Anthropology Assignment Gender Role in Victorian Era
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Added on 2020-05-08
Anthropology Assignment Gender Role in Victorian Era
Added on 2020-05-08
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Running head: GENDER ROLE IN VICTORIAN ERAGender role in Victorian EraName of the studentName of the UniversityAuthor note
1GENDER ROLE IN VICTORIAN ERAThe roles of men and women became sharply defined in the Victorian age. In the 19thcentury, a reversal was seen in the position of men and women. Men went out for working inthe factories and offices whereas women were left to manage household chores.The two genders became separate spheres and they were ascribed different roles in thesociety. Women were considered to be physically weak as compared to men and hence theywere thought of to be fit only for household work. Charlotte Bronte in her famous novel, JaneEyre highlighted the limited role of women. Jane Eyre in the novel proclaims that womenalso need exercise for their faculties that highlights the inferior position ascribed to women.(Branca). Florence Nightingale wanted to deliver useful services to the society but was keptconfined at home with her mother and sister. They were asked to supervise the servants thatdid not require any exercise in the faculty of creative thinking. She could not tolerate theinferior position and felt trapped within the home. As a teenager, she used to suffer fromhysterical outbursts and could not sit to eat with the family.Women trapped in dissatisfying marriage were often the subject of Victorian fiction.The Portrait of a Lady, Jude the Obscure were tragic novels that highlighted the sorry plightof women of the age. The Mayor of Casterbridge brought to the fore the depressing vision inrelation to marriage that was the norm of the age. In a way, they thus emerge to be tragicnovel on account of the position relegated to the female gender. The financial security ofwomen could only be achieved with the help of marriage. Women were held to be guardiansof sexual restraint and it was held that their sexuality poses a grave danger to Victorianculture. The Victorian fiction used to define women by the help of male desire. In Far Fromthe Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, Bathsheba is depicted as the fallen woman who hascommitted a vital sin sexually and she was portrayed as being full of guilt. Fanny Robin inFar From the Madding Crowd was held as an example of fallen woman who will have agrave impact on the contemporaries (Brandt and English). They were meant to alarm readers
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