B. De Luca, D. J. Ellis, P. Pace, S. Ranzoli Books and .... De Luca, D. J. Ellis, P. Pace, S. Ranzoli Books and Bookmarks COMPLEMENTARY AND LINK MODULES Victorian Age LOESCHER EDITORE

B. De Luca, D. J. Ellis, P. Pace, S. Ranzoli

Books and BookmarksCOMPLEMENTARY AND LINK MODULES

Victorian Age

LOESCHER EDITORE

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Tableof Contents

INTRODUCTION 1

Fiction in the 19th Century 2

Narrative Voices and the Reading Public in 19th-Century Fiction 3

STUDY BOX: Developments in Narrative Technique

in 19th-Century Fiction 6

Psychological Realism in Mainstream Fiction: George Eliot 7

GEORGE ELIOT from Adam Bede 8Text one, 8 Text two, 9 Text three, 10Text four, 11STUDY BOX: Aspects of Realism in Mainstream Fiction 13

Mystery and Horror Storiesand the ‘Sensation Novel’ 15

EDGAR ALLAN POE from The Oval Portrait 15

WILKIE COLLINS from The Woman in White 19STUDY BOX: Features of Gothic, Mystery and Horror Fiction

and of the Sensation Novel 22

Psychological Fiction: Henry James 26

HENRY JAMES from The Turn of the Screw 26STUDY BOX: The Birth of the Psychological Novel 28

■■ Assignment Towards the Essay 31

STEPFour

STEPThree

STEPTwo

STEPOne

MODULE

1

A Classic Novelist: Charles Dickens 33

Classic Fiction in EnglishLiterature 34

BOOKMARK: The Road to Classic Fiction 35

A Classic Plot 36

Reading from the Novel 41

CHARLES DICKENS from Great Expectations 41Text one, 41 Text two, 48

Dickens and the ClassicNovel 50

BOOKMARK: Dickens’ Style 50STUDY BOX: Classic Fiction in Context 51

■■ Assignment Towards the Essay 53

Beyond Literature■ FILM

The Woman in White 55Great Expectations (1946) 57Great Expectations (1998) 59

■ MUSICThe Woman in White 60Great Expectations (1946) 61

STEPFour

STEPThree

STEPTwo

STEPOne

MODULE

2

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IV

TAB LE O F C O NTE NTS

Personal FileQUICK REFERENCE

Principal Features of Fiction 63

■ MODULE 1 64REVIEW 64EXTENSION 66

■ MODULE 2 68REVIEW 68EXTENSION 69

from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 69

■ MODULE 1 70

GET READY FOR TESTING 70INTERNAL CERTIFICATION 70

Step One, 70 Step Two, 70Step Three, 71 Step Four, 72

NES (Nuovo Esame di Stato) 73

■ MODULE 2 74

GET READY FOR TESTING 74INTERNAL CERTIFICATION 74

Step One, 74 Step Two, 74Step Three, 75 Step Four, 75

NES (Nuovo Esame di Stato) 75

KEYS 76Review 76Extension 77Get Ready for Testing 78

AppendixW. M. THACKERAY from Barry Lyndon 80BOOKMARK: Aspects of the Victorian Age 81BOOKMARK: Social Issues in Victorian Britain 83

CROSS-CURRICULAR CARD

Realism and Naturalism, Aestheticism

and Decadentism in European Literatures 86

➔ Audiocassettes and music cassette of Books and Bookmarks

➔ Videocassette of Books and Bookmarks

Symbols

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Victorian Age

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TO THE TEACHER

The material in this booklet (two Modules) is from volumes 1B and 2A of the main Course,Books and Bookmarks. It can be used by those who have adopted the Compact version ofBooks and Bookmarks or any other Course book.

It provides an in-depth study on the development of fiction in the 19th century and itsconnections to the social and cultural background with a wide selection of authors including twoAmerican ones and with a particular focus on Dickens as one of the main exponents of 19th-century classic fiction.

It can act as an expansion of M1 of Books and Bookmarks (Compact Edition). It can also beused independently and, to facilitate this, an Appendix contains all the literary texts you may needto refer to over and above those analysed in detail.

The booklet is not accompanied by a Teacher’s Guide: for keys to the activities, teachers candownload appropriate sections of the Books and Bookmarks Teacher’s Guide from the Loescherwebsite www.loescher.it/booksandbookmarks, or refer to the printed Guide of the main volume ofBooks and Bookmarks.

The booklet does, however, contain self-study materials for review, extension and testpreparation purposes.

