Imperialism

"Take up the White Man's burden-

Send forth the best ye breed-

Go bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need;

To wait in heavy harness

One Fluttered folk and wild-

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child" 

(ln. 1-8 The White Man's Burden)

       This poem almost makes imperialism seem like a bad idea, except that it also makes it seem noble and self sacrificing. The sons are noble to go into "exile" so that they can "serve" the people who are "new-caught" and "sullen". Additionally, it invokes a sense of responsibility as well by calling those people "half devil and half child". Now that he has said that how can they leave people alone if the people are mere children? And half ruled by the devil? That would be irresponsible if it were not merely caused by different cultures clashing. They call them "wild" to make them seem less human in a sense (the "half devil" reference works toward this goal as well) while also contrasting with the "White Man" who would be following their social standards, having known those standards his whole life and been taught that it is the only way to live.

     In many ways this outlook on people reminds me strangely of the upper class verses the lower class. The upper class is in charge and might be trying to help, but they are also condescending, and a part of the problem. They may even try to make the poorer half look "sullen" to turn things around so the "heavy harness" is something the rich are bearing, not the poor, because the poor do not know better. In some ways I feel as if this rhetoric could work almost as well in describing the social differences in England as it could be used to apply to colonialism ideals.


Kipling, Rudyard. "The White Man's Burden". The Broadview Anthology of British Literature : The Victorian Era. Ed. Don Lepan. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2009.           775-776. Print.

Money!

"...I never had loved her better than now when I seemed to desert her; that I was going to try my fortune in a new world; and that if I succeeded I should come back to bring her plenty and happiness, but that if I failed I should never look upon her face again" (24, Lady Audley's Secret)

      This passage shows some of the many problems with the love of money. George was convinced that if he went away, got money, and came back that he would bring "happiness".  And his wife was not helpful in dissuading this concept because she was entirely focused on wealth as a means of happiness. But the idea that it was worth having to "never look upon her face again" if he failed causes more problems than anything. He is gone for long enough that she assumes that he will not be coming back and finds another avenue to money. It is all or nothing when it comes to money and ironically George ends up with money but without his wife. Which is an odd reversal of what one would expect in this period.

      It is intriguing that for men you either work for you money, inherit it, or go somewhere else and earn a fortune and then come back. Meanwhile women get married. Men are expected to succeed or, if they failed, not to return. They had to have that determination and ambition to get the money for the wife. So men earn the money so that the woman can be happy. Again the social expectations for men and women are intertwined. Lady Audley wants money but cannot earn it easily, George is okay without very much money but has to earn it to keep his wife happy. Women who marry for money put pressure on the men to get money in any way possible bringing about the concept of getting your hoard  and bringing it back home.

Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Lady Audley's Secret. New York. Oxford University Press. 2012.

Marriage

"...they are afraid, not lest women should be unwilling to marry, for I do not think that anyone in reality has that apprehension; but lest they should insist that marriage should be on equal conditions; lest all women of spirit and capacity should prefer doing almost anything else, not in their own eyes degrading, rather than marry, when marrying is giving themselves to a master, and a master too of all their earthly possessions" (95, The Subjection of Women).

        I can see some of that idea of marriage reflected in other literature of the time (My Brilliant Career being a prime example). I feel like Mill's interpretation of the underlying fear is fairly accurate. Men had their own expectations from society that they needed to live up to in order to earn respect and self worth. And one of those ideals was power. If they are not in charge at home how are they supposed to be in power elsewhere? So in a way the social expectations that are related to men affect the social regulations that are applied to women. The ideals for both genders are intertwined, each pushing the other to fulfill their roles.

       The fact that Mills mentions that marriage is "degrading" seems contrary to what Victorians actually thought at the time. Marriage was the goal for many women, particularly those without wealth. Otherwise they were left without a way to earn a living. But since Mills was discussing that the reasoning for not allowing women to work in good jobs was because men wanted to maintain the marriage inequality it makes sense. But it seems likely that there is the additional motive of keeping power in the workplace as well. The less competition in the workplace the more power the men can have, thus fulfilling some of their roles as men. To change any of the ideas about marriage and gender they would need to change on both sides of the line. Men and women would need to rethink their expectations.

