The most interesting thing I learned this semester is the widespread effects of Darwin’s theory during the Victorian Era. While, of course I’ve known about Darwin’s theory, I’ve never quite known about the extent of the terrible negative impacts of his theory from people’s incorrect interpretations of his work. We see people take Darwin’s scientific discoveries and twist them to support their own in ways that were really dangerous. For example, Social Darwinism is the theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection. In the 20th century, this was used to justify political conservatism, imperialism and racism. While Darwin was very concerned with the environment and how it affects evolution, people concerned with Social Darwinism ignored environment and assumed that poor people and non-white races were born inherently inferior to other humans. People translated darwinism into economic terms with the idea that if the state stays out of the economy, the economy will thrive and humanity as a whole will improve; this was used in support of capitalism. In the 1880-90s, scientists started to discover how evolution worked and the concept of Eugenics emerged. This was used extensively by Hitler because he tried to use knowledge of heredity to create inferior view of Jews so that he could exterminate them. In America Eugenics also led to government forcing sterilization on people. We saw the negative effects of Darwin’s ideas in society in many of the readings throughout the semester. For example, in Reuben Sachs the negative perception of Jews is evident. We also talked about the extreme racism Dickens uses in his novels in his depiction of Jewish characters, like Fagan in Oliver Twist. Great Expectations, on the other hand, can be interpreted as Dickens’ push back against the concept of Social Darwinism. In the novel, we see Darwin deny that inherited genetic traits control a person with Pip’s character, for example. Brought up in a working class family, and related to his terrible sister, Pip is able to overcome his condition and become somebody that is educated,respected and kind. Needless to say, I am happy that Social Darwinism has been largely disproved so that groups of people are not oppressed.

When this class first began in August, I knew very little about Victorian literature and I was unsure of what to expect. However, as the class progressed, I learned more than I was anticipating. Some of my favorite topics we discussed included Victorian women, religion, and orphans. However, looking back on the semester, the most interesting thing I learned about was the prison conditions of the time. 

Oscar Wilde’s description of prison in The Ballad of Reading Gaol struck me. He claimed that every prison “is built with bricks of shame, and bound with bars lest Christ should see how men their brothers maim.” He wondered how society could accept one man controlling another man, especially in such awful conditions. Charles Dickens offered another description of the Victorian Era prison system in “The Effects of Solitary Confinement on Prison Inmates: A Brief History and Review of the Literature.” After visiting a prison, he said “I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment… inflicts upon the sufferers… I hold this slow and daily tampering… to be worse than any torture of the body.” Both men were taken aback by the conditions they witnessed. This surprised me because most Victorian Era citizens seemed to accept the conditions that criminals were placed in, even though they were inhumane. 

In The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Wilde writes “and by all forgot, we rot and rot.” This line exemplifies the fact that prisoners lose themselves while in jail because the outside world doesn’t care about them. While I was reading both of these pieces, I was reminded of today’s prison conditions. When Wilde wrote that the prisons are “bound with bars lest Christ should see how men their brothers maim,” it reminded me of wrongful convictions. There have been many instances where the wrong people get placed in jail for other people’s crimes. Jail cells sometimes hold citizens who suffer the conditions of prison when they are undeserving. This truth existed during the Victorian Era and it still does today. Sadly, the jails haven’t changed much since Wilde and Dickens wrote about their experiences. It causes me to wonder if the conditions will ever change. I understand that people go to jail for committing crimes, but most humans do not deserve to be treated with complete disrespect.

I enjoyed the fact that I felt like I was reading about today’s prison system through pieces of literature that are centuries old. This topic was the most interesting thing I learned because it puts the conditions of prison into perspective and made me realize the injustice that exists within our country.

In my first blogpost, I wrote about being excited to learn about the characteristics of Victorian literature–the what that this literature is made up of. Before coming into this class, my idea of Victorian literature was that of only romance and trivial things that didn’t really interest me, things I couldn’t really connect with. After reading works by many different authors during this time period and on an array of topics, my opinion changed drastically. I realized that I had only been exposed to less than a fraction of all Victorian literature and that these works tackled some important and very interesting topics. We read works that dealt with religion, science, the portrayal of women, grief, identity, love, violence, and so much more. It’s honestly funny to me how much I thought I couldn’t connect to the topics in Victorian literature because now I see so many connections in my own life, the lives of those around me, and just humanity in general.