TO THE STUDENT

The learning itinerary of the booklet develops over two Modules of four Steps each. The firsttwo steps of Module 1 focus on 19th-century narrative voices and the main aspects of the realistictradition, Step three contains an entire short story and focuses on mystery, horror and sensation,while Step four deals with the development of psychological fiction. The second Module analysesthe features of the classic novel through extensive readings from Dickens’ Great Expectations andends with an analysis of the peculiarities of Dickens’ style.

You may refer to the last section of the booklet called Personal File for materials and activitieswhich can facilitate your learning process.

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M O D U L E

1

L E V E L ●●● intermediate

T Y P E O F M O D U L E genre-based, textual and contextual

P R E R E Q U I S I T E S • knowledge of the basic aspects of narrative technique (story and plot, first-person andthird-person narrators, characterisation)

• knowledge of the traditional structure of the short story

• knowledge of the basic features of Realism and of mainstream Victorian fiction

O B J E C T I V E S • analyse both American and British works of fiction of the 19th century

• identify the main aspects of 19th-century narrative voices

• make inferences about the relationship between fiction writers and reading public

• recognise aspects of innovation of different authors in relation to the socio-culturalcontext and tradition

• locate their works in their cultural and literary context

M AT E R I A L S FICTION • The Oval Portrait (1842) by Edgar Allan Poe

• from Barry Lyndon (1843) by W. M. Thackeray

• from Barry Lyndon (1843) by W. M. Thackeray (APPENDIX)

• from Adam Bede (1859) by George Eliot

• from The Woman in White (1860) by Wilkie Collins

• from The Turn of the Screw (1898) by Henry James

T I M E approx. 25 hours

L I N K S BEYOND LITERATURE: • Film, The Woman in White• Music, The Woman in White

BOOKMARK: Aspects of the Victorian Age (APPENDIX)

BOOKMARK: Social Issues in Victorian Britain (APPENDIX)

CROSS-CURRICULAR CARD: Realism and Naturalism, Aestheticism and Decadentism in European Literatures (APPENDIX)

LEAD IN Novels and Short Stories

Novels and short stories, which are the focus of this Module, are still one ofthe most popular forms of reading entertainment nowadays. Before you startstudying the period when it reached its highest level of popularity in Britain,check how much you already know about the origin and features of thegenre at the beginning of the 19th century.

Fiction in the 19th Century

Fiction was the most popular genre in the 19th century, first in Britain andlater in the US. It enlarged its scope as regards subject matter, themes andform, catering for a variety of tastes and became the main form ofentertainment of the middle classes. It reached the status of a classic form against which all subsequent developments would be assessed. This Module will examine the main development of fiction through somesignificant novels and short stories of the period.

2



M1 • FICTION IN THE 19TH CENTURY

3

1 See how many of the following questions you can answer. Then check yourreplies again after you have finished the Module which contains all the informationrequired.

1 At the beginning of the 19th century was fiction considered a major genre or assecond-rate literature?

2 Name three classic English novels. 3 Which of the following types of novels developed in the 19th century?

■■ detective fiction ■■ Gothic fiction ■■ science fiction ■■ realistic fiction■■ psychological fiction ■■ crime fiction

4 Did the short story develop alongside the novel or at a later time?5 Did horror and crime fiction develop in the first or second part of the 19th century?6 Was 19th-century American fiction influenced by British fiction or did it develop

independently?

Narrative Voices and the ReadingPublic in 19th-Century FictionO B J E C T I V E S

In Step One you will:

• analyse some quotations from works of fiction of the 19th century

• identify aspects of 19th-century narrative voices

• infer features of the socio-cultural context and expectations of the reading public

The 18th-century novel, though still in its infancy, had already laid thefoundations of the genre in terms of plot, characterisation, dialogue and

narrator. It combined humour, realism and serious moral concern. While thefirst narrative form was the first-person narrator of Robinson Crusoe (1719) byDaniel Defoe (1661-1731) derived from diary-writing, the most common formsoon became that of the omniscient narrator, introduced by Henry Fielding(1707-54) in his Tom Jones (1749) who created a very articulated fictional world.In both cases the reader had a very passive role because s/he was eitherguided by the first-person point of view or by the omniscient narrator who, as acreator of his/her own fictional world, interpreted everything either with directcomments or through a particular tone. The novelists of the 19th century enlarged the scope of these narrativetechniques with significant innovations which paved the way for theexperimental techniques of the beginning of the 20th century.

STEP One



In this Step you are going to read some short quotations taken fromVictorian fiction, focusing on the narrator, his/her relationship with thereading public and the type of social context that is evoked.

1 Read through the 4 extracts below and note down in the margin if a third or a first-personnarrator is used in each case.

