25.to strive and
endure: combattere
e sopportare.
‘Why are you silent, Jane?’
I was experiencing an ordeal1: a hand of fiery iron grasped my vitals2. Terrible
moment: full of struggle, blackness, burning! Not a human being that ever lived
could wish to be loved better than I was loved; and him who thus3 loved me I
5absolutely worshipped4: and I must renounce love and idol. One drear5 word
comprised my intolerable duty6 – ‘Depart!’
‘Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise – “I will be yours, Mr
Rochester.’’ ’
‘Mr Rochester, I will not be yours.’
10Another long silence.
‘Jane!’ recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down7 with grief8, and
turned me stone-cold9 with ominous10 terror – for this still voice was the pant11
of a lion rising12 – ‘Jane, do you mean to go one way in the world, and to let me go
another?’
15‘I do.’
‘Jane’ (bending towards13 and embracing me), ‘do you mean it now?’
‘I do.’
‘And now?’ softly kissing my forehead14 and cheek.
‘I do,’ extricating myself from restraint15 rapidly and completely.
20‘Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This – this is wicked16. It would not be wicked to love me.’
‘It would to obey you.’
A wild look raised his brows – crossed his features17: he rose; but he forebore
yet18. I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support: I shook, I feared – but I
resolved.
25‘One instant, Jane. Give one glance19 to my horrible life when you are gone. All
happiness will be torn away with you20. What then is left? For a wife I have
but the maniac upstairs: as well might you refer me to some corpse in yonder
churchyard21. What shall I do, Jane? Where turn for a companion, and for some
hope?’
30‘Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope to meet again
there.’
‘Then you will not yield22?’
‘No.’
‘Then you condemn me to live wretched23 and to die accursed24?’ His voice rose. […]
35‘Mr Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for myself. We
were born to strive and endure25 – you as well as I: do so. You will forget me before
I forget you.’
OVER TO YOU
❶ Choose the correct alternative.
❷Mr Rochester says: ‘This -- this is wicked. It would not be wicked to love me’.
Jane’s answer is: ‘It would to obey you.’ Complete the following sentences.
1.
Mr Rochester’s idea of wicked is .................................................................................................................. .
2.
Jane, however, .................................................................................................................. .
❸In the sentence that closes the passage Jane speaks about destiny. Can you
explain the concept she expresses in your own words?
❹What aspects of Mr Rochester’s character are revealed here? Choose from the
following.
weakness
strength
intensity of feelings
stubbornness
pride
intelligence
➎ Which of the two characters seems stronger? Why?
➏ Which of these statements is true about the language used by the writer?
1.
It is realistic and convincing. 2.
It is artificial and refined. 3.
It is fluid and colloquial. 4.
It is very rich in imagery. 5.
It has no rhetorical expressions. 6.
It has some metaphors and similes.
T
F
T
F
T
F
T
F
T
F
T
F
❼Do you find Jane Eyre’s reaction coherent with Victorian morality or do you think
it is unconventional? Explain you answer.
➑Mr Rochester combines masculine tenderness with a certain roughness. Do you
think this could be the image of an ideal man today?
➒Do you think that if Jane really loved Mr Rochester she should have stayed with
him, married or not?
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5 The Victorian Age / Extra Material
1.
What is Jane’s state of mind?
She is sorry and confused.
She is self confident and aggressive.
She is angry and offended.
2.
What are her feelings for Mr Rochester?
She is very afraid of him.
She is quite fond of him.
She loves him very much.
Thomas Hardy
Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891)
10
5 The Victorian Age / Extra Material
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Text 2 The extract you are going to read is astride the fourth and the fifth phase. After the
wedding, in the evening the couple talks about their lives.
1.Last Day luridness:
un riflesso
rosseggiante da fine
del mondo.
2.diamond: Angel
aveva regalato a
Tess una collana di
diamanti.
He then told her of that time of his life to which allusion has been made when,
tossed about by doubts and difficulties in London, like a cork on the waves, he
plunged into eight-and-forty hours’ dissipation with a stranger.
‘Happily I awoke almost immediately to a sense of my folly,’ he continued. ‘I
5would have no more to say to her, and I came home. I have never repeated the
offence. But I felt I should like to treat you with perfect frankness and honour,
and I could not do so without telling this. Do you forgive me?’
She pressed his hand tightly for an answer.
‘Then we will dismiss it at once and for ever! - too painful as it is for the occasion
10-and talk of something lighter.’
‘O, Angel I am almost glad because now you can forgive me! I have not made my
confession. I have a confession, too remember, I said so.’
‘Ah, to be sure! Now then for it, wicked little one.’
‘Perhaps, although you smile, it is as serious as yours, or more so.’
15‘It can hardly be more serious, dearest.’
‘It cannot O no, it cannot!’ She jumped up joyfully at the hope. ‘No, it cannot be
more serious, certainly,’ she cried, ‘because ’tis just the same! I will tell you now.’
She sat down again.
Their hands were still joined. The ashes under the grate were lit by the fire
20vertically, like a torrid waste. Imagination might have beheld a Last Day
luridness1 in this red-coaled glow, which fell on his face and hand, and on
hers, peering into the loose hair about her brow, and firing the delicate skin
underneath. A large shadow of her shape rose upon the wall and ceiling. She bent
forward, at which each diamond2 on her neck gave a sinister wink like a
25toad’s; and pressing her forehead against his temple she entered on her story of
her acquaintance with Alec d’Urberville and its results, murmuring the words
without flinching, and with her eyelids drooping down.
