"Save England before it blows up, like the springing of a mine" (Hillis-Miller 1998, 31) is the warning embedded in Charles Dickens's Bleak House, though it seems far from the time in which the novel was born. ... In the novel Tom-All-Alone's is described as being able to "polute, this very night, the choice stream of a woman's house through every door of society". ...
It is accepted at the beginning of the novel that Darcy is the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world'. ... Within the novel there are other, smaller courtships: Mr. ... Courtship takes on an unspoken, importance in the novel. ... Pemberley, Darcy's estate, sits at the centre of the novel, literally and figuratively, as a symbol of the man who owns it. ... Journeys, even short ones are the function for change in the novel. ...
"2 Her novels raise central matters within her society, often challenging their foundation and meaning through her portrayal of them. ... Through an examination of her 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, and with reference to her later 1815 novel Emma, it is evident that Austen's attention to women's roles and social order broke conventional ideas of class hierarchy, the ideal woman and the heroine. ... In light of this, David Herbert's assertion that Austen studies "personal values, virtues and deficiencies within her 'set,'" but neglects to "questi...
Elizabeth Gaskell was deeply concerned with the social situation of her time and expressed her attitude towards the social system and the neglected by means of her novels. ... Seeing this "grim picture of the lower depths of city life" (Uglow 90), motivated her to write her "Condition-of-England" novels. The "events and details in [her] novel[s] clearly mirror the events in Victorian society" (Mendac n. pag.) and her works are nowadays still "generally associated with Manchester by her readers" (Sanders 416). ... Generally, these novels dealt with the ne...
In the novel, The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck plays on Marx's theories of society and creates a fictitious story about the three classes: upper, middle, and lower, being separated. ... In the beginning of the novel, the reader reads about Tom Joad, who is fresh out of the State Penitentiary for murder. ... Steinbeck sets up the tensions between the rich and the poor in the beginning of the novel. ... Throughout the novel, tensions between the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat are ever increasing. ...
Literature itself has no defined meaning. In the beginning introduction of Literary Theory: An Introduction, Eagleton states numerous definitions of literature to prove the point that there has yet to be one specific definition. Eagleton's definition of literature involves a text that is written in...
In Victorian London, there were many prevalent faults in the culture. Perhaps the world's most recognizable depiction of Victorian London lies in the hands of the Disney film Mary Poppins. In this portrayal, characters rise above obstacles such as class distinction, and find their ways to happy end...