I think my favorite piece we read this semester was In Memoriam by Tennyson. I thoroughly enjoyed not only reading this poem about grief, remembrance, and the value of writing, but also our discussions in class. Seeing grief grappled with by someone else that lived many years before me made me feel less alone. That has been the most interesting and rewarding part of this class–seeing these feelings and topics discussed by people in the past to remind me that these feelings, not just grief, are universal and connecting. Victorian literature doesn’t have to be about silly romance and trivialities, it can be about the connecting feelings every human has. So while I did learn some of the characteristics that makes Victorian literature up like class, race, gender, progress, science vs religion, and identity, the one characteristic I was grateful to see was us–humans and their universal longings and feelings.

When first entering this course, I had no clue what Victorian Literature was nor the history behind the Victorian era and its common theme romance. Little to my knowledge was I aware that I had read a couple of works of victorian literature before this course which I enjoyed reading on my free time. I have learned a lot from the research that my and other groups have done based on the context of the different texts read this semester. The most interesting one was about Oscar Wilde which gave us context about the poems he had written about his lover. As I have stated previously in one of my blog posts, I thought that the poems were metaphorically representing depression and its consequences and/or symptoms. However, after listening to one group explain their research on Wilde’s life, it was apparent that the speaker was himself, dealing with the consequence of loving another man who he denied having relations. The most interesting part of that information is that he took the accuser into court knowing this was true accusations and evidence may be apparent against him. This just leaves me to think, why did he do it?

Throughout this semester, I learned a lot of interesting things about Victorian literature. One thing that I found to be the most compelling is the way female authors wrote about women and women’s issues at the time. I really enjoyed reading how women would bring attention to the way they were being treated, as well as, the different approach these female authors would take in their works about how they were treated. Some were more up front with advocating for women’s rights, and others wrote of the idea more subtly in their works. Additionally, I liked learning how some women would go against what was normal in society and bring attention to the way society treats and perceives them; I liked learning about this and connecting it to today’s time, as well.

To begin, in Martineau’s Society in America, she calls into question the government and how they don’t have the consent of women to make unfair laws that they are forced to abide by. After reading what she had to say, I really admire her bravery for speaking her mind during a time where women didn’t have as many rights. Furthermore, I also find it interesting that what she is saying is still applicable today. Now, women have more rights, but there are still issues when it comes to abortion and the government deciding how much of a right women have to deciding what happens to their bodies.

Another female author we looked at this semester is Mary Ann Evans, who wrote under the name George Eliot. I found it really interesting after I read her review essay in The Leader that she was a woman and not a man. I thought it was disheartening that she felt she had to change her name in what she wrote to be a male name, so that she would not get judged for her beliefs and be taken more seriously. Looking back at this now in today’s time, I can’t imagine what it must be like living in a society that forces a woman to do this. It is also really strange she had to change her name because either way her ideas are exactly the same. Additionally, I find her differing approach from Martineau to be interesting because she isn’t as obvious of an advocate for women’s rights; her ideas are more subtle in that she wants change to occur in a more incremental way than Martineau, who was calling for change in a more urgent way.

The last female author I’ll discuss is Amy Levy. Some may see her as an author who is reinforcing stereotypes about women. For instance, there is a lot of reference to Judith’s beauty in Reuben Sachs, as well as, numerous descriptions of the lavish clothing women wear. Thus, some may see it as Levy reinforcing the idea of the importance of a woman’s looks. Although, when looking more closely at the text, she may be making more of a commentary on how women are portrayed in society, instead. For instance, she writes “But the life, the position, the atmosphere, though she knew it not, were repressive ones. This woman, with her beauty, her intelligence, her power of feeling, saw herself merely as one of a vast crowd of girls awaiting their promotion by marriage” (35). Hence, marriage isn’t written in the most positive light, but instead is “repressive.” As a result, she is subtly making a commentary on how damaging society’s place for women is to them. She also isn’t writing her ideas in an essay format, but through a cohesive story. So, we get her ideas about women through interpreting the characters and we can make our own claims about what we think she was trying to say and advocate for.

All in all, I enjoyed this class and learned a lot about the Victorian Era through the literature we read and discussed. I liked learning about the female authors we looked at and what they had to say about women’s place in society. The differing approaches from the authors was also interesting to learn, as well.