END OF PHASE THE FOURTH
PHASE THE FIFTH
The Woman Pays
[...] His face had withered. In the strenuousness of his concentration he treadled3
fitfully on the floor. He could not, by any contrivance, think closely enough; that
was the meaning of his vague movement. When he spoke it was in the most
inadequate, commonplace voice of the many varied tones she had heard from him.
5‘Tess!’
‘Yes, dearest.’
‘Am I to believe this? From your manner I am to take it as true. O you cannot be
out of your mind! You ought to be! Yet you are not... My wife, my Tess nothing in
you warrants4 such a supposition as that?’
10 ‘I am not out of my mind,’ she said.
‘And yet –‘ He looked vacantly at her, to resume with dazed senses: ‘Why didn’t
you tell me before? Ah, yes, you would have told me, in a way but I hindered5 you,
I remember!’
These and other of his words were nothing but the perfunctory babble6 of the
15surface while the depths remained paralyzed. He turned away, and bent over a
chair. Tess followed him to the middle of the room where he was, and stood there
staring at him with eyes that did not weep. Presently she slid down upon her
knees beside his foot, and from this position she crouched in a heap.
‘In the name of our love, forgive me!’ she whispered with a dry mouth.
20 ‘I have forgiven you for the same!’
And, as he did not answer, she said again
‘Forgive me as you are forgiven! I forgive you, Angel.’
‘You - yes, you do.’
‘But you do not forgive me?’
25‘O Tess, forgiveness does not apply to the case! You were one person; now you are
another. [...]’
Over to you
❶What does Angel reveal to Tess? What is her reaction?
❷What does Tess reveal to Angel? What is his reaction?
❸What light does this episode throw on the personalities of Angel and Tess and
on the quality of their love for each other?
❹Look at the summary of the story so far. Which episode/s seem/s to be caused by
a malignant fate?
❺What conclusions can you draw about the pressure of social values and
conventions on these two characters? Discuss in class.
3.treadled: agitava un
piede.
4.warrants:
giustifica.
5.hindered: l’ho
impedito.
6.perfunctory
babble: balbettio
frettoloso.
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Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
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The Picture of Dorian Gray
Text 2 The passage you are going to read is from the first part of the novel. Lord Henry Walton has
come to visit Hallward while Dorian is sitting for the finishing touches to his portrait. This
is their first meeting and Lord Henry explains to the young man his doctrine of life.
1.sallow: di colorito
giallastro.
2.Hedonism:
Edonismo.
To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not
judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the
invisible... Yes, Mr Gray, the gods have been good to you. But what the gods give
they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which to live really,
5perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then
you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or have to
content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will
make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes brings you nearer to
something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your
10roses. You will become sallow1, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed. You will suffer
horribly... Ah! realize your youth while you have it. Don’t squander the gold of
your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or
giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. These are the
sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age. Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you!
15Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid
of nothing... A new Hedonism2 - that is what our century wants. You might be its
visible symbol.
Over to you
❶ Answer the following questions.
1.
What does Lord Henry value most of all?
2.
What does he exhort Dorian to do?
❷ What do ‘lilies and roses’ stand for?
❸ What do you think may be the ‘false ideals of our age’?
❹Do you agree (also in part) or totally disagree with Henry’s philosophy of life?
Discuss in class.
Oscar Wilde
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
13
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The Importance of Being Earnest
Text 2 In the scene you are going to read Jack is at Algernon’s flat. Gwendolen and her mother,
Lady Bracknell, have just called.
ACT 1 (...)
JACK. Charming day it has been, Miss Fairfax.
GWENDOLEN. Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr Worthing. Whenever
people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean
5something else. And that makes me so nervous.
JACK. I do mean something else.
GWENDOLEN. I thought so. In fact, I am never wrong.
JACK. And I would like to be allowed to take advantage of1 Lady Bracknell’s
temporary absence...
10
GWENDOLEN. I would certainly advise you to do so. Mamma has a way of
coming back suddenly into a room that I have often had to speak to her about.
JACK. (nervously) Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more
than any girl... I have ever met since... I met you.
GWENDOLEN. Yes, I am quite well aware of the fact. And I often wish that in
15public, at any rate, you had been more demonstrative. For me you have always
had an irresistible fascination. Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to
you (JACK looks at her in amazement.) We live, as I hope you know, Mr Worthing, in
an age of ideals. The fact is constantly mentioned in the more expensive monthly
magazines, and has now reached the provincial pulpits2, I am told; and my ideal
20has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest. There is something in that
name that inspires absolute confidence. The moment Algernon first mentioned to
me that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love you.
JACK. You really love me, Gwendolen?
GWENDOLEN. Passionately!
25
JACK. Darling! You don’t know how happy you’ve made me.
GWENDOLEN. My own Ernest!
JACK. But you don’t really mean to say that you couldn’t love me if my name
wasn’t Ernest?
GWENDOLEN. But your name is Ernest.
30JACK. Yes, I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you mean to say
you couldn’t love me then?
GWENDOLEN.(glibly3) Ab! that is clearly a metaphysical speculation, and like
most metaphysical speculations has very little reference at all to actual facts of
real life, as we know them.
35JACK. Personally, darling, to speak quite candidly, I don’t much care about the
name of Ernest... I don’t think the name suits me at all.
