The origins of discrimination against women date back to ancient times. Throughout history, women have been exploited sexually, physically, economically, and socially under the shadow of patriarchal doctrines. Religion, tradition and the codes of morality have been misused to ensure the slavery of women. Although today the social and economic status of women is better than it was in the past, they are still the primary victims of abuse, humiliation, violence, and oppression. The Victorian era is one of the most debated periods in history of womanly struggle against discrimination. While it was considered an age of progress and prosperity, it was a time of misery and poverty as well. Victorian England was one of the hottest spots of the Woman Question. At the time, women were forced to lead a passive existence dictated by the norms of Victorian gender ideology. Transformations in science and technology during this period were contradictory to social beliefs and values. Despite the astonishing progress experienced during this period, the rigidly defined roles of men and women in Victorian society remained almost the same until the beginning of twentieth century. Victorian literature on gender flourished in such a tense atmosphere. Female rebellion against the injustices of this developing world often found its voices among the ones who were able to feel the deep sorrow experienced either by themselves or by the members of their gender. This book explores Victorian gender issues and the role of Victorian literature on the womanly journey towards emancipation through their evolutionary path. The key concepts and movements that shaped the historical, social, and political background of women's cry for their rights are examined along with the accompanying gender literature mainly through a feminist reading of female writers as regards to the Woman Question.

Whilst recognizing and building upon the enormous importance of both Victorian and twentieth-century perceptions of women's roles and the way these relate to assumptions about women's sexuality, this book is also concerned with more recently developed interests in the creation of male gender roles and different concepts of masculinity, and consequently with relations between, and within, the sexes. The second half of the nineteenth century saw a mounting attack upon the middle class family ideal which had been painstakingly developed in the preceding era; but the radicals did not have it all their own way.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Potsdam (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Great Expectations and Hard Times by Charles Dickens, language: English, abstract: Introduction The following work is an analysis of the female characters in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations especially with regard to Victorian gender constructions and Dickens’s image of women. Dickens’s biography and the depiction of very diverse female characters in his novels stimulated the idea of a closer analysis. First of all, a short summary of Great Expectations is provided. Then, the Victorian construction of gender will be discussed. As will be shown, a very strict ideology regarding gender roles existed during the Victorian age. Obviously, Dickens must have been influenced by the ideas of his contemporaries which should then be presented in the novel. Another focus will be on how his relationships to women influenced his image of women and also, consequently, the depiction of his female characters in Great Expectations. Finally the female characters, with reference to Victorian gender roles and Dickens’s image of women, will be analyzed in greater detail. The focus is on four women who I believe to be the most important female characters in the novel and powerful representatives of the author’s image of women and Victorian gender construction.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Potsdam (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Great Expectations and Hard Times by Charles Dickens, 15 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Introduction The following work is an analysis of the female characters in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations especially with regard to Victorian gender constructions and Dickens's image of women. Dickens's biography and the depiction of very diverse female characters in his novels stimulated the idea of a closer analysis. First of all, a short summary of Great Expectations is provided. Then, the Victorian construction of gender will be discussed. As will be shown, a very strict ideology regarding gender roles existed during the Victorian age. Obviously, Dickens must have been influenced by the ideas of his contemporaries which should then be presented in the novel. Another focus will be on how his relationships to women influenced his image of women and also, consequently, the depiction of his female characters in Great Expectations. Finally the female characters, with reference to Victorian gender roles and Dickens's image of women, will be analyzed in greater detail. The focus is on four women who I believe to be the most important female characters in the novel and powerful representatives of the author's image of women and Victorian gender construction.

Publisher's description: Telling Tales offers new and original readings of novels by Charlotte Brontë, Anne Brontë, Thomas Hardy, Margaret Oliphant, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. It also presents new archival material on the lives and stories of working-class women in Victorian Britain. Finally, it sets forth innovative interpretations of the complex ways in which gender informs the abstract cultural narratives--like space, aesthetic value, and nationality--through which a populace comes to know and position itself. Focusing on the interrelations of form, gender, and culture in narratives of the Victorian period, Telling Tales explores the close interplay between gender as manifest in specific literary works and gender as manifest in Victorian culture. The latter does not reflect a shift away from form toward culture, but rather a steady concern of form-in-culture. Reading and analyzing Victorian novels provides an education for reading and interpreting the broader culture. The book's several chapters explore and pose answers to important questions about the impact of gender on narrative in Victorian culture: How do women writers respond to themes and narrative structures of precursor male writers? What are the very real differences that shape a newly emerging tradition of female authorship? How does gender enter into the determination of aesthetic value? How does gender enter into the national imaginary 3/4the idea of Englishness? In exploring these key concerns, Telling Tales establishes a broad terrain for future inquiries that take gender as an organizing term and principle for analysis of narratives in all periods.

Gender, in the nineteenth century as now, is an integral part of identity. As a result, gender, along with race and class, has long been a vital part of public discourse about social concerns and reform. The fourteen essays in Gender and Victorian Reform address the overt and subtle ways in which gender influenced social reform in Victorian England. In addition to investigating the more readily apparent instances of gender in the areas of suffrage, women's education, and marriage law reform, the contributors to this collection examine the structure of charitable organizations, the interpretation of language and literacy, ideas of beauty, and religion through the lens of gender and offer diverse approaches to Victorian literature and culture. Some examine specific texts or single canonical authors, others introduce the reader to little-known authors and texts, and still others focus on the culture of reform rather than specific literary texts. Essays are arranged into four parts, with Part I focusing on historical context and a revisioning of the historical romance. Part II addresses more specifically the role of women in public life and in the professions. The essays in Part III look even more specificallyat the connections among reform, gender, literacy and literary genre in Eliot, Collins, and Gaskell. The final four essays offer readings of the impact of gender ideology on beauty, dress, politics and religion. Taken as a whole, the essays in this collection present a serious consideration of the role of gender in art and in public life that spans the Victorian era. Reformist impulses are revealed in a number of Victorian texts that are not generally read as overtly political. In this way, this collection thoughtfully focuses on the influence of gender on a wide range of social movements, and moves the significance of gender beyond simply the content of Victorian fiction and the identity of the authors and into the more fundamental connection of discourse to reform."

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