THE ROLE OF CLASS IN VICTORIAN NOVELS

The Victorian period is one that has been noted to have embodied numerous happenings, crucial events and growth: economical, technological and even in the literary aspect. It is our bid in this essay, to examine an aspect of numerous interpretive happening and notable occasion that pervaded this period namely the subject of class. Indeed, the Victorian period is believed to be a class structured society especially as the era birthed another class: the middle class. Since literature is a mirror of the society and writers mirror the age in which they lived, the literary works during this period takes majorly into consideration the issue of class. As such, this essay shall explore the theme of class in the Victorian novels. To do this, we shall examine the Victorian period and some notable events/happenings that happened during this period in order to situate our aim in this essay.

Keywords: class, Victorian period, Victorian novels

INTRODUCTION

The term Victorian is formed from the morphological process known as affixation. The word is derived from the Noun Victoria. It is derived because the suffix added is a derivational morpheme as it changes the word class. However, there is the problem of syncretism where the derived word can perform two grammatical functions. Hence, the word Victorian can be a noun or an adjective. In this case, the word performs the function of an adjective. Thus, the base word is Victoria which is the name of the queen who ruled during this period and the –“ian” suffix to mean of relating to Victoria. It is believed that the Victorian era was the period of the reign of Queen Victoria from the year 1837 to 1901.

The Victorian period in history is one of drastic development and growth. This is exactly captured in the words of Aronowitz et al that:

the sixty four-year reign of Queen Victoria was a time of progress and prosperity for Britain. New colonies in Africa and Asia meant that Victoria’s subjects could literally boast that “the sun never set on the British empire”. Vast strides in science and technology fostered British industry and the rapid growth of the middle class, whose values — hard work, strict morality, social reform, and pragmatism — increasingly became the values of the age. Gradual reform addressed many of the social problems that the industrial revolution had created; progress inspired optimism and self-assurance. At the same time, however, new ideas in government, science, and economics stirred curiosity, doubt, and controversy.(485)

Each period in history is always known for a particular thing or the other, whether positive or negative or even both. This Victorian period is noted for many changes, growth and numerous developments which, in fact, transient into the modern era in the history of England. It has been suggested that the period was preceded by the Romanticism and followed by the Edwardian Age.

Of importance especially to the intellectual change that happened in the Victorian period is the publication of Charles Darwins’ On the Origin of Species in 1859. The publication of this book creates a controversy in the religious sector: the conflict between evolution and creation. The book negates the general believe that God creates man. Man starts to believe, to use the words of Soyinka that “self destination is destiny”. It caused a drastic degradation in the religious belief of creation. Also, very important to this discourse on the intellectual point of view, is the publication of Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels’ Communist Manifesto in 1848. The publication of this book gave rise to the enlightenment and education of the proletariats to protest against the existing oppression from the bourgeoisie.

Indeed, the period experienced blossom in creative writing especially the novel with the likes of writers such as Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte and Charlotte Bronte, Mary Ann with the pen name, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy amongst others. Indeed, the Victorian period is an era when literature was an important form of popular entertainment; the writers produced numerous works that appealed to mass audience.

CLASS IN VICTORIAN NOVELS

Various attempts to define “class” have often been a herculean task to researchers. This is so because the term itself connotes various meanings. This is exactly what Erik Olin Wright means when he observes that: “Many discussions of the concept of class confuse the terminological problem of how the word class is used within social theory with theoretical disputes, about the proper definition and elaboration of the concept of class.” (1). However, despite the difficulty in defining the concept social class, some scholars have fought their ways through the confusion to define the term. It basically means a group of similar things. According to Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, class in the society means “one of the groups of people in a society that are thought of as being at the same social or economic level; the way people are divided into different social and economic groups”. (257)

From the foregoing, we can see that individuals are grouped into different strata base on different parameters: income, education, colour amongst other. Indeed, this grouping brings about social class.

The first novel to be examined is Hard Times by Charles Dickens. In the novel, the writer takes into consideration the subject of class. Indeed, Hard Times portrays the reality of social injustice in Britain during the Victorian era and as such, he identifies with the bourgeoisies and proletariats in the industrialized Victorian England. This is exactly what Inyang observes that:

Dickens portraits the living conditions, work, and education in addition to other inequalities between characters that belong to the working, middle, and upper classes in Coketown. Hard Times‟ setting also represented an Industrial town during the Victorian era. It is considered as one of Dickens‟s strong criticising social works

Here, Dickens presents characters that represent different classes. For instance, we have Mr. James Harthouse who represents the upper class. In the novel, Mr Harthouse is an aristocratic member of the society. Harthouse becomes bored and decides to have something new and on his arrival at Coketown, his only mission is to seduce Louisa. He takes advantage of Louisa’s unhappy life with Bounderby to seduce her. Also, we can see the second in the societal class pyramid — middle class. The middle class is believed to have emerged during this period. As such, people struggle and triumph beyond the lower class to create the middle class. In this novel, the person who appears to be in this class is Mr Josiah Bounderby who the writer describes as: “A big, loud man, with a stare and a metallic laugh. A man made out of a coarse material, […]” (23).

Also, Josiah Bounderby always tells people, in order to attract sympathy how he struggles to the top. He does explain how he suffered to the top personally and how his mother neglects him and his grandmother maltreats him. Although, all these re lies just to get human sympathy; another thing to be noted about this man is that he is proud and does not like associating himself with people of the lower class. He never makes any consideration to other people’s feelings because he always sees them as workers that can be replaced easily any time.