GWENDOLEN. It suits you perfectly. It is a divine name. It has a music of its own.
1.take advantage of:
approfittare di.
2.pulpits: pulpiti.
3.glibly: con
scioltezza.
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14
4.domesticity:
diminutivo.
5.entrancing:
incantevole.
6.get christened:
farmi battezzare.
7.proposed: chiesto di
sposarti.
It produces vibrations.
JACK. Well, really, Gwendolen, I must say that there are lots of other much nicer
40 names. I think Jack, for instance, a charming name.
Gwendolen Jack? ... No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all,
indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations... I have known
several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain.
Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity4 for John! And I pity any woman who is
45married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the
entrancing5 pleasure of a single moment’s solitude.The only really safe name is Ernest.
JACK. Gwendolen, I must get christened 6at once - I mean we must get married
at once. There is no time to be lost.
GWENDOLEN. Married, Mr Worthing?
50
JACK. (astounded) Well... surely. You know that I love you, and you led me to
believe, Miss Fairfax, that you were not absolutely indifferent to me.
GWENDOLEN. I adore you. But you haven’t proposed7 to me yet. Nothing has
been said at all about marriage. The subject has not even been touched on.
JACK. Well... may I propose to you now?
55
GWENDOLEN. I think it would be an admirable opportunity. And to spare you
any possible disappointment, Mr Worthing, I think it only fair to tell you quite
frankly beforehand that I am fully determined to accept you.
JACK. Gwendolen!
GWENDOLEN. Yes, Mr Worthing, what have you got to say to me?
60
JACK. You know what I have got to say to you.
GWENDOLEN. Yes, but you don’t say it.
JACK. Gwendolen, will you marry me? (Goes on his knees).
GWENDOLEN. Of course I will, darling. How long you have been about it! I am
afraid you have had very little experience in how to propose.
65
JACK. My own one, I have never loved anyone in the world but you.
GWENDOLEN. Yes, but men often propose for practice. I know my brother Gerald
does. All my girl-friends tell me so.
Over to you
❶ What does Jack want to say to Gwendolen?
❷ How does Gwendolen react?
❸ What does Gwendolen think Jack’s name is? Why does she like that name?
❹ What does she think of the name Jack?
❺ What does the audience know about Jack that Gwendolen does not know?
❻ Why does Gwendloen address Jack formally in this part of the dialogue (line 49-59)?
❼ Which of the two characters Jack and Gwendolen seems to be more decisive?
❽ How would you describe their language?
emotional
formal
inappropriate
unemotional
overformal
incongruous
➒Do any of Gwendolen’s statements strike you as absurd, incongruous or
unexpected? Why? Discuss in class.
George Bernard Shaw
Mrs Warren’s Profession (1894)
This play was written in 1894 but was refused a licence for public performance by the
official Censor. It was eventually produced in 1902 in a private theatre, which did not
require the Censor’s authorisation.
15
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A ‘problem play’ for Victorian society
Mrs Warren was a prostitute; although she never says that in so many words, her
profession can be easily inferred from the story of her life. But she did that job, because
it brought her good money, she did not do it for pleasure. Her speech is carefully
constructed to make her final point that prostitution is a crime created and exploited
by hypocritical society. She never fumbles for words nor does she have hesitations. The
presence of her daughter Vivie is only important in the role of making such objections
and remarks as are necessary for the speaker to make her point absolutely clear. The
passage exemplifies a typical characteristic in many plays by Shaw: the use of dialogue
to develop a thesis in a ‘problem play’, that is a play dealing with a topical issue. In this
case the issue is prostitution. Mrs Warren’s profession is ‘a problem play’ because it is
concerned with an argument which was taboo in Victorian society topical genre, the
sexual morality of women.
The plot
Mrs Warren speaks to her daughter Vivie, a well-educated young woman who has just
graduated in mathematics at Cambridge and seems to have a talent for business. Their
relationship is a strained one. She tells her daughter about her past (the passage you
are going to read) and she forgives her on the grounds of poverty and social injustice.
But when she finds out that Mrs Warren, although no longer in financial need, is still
the manageress of several brothels in various European cities and shares profits with a
wealthy English aristocrat of high social standing, she parts with her forever.
Mrs Warren’s Profession
The following passage is from the second of the four acts in the play.
MRS WARREN. (...) D’you know what your gran’ mother was?
VIVIE. No.
MRS WARREN. No, you dont. I do. She called herself a widow and had a fried-fish
shop down bythe Mint1, and kept herself and four daughters out of it. Two
5of us were sisters: that was me and Liz; and we were both good-looking and
well made. I suppose our father was a well-fed man: mother pretended he was a
gentleman; but I dont know. The other two were only half sisters2 undersized3, ugly,
starved looking4, hard working, honest poor creatures: Liz and I would have halfmurdered them if mother hadnt half-murdered us to keep our hands off them.
10They were the respectable ones. Well, what did they get by their respectability?
1.the Mint: la Zecca.
2.half sisters:
sorellastre.
3.undersized:
mingherline.
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16
4.starved looking:
dall’espressione
affamata.
5.whitelead: bianco
di piombo.
6.held up: proposta.
7.victualling yard:
magazzino viveri.
8.Waterloo Bridge:
uno dei ponti sul
Tamigi, a Londra.
9.situation: lavoro.
10.scullery maid:
sguattera.
11.temperance
restaurant:
ristorante dove era
vietata la vendita di
bevande alcooliche.