Mills, John Stuart. “On the Subjection of Women”. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature : The Victorian Era. Ed. Don Lepan. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2009. 85 − 95. Print.

Class Discrimination

image found here

"Oh, how coarse and grating were the sounds to be heard around me! Lack, nay, not lack, but utter freedom from the first instincts of cultivation, was to be heard even in the great heavy footfalls and the rasping sharp voices which fell on my ears. So different had I been listening in a room at Caddagat to my grannie's brisk pleasant voice, or to my aunt Helen's low refined accents; and I am such a one to see and feel these differences" (162, My Brilliant Career).

        Sybylla looks at the people for whom she is working as "coarse and grating" and lacking the refinement that she is used to. She was brought there to help teach the children, so she could have become friends with them and fostered understanding and a good learning environment. Instead she focused on their "differences" from the life she was used to. This demonstrates an idea of being almost born with this "cultivation" and she seems almost jealous of them for their "freedom" from it. She sets herself apart by saying that she is "such a one to see and feel these differences" as if being able to recognize a difference in levels of education is something that is unique to her. But Sybylla's family got a loan from the M'Swat family and they are technically in a worse place financially. This bias comes strictly from education level, which you could argue that family is trying to improve simply by having Sybylla there to teach the children. And yet she both is jealous of their "freedom" and disgusted by it, disdaining the "rasping sharp voices" and the "coarse and grating" sounds.

       In a sense it represents some of the mixed feelings that other Victorians also held towards the poorer part of the nation. They were sympathetic, but in their sympathy they were still unwilling to give up their own places in society. People were free to believe that because they were born in a well off family and had been well educated that the poor were of a lower level naturally.

Franklin, Miles. My Brilliant Career. Project Gutenberg Edition. Project Gutenberg. June 8th, 2012.

Patriotism

         "'Captain,' said the squire, 'the house is quite invisible from the ship. It must be the flag they are aiming at. Would it not be wiser to take it in?'
         'Strike my colours!' cried the captain. 'No, sir, not I;' and, as soon as he had said the words, I think we all agreed with him. For it was not only a piece of stout, seamanly, good feeling; it was good policy besides, and showed our enemies that we despised their cannonade" (97, Treasure Island).

         This passage demonstrates that sense of national identity by their need to raise their flag. It also shows how important that sense of identity was to them. They were willing to risk death in order to let the world see that they were under their national flag. You can see their disdain for the danger they were bringing upon themselves as a strange patriotism in which it was "us or them" and both "us" and "them" are clearly defined by the flags they fly. The fact that they are so confident about surviving "their cannonade" (in other words the pirates' weapons ) is ironic since those weapons had originally belonged to the "good" guys and now that those weapons were not in their hands they are somehow different.

          Putting yourself in danger for your country is one thing, going so far as to put yourself and others in danger for having a flag flying seems like going a little too far. But dying for your country was an idealized concept in the Victorian age and in a sense the flag stands for the country. At first you can see that the squire had figured out why they were being fired at in a semi-accurate way and he is using reason to suggest the "wiser" choice. But as soon as the Captain denies this idea the others agree with them. If fact, the Doctor goes so far as to claim it was a "good policy" despite the danger it brought upon all of them. He may have been thinking of moral and bringing the group together and they valued those concepts more than they valued their lives.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island. New York. Random House. 2001.

Generation Gap

Wise Old Man
found here

“Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought

      with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.” - Ulysses (ln. 46-53)

  

      This quote demonstrates some of the expectations facing men both young and old in the Victorian Era. For the young men they are anticipated to have "toiled, and wrought, and thought" and are expected to continue to do that while they are still young, as the older men in this poem set the example for them. The older men have already "toiled, and wrought, and thought" and those ideas are all in the past-tense for them. Thus it was the younger generation that was taking over those concepts, pushing the older generation out. They are the ones who are expected to uphold the ideals of the time now with a very specific outline of what that is: work, and creating, and thinking. 

       Meanwhile, the older men have only a very vague direction in this passage. All it really says about what they can do to fulfill societies expectations is, "Some work of noble note, may yet be done" the older men are apparently to the point in their lives in which they no longer need directions. Or maybe it was just hard to be specific because the abilities of each individual was different to the point that it would be difficult to point to something that all old men could do (or at least most old men).

