CLASS AND WOMEN - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

CLASS AND WOMEN

(RIGHT,DUTIES AND VALUE OF WOMEN IN VICTORIAN BRITAIN)Slide2

The idea of femininity in the Victorian era was encapsulated in the idea of the 'woman's mission', but this passive role could not be tolerated for long. Women soon began to seek a more independent life

.

Queen Victoria's reign (1837-1901) was a period of intensive

industrialisation

,

urbanisation

, and social change. Whereas in previous centuries generations had stayed in the same communities and remained close to the parental home, in the 19th century there was considerable mobility within the

population.

Women played a central role in all this, and the ideal of femininity was encapsulated in the idea of a 'woman's mission', which was that of playing a model mother, wife and daughter. Women were also seen as moral and spiritual guardians - as Samuel Smiles declared in 

Self-Help

, 'The nation comes from the nursery.' In other words, the moral health of the nation and its empire depended on the moral purity of its women

.

The pure woman was closely associated with the shelter of the private sphere, of the home. Her purity guaranteed the home as a haven and a source of social stability and, in turn, feminine purity itself was ensured through the protection of the domestic sanctuary.

Within

this interlocking set of beliefs, the classification of deviant forms of female

behaviour

was as critical as the definition and promotion of female respectability. The image of the prostitute thus became a symbol of the danger and disorder of the city streets.

Domestic

values were also partly defined in relation to a debate concerning the country and the city. Within popular accounts, the countryside was seen as the opposite of the disease-ridden and potentially revolutionary city. It was healthy, moral and peaceful, and its homes were imagined as happy, timeless and natural.Slide3

Fashion-Era

looks at women's costume and fashion history and analyses the mood of an era. Changes in Early Victorian fashion history overview. The changing silhouette and dating costumes in a long era. Fashion innovations, the cage crinoline and coal tar aniline dyes. Charles Worth and Haute Couture's

birth. Technology,

cultural and moral values,

homelife

and politics have all contributed to lifestyle trends which influence the clothes we wear. These are the changes that make any era of society special in relation to the study of the costume of a

periodFashion

history of alternative practical Victorian fashion for women. An outline of dress reformers promoting bifurcated, divided garments - or trousers to you and

me.The

influence of Amelia Bloomer, Lady

Harberton

and Dr. Jaeger. The tailor made costumes of the 1890s. Pictures of Victorian clothesSlide4

Women did, though, require a new kind of education to prepare them for this role of ‘Angel in the House’. Rather than attracting a husband through their domestic abilities, middle-class girls were coached in what were known as ‘accomplishments’. These would be learned either at boarding school or from a resident governess.

woman

must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages….; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and

expressions…As it

was important for a well-educated girl to soften her erudition with a graceful and feminine manner. No-one wanted to be called a ‘blue-stocking’, the name given to women who had devoted themselves too enthusiastically to intellectual pursuits. Blue-stockings were considered unfeminine and off-putting in the way that they attempted to usurp men’s ‘natural’ intellectual superiority. Some doctors reported that too much study actually had a damaging effect on the ovaries, turning attractive young women into dried-up prunes. Later in the century, when Oxford and Cambridge opened their doors to women, many families refused to let their clever daughters attend for fear that they would make themselves unmarriageable.Slide5

WOMENS IN THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY Slide6

The novel as a whole is rather lacking in female characters, and yet I do not think we as readers mind

much. Dorian

is described in an overwhelming feminine way- his rose-white boyhood and initial naïveté cast him as an effeminate character from the jumpstart.  However there are actual women in the novel- first and perhaps most importantly, there is Sybil Vane, an embodiment of aesthetic appeal, a living in-the-flesh Shakespearean heroine.  The young and the beautiful women in this novel, like in Shakespearean tragedies, are inescapably tragic and wretched in their beauties. 

These

women are portrayed like pretty pictures; they are lovely but

discardable

, and their appeal is sensual but not at all sexual.  For though Dorian appears to be passionately in love with Sybil, it is her artistic beauty that inspires him, and he considers her less as a lover and more as a saint- at one point he tells Lord Henry not to criticize her, for “Sybil Vane is sacred!”Slide7

For though Dorian appears to be passionately in love with Sybil, it is her artistic beauty that inspires him, and he considers her less as a lover and more as a saint- at one point he tells Lord Henry not to criticize her, for “Sybil Vane is sacred!”  This reminds me of Juliet’s quote during the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet, when Juliet calls Romeo the “god of my idolatry.”  Perhaps Wilde means for Dorian to lack sexual feeling for the female

ingenues

in order to emphasize the homoerotic tone of the novel.  Either way, the feminine figure is in this example an item that is weak, pathetic, and pretty much in the same way a flower is- lovely in bloom, but always on the brink of a withering death.

This is opposed, however, by the character of the Duchess in the ending of the novel, who is the first individual; male and female alike, in which Lord Henry meets his match.  The chapter between the Duchess and Lord Henry is a stream of quickened witticisms and paradoxes; it is clever and delightful, and it is the speediest part of the novel in terms of pace.  What does Wilde mean by including both Sybil Vane, the weakest and most helpless of women, and the Duchess, a silver-tongued coquette?