12.sent out for
anything:
mandavano a
prendere altrove
qualunque bevanda.
13.Waterloo station:
stazione ferroviaria
vicina a Waterloo
Bridge.
14.wretched: orrenda.
15.Scotch: whisky.
16.Winchester:
cittadina
dell’Inghilterra
meridionale, famosa
per la sua cattedrale.
17.wearing out: stai
consumando.
18.gave me a start:
mi avviò alla
professione.
19.drudge: sgobbona.
20.have a turn for: hai
talento per.
21.trade in:
guadagnare.
22.starvation wages:
una paga da fame.
23.fancy: la fantasia.
I’ll tell you. One of them worked in a whitelead5 factory twelve hours a day for
nine shillings a week until she died of lead poisoning. She only expected to get
her hands a little paralyzed; but she died. The other was always held up6to us as a
model because she married a Government laborer in the Deptford victualling
15yard7, and kept his room and the three children neat and tidy on eighteen
shillings a week until he took to drink. That was worth being respectable for,
wasnt it?
VIVIE. (now thoughtfully attentive) Did you and your sister think so?
MRS WARREN. Liz didnt, I can tell you: she had more spirit. We both went to a
20church school that was part of the ladylike airs we gave ourselves to be superior
to the children that knew nothing and went nowhere and we stayed there until
Liz went out one night and never came back. I know the schoolmistress thought
I’d soon follow her example; for the clergyman was always warning me that
Lizzie’d end by jumping off Waterloo Bridge8. Poor fool: that was all he knew
25about it! But I was more afraid of the whitelead factory than I was of the river;
and so would you have been in my place. That clergyman got me a situation9 as
scullery maid10 in a temperance restaurant11 where they sent out for anything12
you liked. Then I was waitress; and then I went to the bar at Waterloo station13
fourteen hours a day serving drinks and washing glasses for four shillings a
30week and my board. That was considered a great promotion for me. Well, one
cold, wretched14 night, when I was so tired I could hardly keep myself awake, who
should come up for a half of Scotch15 but Lizzie, in a long fur cloak, elegant and
comfortable, with a lot of sovereigns in her purse.
VIVIE. (grimly) My aunt Lizzie!
35
MRS WARREN. Yes; and a very good aunt to have, too. She’s living down at
Winchester16 now, close to the cathedral, one of the most respectable ladies there.
Chaperones girls at the county ball; if you please. No river for Liz, thank you! You
remind me of Liz a little: she was a first-rate business woman saved money from
the beginning never let herself look too like what she was never lost her head
40or threw away a chance. When she saw I’d grown up good-looking she said to me
across the bar ‘What are you doing there, you little fool? wearing out17 your health
and your appearance for other people’s profit!’ Liz was saving money then to take
a house for herself in Brussels; and she thought we two could save faster than
one. So she lent me some money and gave me a start18; and I saved steadily
45and first paid her back, and then went into business with her as her partner. Why
shouldnt I have done it? The house in Brussels was real high class; a much better
place for a woman to be in than the factory where Anne Jane got poisoned. None
of our girls were ever treated as I was treated in the scullery of that temperance
place, or at the Waterloo bar, or at home. Would you have had me stay in them and
50become a worn out old drudge19 before I was forty?
VIVIE. (intensely interested by this time) No; but why did you choose that business?
Saving money and good management will succeed in any business.
MRS WARREN. Yes, saving money. But where can a woman get the money to save
in any other business? Could you save out of four shillings a week and keep
55yourself dressed as well? Not you. Of course, if youre a plain woman and cant
earn anything more; or if you have a turn for 20music, or the stage, or newspaperwriting: thats different. But neither Liz nor I had any turn for such things: all
we had was our appearance and our turn for pleasing men. Do you think we were
such fools as to let other people trade in21 our good looks by employing us as
60shopgirls, or barmaids, or waitresses, when we could trade in them ourselves and
get all the profits instead of starvation wages22? Not likely.
VIVIE. You were certainly quite justified from the business point of view.
MRS WARREN. Yes; or any other point of view. What is any respectable girl
brought up to do but to catch some rich man’s fancy23 and get the benefit of his
65money by marrying him? as if a marriage ceremony could make any difference
in the right or wrong of the thing! Oh, the hypocrisy of the world makes me sick!
❶
What does Mrs Warren reveal to her daughter? Is the name of her profession
mentioned?
❷ How did she start her profession?
❸ What reason does she give for choosing it instead of another job?
❹ How does it compare to marriage in Mrs Warren’s opinion?
❺Focus on the characters. Which of the following statements do you think apply
to the passage? (Choose.)
The characters have the complexity of real people.
The characters are mainly mouthpieces for the author’s ideas on a topical problem.
The dialogue sounds like a carefully constructed discussion aimed at
demonstrating the truth of a thesis.
The dialogue sounds like a spontaneous exchange of opinion.
The language has the fluency and eloquence of a well-prepared public speech.
The language is naturalistic in that it reproduces the contradictions, hesitations
and false starts of a real speech.
The overall tone is grave in accordance with the seriousness of the subject matter.
The overall tone is light in spite of the seriousness of the subject matter, and
occasionally provocative.
❻Do you think the author condemns Mrs Warren for choosing her profession or
not? Context
❼Shaw describes the critics’ reaction to the first performance to the play as
‘an hysterical tumult of protest’. Why do you think the play had a scandalous
reputation in its days? Identify what statements in the dialogue were most
likely to shock the audience at the turn of the 20th century.
