Victorian Era Essay

Every phenomenon encountered in life has two sides: something we consider as beneficial and useful will eventually demonstrate its weak sides, and, accordingly, something believed to be rather mischievous will reveal itself to be for good. For instance, little children are sure their parents, who make them do their homework, do this for no other reason than finding pleasure in exercising their power over their defenseless offspring. Once adults themselves, however, they realise their parents’ intentions were no other but good. The same rule can be applied to various events in the history of humankind and to related to them effects on society.
The Victorian era, which is a period of time (1837 – 1901) associated with the reign of Queen Victoria, is a striking example of the phenomenon mentioned above. On one hand, the Queen’s name evokes in mind such words as prosperity, culture and national self-confidence.
It was during this time period when the field of science and technology acquired the idea of “creating solutions to problems” by man himself, thus, the idea of adjustment gave way to the idea of improving the environment and living conditions. As far as religion is concerned, despite the revival of the religious activity in the country, institutionalised Christianity with all its traditions and rites was first questioned, which also introduced a series of speculations on the nature of art: is art something divine and surrealistic or is it man-made and should serve