Portrayal Of Women In Victorian Literature
Women in Victorian literature
March 8 2015, Emilia Stone.
Literature is the mirror of society and culture. It is known that literature is heavily influenced by the culture in which the author/authoress grew up in. We can see this amply in the portrayal of women in Victorian literature.
Victorian woman was vastly different from us today. A middle class Victorian woman’s life revolved primarily around her husband’s life. Her needs were secondary and unimportant. She was to be the ‘Angel in the House’, one who managed the household with dignity and promoted good moral values.
A married woman in Victorian era had no financial independence. A woman was supposed to be a delicate creature that should be cared for by her husband. Women were commonly treated as household objects rather than person.
Let us now look at the portrayal of women in some of the famous literary works of this particular era. This objectification can be seen in many poems where the women are both subtly given feelings and words by the male narrators or are stereotypically described as the idyllic woman with no voice. A woman who has no thoughts that wandered beyond the pleasure of her husband and familial needs.
One such example of typically described idyllic woman is in ‘The Angel in the house’ by Coventry Patmore, which is essentially a book with several poems that speak of how women and men interact. One such section of the book called a Wife’s tragedy talks about how a
‘Man must be pleased; but him to
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