Victorian Times/ Great Expectations Essay, Research Paper
There are many things about the Victorian Age that are different from our manner of life today. Evidence of this can be found in such elements of the 1800 ’ s as wooing manners, child- raising, transit, lodging and callings. The novel and movie Great Expectations give many illustrations of the contrast of the present and the yesteryear.
Victorians were a really stratified society. These yearss, merely about anyone can pull off to hold reasonably nice apparels, a nice auto, a topographic point to populate, and sensible occupation security. Not so in Victorian times. Great Expectations clearly illustrates the rich and hapless extremes of the society. As a male child, Pip was seen as evidently hapless by Estella, due to his naming rogues knuckleboness, and holding harsh custodies and thick boots. She was disgusted even to be around him merely due to this fact. Pip merely couldn ’ t afford many nice apparels because he was a blacksmith ’ s boy. The other terminal of the frock spectrum is shown by Pip ’ s trip to the seamster subsequently in the book. His money has all of a sudden made him an of import adult male and he can hold merely the finest apparels. He spends much of the book walking around London decked out in suits and a top chapeau like he ’ s better than everyone. While frock biass still exist in today ’ s times, they are non every bit drastic as they seemed to be in the Victorian period.
If you ’ re looking to travel to a saloon and pick up a one-night base, the 1800 ’ s are non the topographic point for you. Many matrimonies were arranged or were matrimonies of convenience. There were non really many common-law relationships and non a batch of prenuptial sex. Victorians were really preoccupied with how things appeared and doing certain they were acting decently. The illustration of this in Great Expectations was the supposed arranged matrimony between Pip and Estella. This shows that betrothments were non unheard of. Mo
st of the matrimonies in the book, nevertheless, although they had more to make with money and position than love, were common understandings between hubby and married woman. Today, in Western society at least, most matrimonies are based on love foremost.
Equally far as the doctrine of child-rearing, it was non to give a kid a free, fostering environment to state the least. The doctrine was to convey a kid up by manus. Victorians felt it was their responsibility to learn a kid a lesson about being proper at every chance. In Great Expectations, at least before Mrs. Joe is crippled, Pip spends a batch of his clip being yelled at, crush, or forced to imbibe pitch. Such things would be frowned on and in fact possibly illegal in today ’ s society.
No 1 in Victorian times was cruisin ’ around town in a Corvette. They got topographic points with two pess and a pulse, and the occasional horse-drawn passenger car. This is illustrated throughout Great Expectations evidently as everyone walks or takes a manager. Today is of course really different. We have autos, motorcycles, trains, aeroplanes, and infinite birds. Our society has a batch easier clip acquiring about than the Victorians did.
Housing and callings kind of tie in together with frock and category consciousness. Property and occupations were more familial in those yearss than today. If your male parent was a doodad salesman, you would be a doodad salesman and so would your boy. This is shown in Great Expectations by the Joe ’ s father – Joe – Pip blacksmith concatenation. On the other manus, Belinda Pocket expected to be in the aristocracy but ends up populating in a dream universe tally by her retainers. While heredity may hold provided a sense of security, it besides detracted from the freedom of pick we enjoy today.
All these points clearly indicate the fact that the 1800 ’ s were a really different clip than today, and the usage of illustrations from Great Expectations helps to exemplify this fact.
