“Victorian society was obsessed with reputation and appearance” Compare how this idea is presented in the texts you have studied and to what extent you agree with this statement.
“Victorian society was obsessed with reputation and appearance” Compare how this idea is presented in the texts you have studied and to what extent you agree with this statement.
Like the many of us today that are obsessed with reputation and appearance, the Victorians were just as bad, most of their life was centred around what other people think of them. What is the right way to dress and talk? Victorians showed how important reputation and appearance is to them in their everyday life from the way they dress to the literature they wrote and read. This is shown very clearly in two texts that I shall be analysing and comparing. They are; Jane Eyre written by Charlotte Bronte and the A Doll’s House written by Henrik Ibsen.
Jane Eyre and the A Doll’s House are very different stories but they both show the same broad ideas and opinions of reputation and appearance and how one could soon become very obsessed by it. Both Jane and Nora are strong broadminded woman but are put into positions that represses these natural mannerisms. This is mainly due to the people that surround them and their thoughts on how they should act and be seen throughout society’s eye. In A Doll’s House Torvald Helmer, Nora’s husband is very obsessed with reputation and appearance, he has a respectable job and classes Nora as a trophy wife, thus resulting in a lot to lose that could humiliate him publicly and disgrace his name and tarnish the way he is seen to other people. When Torvald finds out what Nora did for him when he was gravely ill, he completely overreacts to her actions and the situation in hand, for example only thinking of himself as it ‘would ruin him.’ He is more upset about he will look when Nora leaves and not about Nora leaving herself, like he has failed to obtain a normal everyday marriage rather than her actually leaving. He wishes for her to stay and keep up appearances and pretences, even though she would effectively have nothing to do with the children but it
Like the many of us today that are obsessed with reputation and appearance, the Victorians were just as bad, most of their life was centred around what other people think of them. What is the right way to dress and talk? Victorians showed how important reputation and appearance is to them in their everyday life from the way they dress to the literature they wrote and read. This is shown very clearly in two texts that I shall be analysing and comparing. They are; Jane Eyre written by Charlotte Bronte and the A Doll’s House written by Henrik Ibsen.
Jane Eyre and the A Doll’s House are very different stories but they both show the same broad ideas and opinions of reputation and appearance and how one could soon become very obsessed by it. Both Jane and Nora are strong broadminded woman but are put into positions that represses these natural mannerisms. This is mainly due to the people that surround them and their thoughts on how they should act and be seen throughout society’s eye. In A Doll’s House Torvald Helmer, Nora’s husband is very obsessed with reputation and appearance, he has a respectable job and classes Nora as a trophy wife, thus resulting in a lot to lose that could humiliate him publicly and disgrace his name and tarnish the way he is seen to other people. When Torvald finds out what Nora did for him when he was gravely ill, he completely overreacts to her actions and the situation in hand, for example only thinking of himself as it ‘would ruin him.’ He is more upset about he will look when Nora leaves and not about Nora leaving herself, like he has failed to obtain a normal everyday marriage rather than her actually leaving. He wishes for her to stay and keep up appearances and pretences, even though she would effectively have nothing to do with the children but it