❽What aim do you think the author had in mind in dealing with this theme?
17
5 The Victorian Age / Extra Material
Over to you
Emily Dickinson
‘I’m Nobody’ (C.1892)
Before reading
❶Read the following short poem, written around 1862. In pairs discuss what
18
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aspects of Emily Dickinson’s life the poem reflects.
❷What do you find unusual about this poem; consider the tone – is it depressing
or humorous? Is there a contrast between theme and tone?
‘I’m Nobody’
– I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us?
Don’t tell! They’d advertise – you know!
1.dreary: monotono.
2.livelong June: tutto
il giugno.
3.Bog: pantano.
5
How dreary1 – to be – somebody!
How public – like Frog –
To tell your name – the livelong June2
To an admiring Bog3!
George Eliot
Middlemarch (1871-72)
Text 2 Dorothea is on her honeymoon with Causabon in Rome. But she feels sad and disappointed.
Two hours later, Dorothea was seated in an inner room or boudoir of a handsome
apartment in the Via Sistina.
I am sorry to add that she was sobbing1 bitterly, with such abandonment to this
relief of an oppressed heart as a woman habitually controlled by pride on her
5own account and thoughtfulness for others will sometimes allow herself when
she feels securely alone. And Mr Casaubon was certain to remain away for some
time at the Vatican.
Yet Dorothea had no distinctly shapen grievance2 that she could state even to
herself; and in the midst of3 her confused thought and passion, the mental act
10that was struggling forth into clearness4was a self-accusing cry that her feeling
of desolation was the fault of her own spiritual poverty. She had married the man
of her choice, and with the advantage over most girls that she had contemplated
her marriage chiefly as the beginning of new duties: from the very first she had
thought of Mr Casaubon as having a mind so much above her own, that he must
15often be claimed by studies which she could not entirely share; moreover, after
the brief narrow experience of her girlhood she was beholding5 Rome, the city of
visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral
procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar. […]
In their conversation before marriage, Mr Casaubon had often dwelt6 on some
20explanation or questionable detail of which Dorothea did not see the bearing7;
but such imperfect coherence seemed due to the brokenness of their intercourse,
and, supported by her faith in their future, she had listened with fervid patience
to a recitation of possible arguments to be brought against Mr Casaubon’s
entirely new view of the Philistine god Dagon and other fish-deities8, thinking
25that hereafter she should see this subject which touched him so nearly from the
same high ground whence doubtless it had become so important to him. Again,
the matter-of-course statement and tone of dismissal with which he treated
what to her were the most stirring9 thoughts, was accounted for10 as belonging to
the sense of haste and preoccupation in which she herself shared
30during their engagement. But now, since they had been in Rome, with all the
depths of her emotion roused to tumultuous activity, and with life made a new
problem by new elements, she had been becoming more and more aware, with
a certain terror, that her mind was continually sliding into inward fits of anger11
and repulsion, or else into forlorn weariness12. How far the judicious Hooker13or
35any other hero of erudition would have been the same at Mr Casaubon’s time of
life, she had no means of knowing, so that he could not have the advantage of
1.sobbing:
singhiozzando.
2.no distincly shapen
grievance: dolore
non proprio chiaro.
3.in the midst of: nel
mezzo di.
4.was struggling
forth into
clearness: stava
lottando per
ottenere chiarezza.
5.was beholding:
stava vedendo.
6.had often dwelt:
si era spesso
soffermato.
7.the bearing: il
senso.
8.fish-deities: gli dei.
9.stirring: che la
inquietavano.
10.was accounted for:
era giustificato.
11.was continually
sliding…fits of
anger: scivolava
interiormente verso
scoppi d’ira.
12.forlorn weariness:
stanchezza.
13.Hooker: importante
teologo che pose le
basi della teologia
anglicana (15541600).
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19
Middlemarch
14.shiver: brivido.
15.acquitting himself
worthily: assolvere
degnamente il suo
compito.
16.had long shrunk: si
era ristretta a.
17.embalmment:
imbalsamamento.
comparison; but her husband’s way of commenting on the strangely impressive
objects around them had begun to affect her with a sort of mental shiver14: he
had perhaps the best intention of acquitting himself worthily15, but only of
40acquitting himself. What was fresh to her mind was worn out to his; and such
capacity of thought and feeling as had ever been stimulated in him by the
general life of mankind had long shrunk16 to a sort of dried preparation, a lifeless
embalmment17 of knowledge.
5 The Victorian Age / Extra Material
20
Over to you
❶Complete the following passage.
Dorothea is in a handsome ……………….............................…… (1) in Rome. She is ……………….............................…… (2)
while her husband Casaubon is still in ……………….............................…… (3). Her cry is self-accusing
because she thinks that her feeling of desolation is the result of her ………………......................…… (4).
❷Why does Dorothea think that she has an advantage over most girls?
❸How had she judged Mr Casaubon?
❹Now how does she judge him? (See the last part of the passage.)
❺What feelings does Dorothea express here? (Choose.)
love and hatred
disappointment and sadness
disgust and hatred
❻What kind of person does Mr Casaubon seem to be?
❼Is the narrator neutral or does he intrude in the narrative?