T1 W. M. Thackeray, Barry Lyndon, 1843

The progress of a love-story is tedious to all those who are not concerned,

and I leave such themes to the hack novel-writers1, and the young boarding-

school misses for whom they write. It is not my intention to follow, step by step,

the incidents of my courtship, or to narrate all the difficulties I had to contend

with2, and my triumphant manner of surmounting them. Suffice it to say, I did

overcome these difficulties.

T2 George Eliot, Adam Bede, 1859

Chapter 17

In which the Story Pauses a Little“This Rector of Broxton is little better than a pagan!” I hear one of my readers

exclaim. “How much more edifying it would have been if you had made him

give Arthur some truly spiritual advice. You might have put into his mouth the

most beautiful things — quite as good as reading a sermon.”

Certainly I could, if I held it the highest vocation of the novelist to represent

things as they never have been and never will be. Then, of course, I might

refashion life and character entirely after my own liking; I might select the most

unexceptionable type of clergyman, and put my own admirable opinions into

his mouth on all occasions. But it happens, on the contrary, that my strongest

10 effort is to avoid any such arbitrary picture, and to give a faithful account of

men and things as they have mirrored themselves in my mind. The mirror is

doubtless defective; the outlines will sometimes be disturbed, the reflection faint

or confused; but I feel as much bound to tell you as precisely as I can what that

reflection is, as if I were in the witness-box narrating my experience on oath3.

T3 Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White, 1860

Thus the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the story

of an offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one witness — with

the same object, in both cases, to present the truth always in its most direct and

most intelligible aspect; and to trace the course of one complete series of events,

by making the persons who have been most closely connected with them, at

each successive stage, relate their own experience, word for word.

V I CTO R IAN AG E

4

1. hack novel-writers, novelists who write only for money.2. to contend with, face (affrontare).

3. on oath, under solemn promise (sotto giuramento).

they refers to...

them refers to...

you refers to...

I refers to...

both cases refers to...

them refers to...




5

(...)

Till you came here she was in the position of hundreds of other women,

who marry men without being greatly attracted by them or greatly repelled

by them, and who learn to love them (when they don’t learn to hate!)

10 after marriage, instead of before. I hope more earnestly than words can

say — and you should have the self-sacrificing courage to hope too —

that the new thoughts and feel ings which have disturbed the old

calmness and the old content have not taken root too deeply to be ever

removed.

T4 Henry James The Turn of the Screw, 1898

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except

the obvious remark that it was gruesome4, as on Christmas Eve in an old

house a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered5

till somebody happened to note it as the only case he had met in which such

a visitation had fallen on a child. The case, I may mention, was that of an

apparition in just such an old house as had gathered us for the occasion —

an appearance of a dreadful kind, to a little boy sleeping in the room with

his mother and waking her up in the terror of it; waking her not to dissipate

his dread and soothe6 him to sleep again, but to encounter also herself,

10 before she had succeeded in doing so, the same sight that had shocked him. It

was this observation that drew from Douglas — not immediately, but later in

the evening — a reply that had the interesting consequence to which I call

attention. Someone else told a story not particularly effective, which I saw he was

not following. This I took for a sign that he had himself something to produce

and that we should only have to wait.

2 Read text one, then read another text from the same novel in the Appendix, p. 80.

a Circle the phrases where the narrator states his intentions, box the phrases that evoke socialcontext and underline the words and phrases that refer to the narrator’s personality.

b What opinion are you led to form about the narrator from his description of himself?

c How does the narrator’s personality affect the reader’s reaction to the events he relates?

d What information can you derive as regards novels and reading public?

3 Consider text two.

a Underline all the sentences that convey the narrator’s voice and intentions.

b In what sense is the narrating “I” different from that of the first extract?

c Do you think the narrative voice throughout the novel will be a first-person or third-person one?What makes you think so?

4. gruesome, inspiring horror (raccapricciante).5. uttered, expressed (espresso).

6. soothe, calm (tranquillizzare).

she refers to Laura, the protagonist of the novel.

they refers to...

What does the old calmnessand the old content refer to?

it refers to...

a visitation from...

it refers to...

This refers to...



4 Read text three.

a Underline all the sentences that refer to narration and narrator and circle the phrases that evokesocial context.

b In what way is the narrative technique similar and in what way is it different from that of theprevious extract?

c What aspect of the social context comes out very vividly?

5 Analyse the fourth text.

a How many narrators can you infer for this story? Why?

b Do you think the story will be told by a first-person or third-person narrator? Why?

c What aspects of the social context as regards the popularity of fiction and one of the ways ofenjoying it come out of the extract? Give examples.

d Underline all the words which evoke a particular atmosphere. How would you describe it?