Furthermore, the writer also portrays the people at the lower level of societal class. These are the lower class; these set of people are the ones who are always at the receiving end of the social strata. The lower class is also known as the working class or proletariat. They offer their services just to take meager from the factories owners. In this novel, the characters who represent this class are Stephen Blackpool and Rachael who has been ideological conditioned to be pessimistic about things and he lives a hard life in Coketown. Perhaps due to the hard life he lives, he appears older than his age. To show how the lower class is being discriminated, they call them “hands” in the novel. This, in fact, shows that they are not human beings enough but part of human body.

In addition, the language is a medium by which literature expresses itself. In the novel under consideration, the writer used language to show the level of class stratification. Ilhem observes that “Social class differences interpret cultural contrast in patterning and speech.”(6). For instance, characters such as Stephen and Rachael speaks less standard English, Bounderby, Grindgrand on the other hand, because of their class; hence a class discrimination. Indeed, the Dickens creatively creates the class structure during the Victorian period in this novel.

In Emily Bronte’s The Wuthering Heights, the novelist also takes into consideration the issue of class. In this novel, we can see that the class of the protagonist in the novel decides his fate. At the beginning of the novel, we are told that Heathcliff is an orphan and an orphan does not have a social status. He loses his love because he is heartbroken by Catherine. Moreover, Catherine marries Linton because of social class. Thus, here, two classes sufficed: the upper class and the lower class: for the upper class, we have characters like: Hindley, Edgar Linton and Catherine while on the other hand which is the lower class, we have characters such as: Mrs Dean, Joseph and Heathcliff. It is important to note that we have characters who are at first, of the lower class but lately find their way to the top and some are conditionally and ideologically sent back to the lower class.

One thing to add is the use of language. The language used in the novel also depicts class. The upper class and the middle class speak in good English while the lower class often find it hard to speak English as we can see in the character of young Hindley. Indeed, the bitterness of not having the social capability to marry Catherine makes Heathcliff callous. Also, the setting of the novel portrays class: The Wuthering Height and the Thrushcross grange. The former is seen as a rugged place not meant for upper class. However, the latter is meant for the upper class that is the residential area for the upper class.

Another Victorian novel that will be considered in this essay is Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obsure. Jude, from the title of the novel is obscure because of his background. Jude is unable to finish his school because of the class he finds himself. Indeed, the English working class which came to birth through trauma of the Industrial Revolution suffered from brutality, hunger and deprivation. Despite the fact that Jude is very smart and intelligent, he ends up being obscure because of his class. He is unable to attend school in Christminster and as a result of this, his life is full of sadness.

Looking at Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre another interesting novel published during this period, the writer examines class from a very critical point of view. A situation in which he points out hatred on the upper class who are wealthy but hypocritical and morally degraded.

Jane’s social mobility and her ability to communicate with both classes allows Bronte to create a vast social landscape in her novel in which she examines the sources and consequences of class boundaries. For instance, class differences cause many problems in the love between Jane and Rochester Jane must break through class prejudices about her standing, and make people recognize and respect her personal qualities. Brontë tries to illustrate how personal virtues are better indicators of character than class.

Again, in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, the social class determines the level of education one receives and how the person is treated in the society. For instance in this novel under consideration, when Joe comes to see Pip, he treats Joe in a different manner than before because Joe is no longer in the former class but now in a lower social class. His feelings about Joe’s arrival were “Not with pleasure… I had the sharpest sensitiveness as to his being seen by Drummle.” (p. 203). He was afraid that Drummle will look down on him because of Joe’s lower class. Not only does Pip treat Joe differently, Joe on the other hand too, also treats Pip differently because of their difference in social class. He begins to call Pip “sir” which bothered him because “sir” was the title given to people of higher class. Pip felt that they were still good friends and that they should treat each other as equals. Joe soon leaves and explains his early parting, “Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith. Divisions among such must come….” (p. 209).

Other characters that were also judged by their social class were Magwitch and Compeyson. They were both on trial for the same crime but Compeyson got off easier than Magwitch because of his higher social class. Magwitch describes Compeyson’s defense speech, .”..here you has afore you, side by side, two persons as your eyes can separate wide; one, the younger, well brought up… one; the elder, ill brought up… which is the worst one?” (325). The decision of the trial was based upon social class appearance. These cases show how much social class really mattered during the Victorian Period.

CONCLUSION

What we have done in this essay is to explore the subject of class in the Victorian Novels. Indeed, literature is a mirror of life and as such, writers mirror the society they lived in. due to this, it then comes as no surprise that the novels during the Victorian period takes on to discuss the issue of class. Class determines a lot during this period and it shows how people are treated in the society. In this essay, due to tyranny of space we have given a brief of happenings during the Victorian period as well as the meaning of social class before we examine class in the Victorian novels.

WORKS CITED

Aronowitz, B. et al. English Literature with World Masterpieces. USA: Glencoe/McGraw-Hil Educational Division, 1884. Print

Bronte, C. Jane Eyre. London: Penguin Books. 2001. Print.

Bronte, E. Wuthering Heights. London:Penguin Books. 2003. Print.

Dickens, C. Great Expectations. New York : Oxford University Press, 1993.print.

Dickens, C. Hard Times. . New York : Oxford University Press, 2007. Print

Ilhem, S. “Cultural Outlook of Lierary Dialect in Hard Times and Silas Marner”. Rupkatha Journal on Interdisiplinary Studies in Humanities, 80–90. 2012.

Ingham, P. The language of Dickens. In Paroissien, D, A Companion to Charles Dickens (p.127–128). England: Blackwell Publishing. 2008. print

Wright, E. O. “Working-class power, capitalist class interest, and class compromise” American Journal of Sociology 105 (4), 957–1002 . 2000. Print