      It is important to note that work was glorified both for the old men and for the young men. For the old men it is implied that having worked is good which in turn implies that young men should follow that good example. Also, near the end of this passage it specifically ties "honour" and "toil" together saying, "Old age hath yet his honour and his toil" telling old men that they should still be doing something productive if they are able to.


Tennyson, Lord Alfred. “Ulysses”. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature : The Victorian Era. Ed. Don Lepan. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2009. 165 − 66. Print.

Acting the Part

       It was surprising to find that in Victorian literature there are unattainable ideals for both men and women. In general people tend to focus on the ideals imposed on women, but the men experienced pressures from society as well. These expectations were a double-edged sword for both men and women. The bar is set high for them, which can be good, but when expectations are unreachable it engenders a sense of anxiety and a need to put on a show, to appear ideal, even if that was not the case in reality.

      For men the expectations were contradictory to many of the morals they had previously been taught to uphold, “…the privileged male’s victimhood….indicates an emerging crisis in which middle-class male subjects are expected to participate in an increasingly aggressive and competitive capitalist economy, even as long-established standards of private, moral rectitude remain in force” (636, Guest). Men were expected to go outside of the home and be successful in the world of business which made it increasingly difficult for them to hold to ideals like self-sacrifice. How were they supposed to fulfill both of these expectations?

Work - Brown

      In the business world how were they going to handle being the underling in any profession? An article in the Westminster Review described one of these situations using a comparison of husband and wife and Joshi points out that “The gendered and marital metaphor, on the one hand, sympathetically underscores the emasculated situation of a clerk. But on the other, the metaphor's displacement of class antagonisms onto gender relations simultaneously serves to naturalize the hierarchical and unequal relations between peers and their subordinates” (354). In other words, men who were in the workforce, fulfilling their roles as men, were referred to as the “wife” in the situation (meaning they have only the power to influence). Gender norms were being used to normalize the workforce and the tiers of power. "...Victorians themselves generally refer to masculinity as "manhood" or "manliness" and often used the term "masculinity" to refer specifically to male sexuality and power" (2, Machann). This makes power important for a Victorian male just in terms of how others will see him. His identity for himself and appearance for everyone else depends heavily on his perceived power.

      In the real world men felt the need to make their profession as heroic as possible because that was a part of the expectation for them as men, “...members of the medical profession invoked and elaborated visions of masculinity framed by war, heroism, and self‐sacrifice” (594, Brown). The idea of heroism as an important aspect of manhood is one which is also important in literature. Ulysses is an excellent example of this, discussing old age in a world in which heroism is idealized.

Lady Lilith by: Dante Gabriel Rossetti

      While some Victorian literature consistently questions the ideals that society places on both men and women other pieces of literature reflect those ideals. In the Victorian version of Cinderella for instance, we can see that reflection “Chapbooks insert new phrases emphasizing her marital state. Wording in The History of Cinderella and the Little Glass Slipper (c. 1850) is typical: ‘Cinderella made a most excellent wife. . . universally loved and respected for her sweet temper and charming disposition.’” (66, Cullen). The goal for women is emphasized and described in this passage. And in case girls needs convincing to aspire for those characteristics, a bribe is thrown out there with the mention of being “universally loved and respected” for embodying those ideals.

Meanwhile in Lady Audley’s Secret, Lady Audley displays an ability to appear as the “perfect” wife whilst hiding a terrible secret, or really, several terrible secrets. She is meant to exemplify this ideal of the “Angel in the House” but by the end of the novel she pushed to the point of premeditated murder.  She could be upholding those ideals in some ways, but she is demonstrating that appearance is not everything. But she feels like she needs to appear like the ideal in order to get what she wants out of life. And the only option for raising her situation in life is to get married. That is what society has told her to do when she needs something, and so she does it.

She is smart and a good actress and she takes advantage of situations when they are available, going so far as to fake her own death so that she can hide her crime. She also demonstrates the kind of situations that women were sometimes left in. She was left by her husband with nothing but a note, half the money, and a baby. Three years later he does come back but until then she does not even know if he is alive or not. Marriage is one of the only good options open to her but since she is technically married already it really isn’t actually open to her. And so she has to act her part to get what she wants.