❽Dorothea is bitterly disappointed by Casaubon but only begins to understand
him during the honeymoon. Do you think this can happen to many couples
today? Why? Why not? Discuss in class.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
Main works
• Twice-Told Tales (1837)
• The Scarlet Letter (1850)
• The House of the Seven Gables (1851)
• The Blithedale romance (1852)
• The Marble Faun (1860)
Hawthorne was one of the authors who detached themselves from the European
cultural tradition to express typical American themes in original forms. His novels are
explorations of the human conscience. Their plots usually develop around a haunted
mind, sin and revenge are recurrent themes.
Hawthorne and Puritanism
Hawthorne has often been described as ‘the artist of Puritanism’ especially for his
masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter. As most of his tales, it originates from a real situation
that he develops into an imagined experience not aimed at a realistic portrait but
at the recreation of an emotional atmosphere. The Scarlet Letter is prefaced by a long
essay (entitled ‘The Custom House’) in which Hawthorne tells about the discovery
of a foolscap and a letter ‘A’ which inspired him to study the Puritan period. Through
Hester’s story, Hawthorne evokes the positive aspects of a Puritan community such
as the capacity of endurance which allowed its members to survive the hardships of
the beginning of a new life in an unknown continent and their religious spirit. He
also brings to our notice the limits of their creed such as their intransigence and their
dualistic vision of life dominated by a clear-cut division between good and evil and an
obsession with sin.
21
5 The Victorian Age / Extra Material
Descendant of one of the Puritan settlers of
Massachusetts Bay Colony, Hawthorne was
born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804. After
graduating he lived in isolation for twelve
years in his mother’s house in Salem, reading
and writing. He first became known with the
publication of Twice-Told Tales in 1837. To earn
his living he took a job as a measurer of salt and
coal in Boston, where he drew material for The
Scarlet Letter (1850). In 1842 he got married and
started a very happy and productive period. He
moved to Lennox where he became a friend of
Melville’s and where he continued writing. He
travelled to Italy where he started writing The
Marble Faun (1860). In 1860 he moved back to
the US where his health declined rapidly till his
death in 1864.
Symbolism
All of Hawthorne’s fiction is built around a network of symbols that often vary in the
course of narration. In The Scarlet Letterthe most powerful symbol is the letter A which
stands for ‘adulteress’. It is a mark of humiliation for the Puritan community, while for
Hester it is a symbol of unjust humiliation and pride in herself and her individuality;
it is also a reminder of sin for Dimmesdale. The scaffold and the cottage also become
powerful symbols of shame and emargination.
5 The Victorian Age / Extra Material
22
Romance
In the preface to his later novel The House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne describes
his narratives as ‘romances’ which broke away from fidelity to everyday life and
commonplace to take up a wider, more imaginative perspective. Through his fiction
Hawthorne aimed to take the reader away from the actual world into universal aspects
of psychology. Each of his major romances has a preface in which he explains the
setting: this is usually ‘a time out of time’, ‘an intermediate space where the business of
life doesn’t intrude’, in Hawthorne’s words.
The Scarlet Letter
Nathaliel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter, by many considered his masterpiece,
in 1850. It was the first novel published in the United States to make wide use of
symbolism. Set in Boston in 1642, when the town was the seat of government for the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, the story evokes and brings to life a very significant and
political period in the shaping of the US.
The plot
Hester Prynne, a beautiful young English woman, is the wife of a much older man,
Chillingworth, who decides to emigrate to the American colonies. He sends her ahead
because he has to settle some business. As he fails to join her, he is thought to be dead.
Hester becomes pregnant, but refuses to name her lover and is tried in front of the
Puritan community for adultery. She is sentenced to prison and to wear a scarlet letter
A, which stands for Adulteress, on the bodice of her dress and to stand publicly on the
scaffold for three hours holding her baby. From there she sees her husband who later
will make her swear to keep his identity secret. Hester settles in the outskirts of the
town and she lives by her needlework. She raises her child, Pearl, with such freedom
that the governor wants to take the girl from her, but Dimmesdale, the unmarried pastor
of the congregation speaks up for Hester, who is finally allowed to keep her daughter.
Chillingworth, who suspects that Dimmesdale is the father of Hester’s child, become his
physician in order to discover the truth and take his revenge. Hester warns Dimmesdale
against Chillingworth and they decide to leave the place and set up home together. But
on the day of their departure Dimmesdale reveals his sin to the community and dies.
Soon after, Chillingworth dies too and leaves Pearl a rich woman. Mother and daughter
leave the community, but later Hester comes back and she is accepted by the community
as a respectable person.
The Scarlet Letter (1850)
Before reading
The novel is set in Massachusetts. It was the first of the Northern American
colonies and was founded in 1620 by English Calvinists and Puritans escaping
religious persecutions at home. Do you remember what their name was and how
their ship was called?
5 The Victorian Age / Extra Material
23
The Scarlet Letter
When the young woman – the mother of his child – stood fully revealed before
the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp1 the infant closely to her
bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might
thereby2 conceal a certain token3, which was wrought4 or fastened into her dress.
5In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but
poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning
blush, and yet a haughty5 smile, and a glance that would not be abashed6, looked
around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine
red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantasticflourishes7 of
10gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much
fertility and gorgeous8 luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a fast and
fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in
accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the
sumptuary regulations9 of the colony.
15The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance, on a large scale.
