The Victorian epoch was characterised by rapid transformation and developments in nearly every sphere, from advances in medical, scientific and technological knowledge to changes in population growth and location. Over time, the country's mood was deeply affected by this rapid change. This age started with a confidence and optimism leading to economic boom and prosperity.
The term ‘Victorian’ remains a living concept in social and political debates. However, its meaning is ambiguous: it is used to describe exploitation and class division, sexual repression, hypocrisy, values of hard work and self-help, moral certainties about family life, and a wide variety of arrangements intended to solve public problems.
The term ‘Victorian’ is not a static concept in English literature or in English society. It is related to Queen Victoria. This term is a historical term as well as a literary term. It is historical since it relates to a historical period, namely the Victorian period in England between 1837 and 1901. Also, it is literary since it relates to the literary works of writers, novelists, poets of the Victorian period.
B. Seaman in her book, Victorian England: Aspects of English and Imperial History 1837-1901, argues that the word ‘Victorian’ is a deceptive word. She claims that ‘Victorianism’ as a concept has no clear-cut barrier neither beginning in 1837 nor ending in 1902. Victorianism can be seen from different factors historically, socially and literarily. This period has been shaped by the experiences of the pre-Victorian years. The ideas of Darwin, Tennyson and Goldstone led for a rapid change in that period. These figures were the leaders for social, literal and political change.
Sally Mitchell argues in her book, Daily Life in Victorian England, that in the political realm; the beginning of the Victorian age dated from the Reform Bill of 1832 rather than Queen Victoria’s accession in 1837 . Great Britain was governed by a Parliament made up of an elected House of Commons and a House of Lords. In the early nineteenth century, only men who held property had their right to vote for representatives in the House of Commons. Furthermore, the districts entitled to a seat in the Commons were based on old patterns of landholding. Some big manufacturing towns had no representative at all. In other places there were “rotten boroughs” with so few voters that one landowner could be sure his candidate would be seated in Parliament
Social problems prevailed over the economic and political scene at the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign. The first movements for women’s rights started to form. Middle-class women sought serious education, rather than the painting, piano playing, social graces, and general knowledge that were usual in girls’ schools. They also began trying to extend the range of women’s employment. The girls of working-class and women supported themselves as household servants, factory workers, agricultural labourers, and garment workers, but virtually the only middle-class career that was open to women was a governess. Women reformers at the mid-century began looking for ways that women could be trained and employed in clerical work, bookkeeping, social welfare, typesetting, and other reasonably well-paid jobs.
As Mitchell claims (1996) early Victorian era was not easy for most people. England turned from an agriculture economy into manufacturing. Many workers worked very hard, during that period for a living. In the first years of queen Victoria’s reign there were quick changes that came with the industrial revolution. People especially young men moved from the country to manufacturing cities where they could find jobs. The poor workers suffered a lot in these overcrowded manufacturing cities. The prices of food were very high. This led to what was known as ‘Hungry Forties’. These poor workers led a life of poverty. However, in 1840 middle-class women pursued serious gender roles in society like education rather than piano playing and painting. In the years of 1850s, England started to enjoy steadiness and richness. The Education Act created a government support for schools. Elementary education was available to every child in England.
The Victorian period was a time of quick change that saw the expansion of cities and explosion of industry that revolutionized life in Britain. This transformation was as also apparent in literature of the time. Victorian novel had witnessed such change. Women novelists started to portray what was going on during that period. At the beginning they faced a great difficulty, not only because of the topics they were triggered into, but they Victorians and their world could not help the notion of female novelists. Virginia Woolf has stated different reasons for these difficulties before the Victorian female writers. She argued that “the women novelist is nowadays sex-conscious; and the artist can no more be sex-conscious than sex inhabited”. She further added:
The woman writer was corrupted by an alien standard of art; and Emily Bronte or George Eliot, writing in the accepted masculine style of their times, wrote by that much the worse. Only an exceptional Jane Austen wrote entirely as a woman, so that with less genius than Emily Bronte she achieved greater success.
Accordingly, the Victorian society had its impacts on the female novelists. The male dominance was always there even in the field of literature. Literature was not an exception. Women felt that they were totally oppressed by men. They felt that they have no option to marry and they were not given the same education that men got. Victorian society prevented women from making their own living. Therefore, they were totally dependent on men’s income. “Barred by law and custom from entering trades and professions by which they could support themselves, and restricted in the possession of property, woman had only one means of livelihood, that of marriage” (Kent 86) . In order to be free as men in the Victorian era, women had to avoid and to rebel against society’s conventions and the rules made by men. Women struggled to get their equal rights with men. They fought at every aspect of life; politically, socially and in the field of education. Literature gave them a good chance to picture their dilemma during the Victorian period. Female novelists depicted life as it was mainly dominated by men. This thesis is discussing their viewpoint about men in the Victorian society and how they were humiliated and marginalised by men. These female novelists participated to get over the appropriate gender roles of men from various social classes over times. They reconstructed a new Victorian male gender identity. The present thesis is going to investigate this new identity presented by some female Victorian novelists, Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte.
2.2. Gender Roles in the Victorian Era:
The concept of gender in feminist and sociological studies became popular in the early period of the 1970s. Basically, gender explains the difference between men and women. Socially to differentiate between man and woman with regards to their behaviour towards each other. Therefore, gender is socially constructed to differentiate not the biological difference between men and women. The term ‘gender’ is also used to differentiate in performance between men and women which can be seen as “masculine” or “feminine”. Most of the feminist writings focus on this aspect and claim that these differences are not biological but are social constructions of patriarchal society. Some social researchers argue that the biological differences between men and women also result in their mental and physical differences. These researchers propose that men are physically and mentally superior to women which is globally proposed. The differences between males and females are socially constructed by the patriarchal system of society by which women are described as inferior to men. Therefore women become subordinate and passive compared to men in the society. This is what was going on during the Victorian period.
Connell (1999) defines Gender as “the structure of social relations that centres on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes.” The Australian masculinist adds : “gender concerns the way human society deals with human bodies and their continuity, and the many consequences of that 'dealing' in our personal lives and our collective fate.”
Judith Butler argues that “gender is a role, or that gender is a construction that one puts on, as one puts on clothes in the morning, that there is a ‘one’ who is prior to this gender, a one who goes to the wardrobe of gender and decides with deliberation which gender it will be today” . According to Judith Butler gender is seen as a performative. In other words, gender behaviour is a performance. The individual can be said to constitute him/herself by placing within language and convention. His or her behaviour creates gender identity. Butler to some extent argues that gender does not exist as an objective natural thing. Butler adds: “Gender reality is performative which means that it is real only to the extent that it is performed”. Gender, according to Butler, is not absolutely tied to material bodily truths but is solely and completely a social construction, a fiction, and one that is open to alteration and change. In brief, gender is a social construction. The mentality of the society makes one a man or a woman. When a man is born, the society gives priority to him over woman. This masculine perception is delivered from society to both men and women. Even women accept this social perception since childhood.