                    

                   …Rae was only one of several who vehemently objected to Lady Audley's falseness, to what     

                   he saw as her unnatural embodiment of femininity: calling Lady Audley a ‘female 

                   Mephistopheles,’ he faulted Braddon for not knowing that ‘a woman cannot fill such a part’ … 

                   Such comments bespeak complex, almost paradoxical, understandings of feminine roles that 

                   require women to behave ‘naturally’ even as they're playing parts. Implicit in Rae's remarks is 

                   the awareness that, like actresses, real women assume roles” (614-15, Voskuil).

And so this idea of “acting a part” is not something that the Victorians were unaware of. It is almost encouraged by some of the time. For instance, according to Ruskin women are expected to take care of home and be perfect in the sphere they are assigned but they are not supposed to outshine their husbands.

And wherever a true wife comes, this home is always round her… But do you not see that, to fulfill this, she must—as far as one can use such terms of a human creature—be incapable of error? So far as she rules, all must be right, or nothing is. She must be enduringly, incorruptibly good; instinctively, infallibly wise—wise, not that she may set herself above her husband, but that she may never fail from his side… (Ruskin)

Circa Art - Victorian Art 

Those expectations are impossible. A human cannot be “incapable of error” and so those   expectations, if they are all to be fulfilled, must be in appearance only. Even keeping up the appearance of perfection would contradict his belief that she must not “set herself above her husband” unless her husband is also trying his best to appear perfect within his own separate sphere.

Like women, men are also called to play their own part in society. But they are judged based on their profession more than their demeanor and appearance. Robert is a great example of someone who is not taken seriously because he lacks the motivation to take his own profession seriously. He is going against what society has deemed his role. He is only pushed into taking things more seriously by Lady Audley, a woman who appears to be following society’s expectations but is really acting a part, and Clara, who is also hiding her true feelings from her father.

     Historically men are expected to fight in wars and yet they are punished for violence more harshly than the female convict. "...men were more often convicted of assault than women, and, when they were, received heavier penalties" (699, Farrall). And so men who have been encouraged to be violent in certain situations must also learn to suppress that violence in others. These contradictory expectations from men seems to encourage them to play roles, when they are a soldier then they need to be violent, but when they are back and no longer in the role of a soldier they need to hide that aspect of their character which had previously been cultivated.

It is difficult to separate any of the movements of the time from the concept of gender. Industrialism is intermingled in the ideals of having a woman at home not at work, some of the poor needed to send those who were typically expected to be at home off to work in factories and the like in order to support the family. Women and children could find jobs but they were poorly paid for very difficult and dangerous work. And so necessity was a good excuse to break from the ideals of the time and also accentuated class status.  It is worth noting that women, even in the exact same position as men earned a lot less than men did, “…hired four women and four men as Visitors; the former were paid £50 per annum, the latter, £80” (65, Auerbach). This reinforced gender norms in the sense that there was less of a reward for women to work. Therefore women have less motivation to decide to go into the workforce.

Having the expectation that women would not be working limited options for those who needed to work (single women or the poor women). This makes it a lot more difficult for a woman to get to a higher class level without marrying a man. Thus she is again defined in relation to men. And the men are defined in relation to what they do in society. You can also see those norms reflected in the literature of the time, as with Lady Audley’s Secret. But those single women were in a worse position than just being defined in relation to men. Deborah Anna Logan notes in her book that "As the phrase 'marry, stitch, die, or do worse' implies, death seems to be the only viable alternative to prostitution for unmarried working-class women" (51). Women were stuck in a lot of ways. And there were a lot of single women in that time period because men would die at war.

It seems that while there were many ideals spouted from prominent sources and expectations did play a major role in people’s lives, there was also a good amount of deviation from those ideals. And even changes in the ideals themselves. What people held to be important was in flux along with everything else. A lot of this change was because of things like industrialism changing the way things were made and Darwinism changing the way they see the world. And these things influenced their concept of self as well. People were no longer all working together in the home or on farms, men went out of the home for work and thus came about the concept of separate spheres for men and women. It certainly seemed natural.