She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a
gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and
richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and
deep black eyes. She was lady-like, too, after the manner
20of the femininegentility10 of those days; characterized by a certain state and
dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace, which
is now recognized as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more
lady-like, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the
prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to
25behold herdimmed11 and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and
even startled12, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the
misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. It may be true, that, to
a sensitive observer, there was something exquisitely painful in it. Her attire13,
which, indeed, she had wrought for the occasion, in prison, and had modelled
30much after her own fancy, seemed to express the attitude of her spirit, the
desperate recklessness14 of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But
the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer, - so that
both men and women, who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne,
were now impressed as if they beheld15 her for the first time, - was that scarlet
35letter, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated16 upon her bosom. It had the
effect of a spell17, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and
inclosing her in a sphere by herself.
‘She hath18 good skill at her needle, that’s certain,’ remarked one of the female
spectators; ‘but did ever a woman, before this brazen19 hussy20, contrive such a
40way of showing it! Why, gossips21, what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly
magistrates, and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a
punishment’?’
1.to clasp: stringere.
2.thereby: così.
3.token: segno.
4.wrought: intarsiato.
5.haughty: altero.
6.abashed:
imbarazzato.
7.flourishes: svolazzi.
8.gorgeous: sfarzosa.
9.sumptuary
regulations: leggi
che regolano le
spese nelle colonie.
10.gentility: nobiltà.
11.dimmed: offuscata.
12.startled: sbigottite.
13.attire: vestito.
14.recklessness:
avventatezza.
15.beheld: vedessero.
16.illuminated:
miniata.
17.spell: incantesimo.
18.hath: ha (forma
arcaica di has).
19.brazen:
svergognata.
20.hussy: sgualdrina.
21.gossips: comari.
Over to you
❶Refer to the summary of the story-line and say what part this text refers to.
❷Focus on Hester. Make notes about her next to these headings.
5 The Victorian Age / Extra Material
24
attitude
...........................................................................................................................................................................................
physical appearance
...........................................................................................................................................................................................
clothes
...........................................................................................................................................................................................
➌Now focus on the Scarlet Letter and note down where it is, who made it and
what features are emphasised.
➍How does Hester bear the punishment she has been sentenced to? (Choose.)
She rebels against it.
She humbly submits to it.
She bears it with dignity.
She despises her judges.
She rejects Puritan values.
➎What is the people’s reaction to the sight of Hester? In what way are they
disappointed in their expectation?
➏Do their reaction reveal a compassionate attitude or a censorious one?
➐What is Hester’s position in society as a consequence of her punishment? How
does she bear her plight?
Analysis and interpretation
➑What does ‘one token of her shame’ refer to?
➒What kind of personality comes out of the description? Choose from the list
below, supporting your choice with quotations from the text.
arrogant
independent
courageous
proud
uncompromising
obstinate
��What is the society in which Hester lives characterised by?
��What kind of narrator tells the story?
��What aspects (positive and negative) of the Puritan culture are underlined in
this passage? Discuss in class.
William M. Thackeray
(1811-1863)
Main works
• Barry Lyndon (1844)
• Vanity Fair (1848)
• Henry Esmond (1852)
• The Virginians (1857-59)
Contents and themes
Lust for money and social status, selfishness and corruption are Thackeray’s main
themes. The protagonists of his works are often disreputable people who highlight
negative aspects of society such as Barry Lyndon or Becky Sharp, the protagonist
inVanity Fair, a social climber who succeeds in marrying into the aristocracy but then
loses her position out of excessive greed.
Style
Thackeray himself said he was indebted to Fielding, particularly in the tome of the
narrative voice employed. Whether first person or third person his narrator is very
obtrusive. In Vanity Fair he comments, digresses and directs the reader’s reactions to
the events narrated. His presence permeates the novel to such an extent as to become a
remarkable voice, although not a character in the story. As in Barry Lyndon, the narrative
voice often seems to be on the side of the negative hero or heroine and this attitude of
Thackeray’s to the world of his novel, and his inhabitants, led to charges of cynicism
from those of his Victorian readers who preferred a less ambiguous moral viewpoint.
25
5 The Victorian Age / Extra Material
William Makepeace Thackeray was born in 1811
in Calcutta, where his father held an important
position with the East India Company, but he
was sent tot England to be educated as it was
the custom of the time. He was a restless young
man and left Cambridge in 1830 without taking
a degree. He travelled first to Germany and then
to Paris where he indulged in the passions for
theatre, the ballet and gambling. After losing
his inherited income, he started to work as
a journalist in Paris where he met Isabella
Shawe who was to become his wife in 1836. But
his family was not a happy one. After bearing
three children, of whom only two survived, she
succumbed to mental illness and eventually had
to be placed in a private home for the rest of her
life. Under the pressure of financial necessity
Thackeray wrote satires, sketches and political
articles for various newspapers and magazines. After the publication of Barry Lyndon in
1844 he wrote six more novels. The one which is considered is masterpiece is Vanity Fair
(1848), a study of the manners of the London upper-middle class of early 19th century.
He gave a series of lectures both in England and in the US and continued to write till his
death in 1863.
Fortune
Notwithstanding some critical attitudes, Thackeray was very popular and his success
gained him the friendship of fashionable member of London high society. Today he
is still one of the most popular authors of classic novels and both Vanity Fair andBarry
Lyndon have been turned into popular films.
Barry Lyndon
5 The Victorian Age / Extra Material
26
It is Thackeray’s first long work of fiction. It is written in the first person in the form
of an autobiographical memoir. It appeared in serial form in Fraser’s Magazine in 1884
and later in volume form. The novel is divided into 19 chapters. Irony is a feature of
Thackeray’s fiction for which he is indebted to Henry Fielding (1707-54), author of Tom
Jones (1749) and one of the fathers of fiction. Thackeray is also indebted to Fielding as
regards plot. In fact his novels are mainly based on a picaresque plot. The novel tells the
adventures of a hero who does not usually follow social conventions.
The plot
Set in the second half of the 18th century, it is the story of Redmond Barry or Bally
Barry, born to a genteel but ruined Irish family. When still a teenager he has to leave
Ireland because wrongly supposed to have killed a British captain in a duel. He serves
in the Seventh Years’ War. While acting as a spy, he meets the Chevalier de Balibari,
who turns out to be his own uncle. The two get together and make a fortune through
gambling. Barry becomes a man of fashion, marries a widow and takes her name. He
leads a dissipate life and not only squanders his wife’s fortune, but ill-treats her and her
son from her former marriage. In the end his wife succeeds in rebelling against him and
Barry is compelled to live abroad once more on a small pension granted him by his wife.
At her death, however, he is left penniless and ends his life in prison, looked after by his
old mother.
Barry Lyndon (1844)
BEFORE READING
I return to Ireland, and exhibit my splendour and generosity in that kingdom.
How were times changed with me now! I had left my country a poor penniless
boy […]. I returned an accomplished man, with property to the amount of five
thousands guineas in my possession.
Barry Lyndon
Text 1 I had a quick ear and a fine voice, which my mother cultivated to the best of her
power, and she taught me to step a minuet1 gravely and gracefully, and thus laid
the foundation of my future success in life. The common dances I learned, as,
perhaps, I ought not to confess, in the servants’ hall, which, you
5may be sure, was never without a piper2, and where I was considered unrivalled
both at a hornpipe3 and a jig4. In the matter of book-learning, I had always an
uncommon taste for reading plays and novels, as the best part of a gentleman’s
polite education, and never let a pedlar5pass the village, if I had a penny, without
having a ballad or two from him. As for your dull grammar and Greek, and Latin,
10and stuff, I have always hated them from my youth upwards, and said, very
unmistakably, I would have none of them.’
Over to you
❶What part of Barry’s life does this passage refer to?
❷Answer true or false.
1.
He could dance very well.
2.
He lived in a big city.
3.
He liked reading.
4.
He didn’t like ancient languages.
❸What aspects of Barry’s personality are revealed in this passage?
T
F
T
F
T
F
T
F
1.to step a minuet:
ballare il minuetto.
2.piper: suonatore di
cornamusa.
3.hornpipe: danza
eseguita soprattutto
dai marinai.
4.jig: giga.
5.pedlar: venditore
ambulante.
5 The Victorian Age / Extra Material
27
Who is the narrative voice here? What do we learn about his life?
William M. Thackeray
Barry Lyndon (1844)
Barry Lyndon
5 The Victorian Age / Extra Material
28
Text 2 1.utter: assoluto.
2.aboveboard: onesto.
3.mean: meschino.
4.kindle up:
infiammarsi.
5.dashing: distinti.
6.riddle: enigma.
7.coarsest: più rozzo.
8.fondle me:
coccolarmi.
Although I have described the utter1 disgust and distaste which speedily took
possession of my breast as regarded Lady Lyndon; and although I took no
particular pains (for I am all frankness and aboveboard2) to disguise my feelings
in general, yet she was of such a mean3 spirit that she pursued me with her
5regard in spite of my indifference to her, and would kindle up4 at the smallest
kind word I spoke to her. The fact is, between my respected reader and myself,
that I was one of the handsomest and most dashing5 young men of England in
those days, and my wife was violently in love with me; and though I say it who
shouldn’t, as the phrase goes, my wife was not the only woman of rank in
10London who had a favourable opinion of the humble Irish adventurer. What
ariddle6 these women are, I have often thought! I have seen the most elegant
creatures at St. James’s grow wild for love of the coarsest7 and most vulgar of
men; the cleverest women passionately admire the most illiterate of our sex, and
so on. There is no end to the contrariety in the foolish creatures; and though I
15don’t mean to hint that I am vulgar or illiterate, as the persons mentioned above
(I would cut the throat of any man who dared to whisper a word against my
birth or my breeding), yet I have shown that Lady Lyndon had plenty of reason
to dislike me if she chose; but, like the rest of her silly sex, she was governed by
infatuation, not reason, and, up to the very last day of our being together, would
20be reconciled to me, and fondle me8, if I addressed her a single kind word.
‘Ah,’ she would say, in these moments of tenderness, ‘ah, Redmond, if you would
always be so!’ And in these fits of love she was the most easy creature in the world to
be persuaded, and would have signed away her whole property, had it been possible.’
Over to you
❶Answer true or false.
1.
He feels utter disgust for Lady Lyndon.
2.
He thinks she is deeply in love with him.
3.
He judges himself as a poor and ugly man.
4.
He judges his wife as clever and tender.
T
F
T
F
T
F
T
F
❷Who is ‘the humble Irish adventurer’?
❸Who are the ‘foolish creatures’?
❹From these extracts what kind of personality does Barry seem to have? Does he
seem to be a likeable person? Choose from the list below and give reasons for
your choice.
self-centred
sociable
ambitious
generous
hardworking
greedy
optimistic
unscrupulous
vain