STUDY BOX Developments in Narrative Technique in 19th-Century Fiction

CHECK… 1 Refer to the extracts you have read and the activities you have done and say

which text/s convey the following features of narrative technique and social context.

text/s

a) realistic details ……………

b) omniscient narrative voice ……………

c) first-person narration ……………

d) multiple narrators ……………

e) women’s position in society ……………

f) fiction as a form of social entertainment ……………

g) split between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ literature ……………

h) taste for mystery and horror ……………

i) taste for love stories and romantic love ……………

2 In which text/s does the narrator address the reader? Which texts refer to a

shared knowledge between novelists and readers?

…AND LEARN The narrative voices of the extracts you have read differ widely, ranging from

The Narrator the first-person narrator of Barry Lyndon, to the omniscient narrator of Adam in Victorian Fiction Bede and the multiple narrators of The Woman in White. The extracts provide

good examples of the developments narrative technique underwent in the 19th

century, all prompted by the novelists’ desire to achieve realism, that is to make

their fictional worlds as real as possible. This need to make narratives as credible

as possible brought about major changes in narrative voices.

The First-Person Thackeray’s choice of a villain as first-person narrator enlarges the scope of Unreliable Narrator the first-person point of view leaving the reader more space for interpretation.

V I CTO R IAN AG E

6

▼




7

As the narrator is a liar and a rogue, his voice is not trustworthy. The reader has

a more active role in interpreting and assessing what s/he is being told and

passes judgements on the character of the narrator in the same way as s/he

judges fellow beings. In this way the narrator/character becomes more real and,

as many characters in 19th-century fiction, lives outside the novel itself as a real

human being. This unreliable first-person narrator, who keeps the reader alert

in order not to be deceived by his lies, sometimes takes on an omniscientperspective, when he steps in the story in the same way as the third-person

omniscient narrator, with comments on novel writing or moral generalisations.

The Omniscient Narrator The omniscient perspective is typical of the narrative voice of 19th-century

fiction, whether first- or third-person. Omniscient narrators know everything

of the fictional world they have created, not only the events of the story to the

least detail but can also follow different characters in different places and enter

their minds to read their innermost thoughts. In addition, omniscient narrators

often pass judgements on the worlds and characters they have created as well as

interpreting everything for the benefit of the reader, leaving little or no room for

his or her own interpretations. The reader is under the constant direction of the

omniscient narrator’s point of view, whose values s/he is meant to share.

Multiple Narrators Wilkie Collins’ choice of multiple, first-person narrators is a further device

to achieve realism reporting events from as many perspectives as possible. This

device, however, here used to add to realism, was highly innovative and would

pave the way for the choice of non-omniscient voices typical of 20th-century

fiction, to convey not a common view of reality, but the relativity of personal

experience.

Psychological Realism inMainstream Fiction: George EliotO B J E C T I V E S

In Step Two you will:

• analyse Adam Bede, a novel by George Eliot

• identify its most characteristic features

• recognise aspects of continuity and innovation in relation to tradition

• locate the novel in its cultural and literary context

➔ P E R S O N A L F I L E : G e t R e a d y f o r T e s t i n g , p . 7 0

STEP Two

▼ ▼



GEORGE ELIOT (1819-80) ➔ BIOG RAPHY, p . 14

Adam Bede (1859)

The novel we are going to analyse is Adam Bede by George Eliot, one of the greatestnovelists of the 19th century. The work exemplifies the complexity fiction had reached, notonly as regards narrative technique but also in its articulate fictional world which bringsto life a complex social setting, the depth of its characterisation and the richness of itsthemes.

Te x t o n e

Though the title clearly indicates that the protagonist is Adam Bede, the novel includesvarious other characters who can be considered as co-protagonists. We will start ouranalysis with an extract from Chapter 9, which portrays one of these characters, Hetty, butalso introduces Adam.

1 Read the text.

a Focus on Hetty. Which of the following adjectives would you use to describe her? Give reasons foryour choices.

shy beautiful aware of her beauty coquettish attractive

b Focus on Adam. 1 Underline all the adjectives used to describe him.2 For each adjective you have underlined describing his personality find at least one quotation

from the text to exemplify it.

c Underline the phrases and sentences that describe the social setting. In what way does Adamstand out?

Hetty was quite used to the thought that people liked to look at her. She was

not blind to the fact that young Luke Britton of Broxton came to Hayslope

Church on a Sunday afternoon on purpose that he might see her; and that he

would have made much more decided advances if her uncle Poyser, thinking but

lightly of a young man whose father’s land was so foul1 as old Luke Britton’s,

had not forbidden her aunt to encourage him by any civilities2. She was aware,

too, that Mr. Craig, the gardener at the Chase, was over head and ears in love

with her3, and had lately made unmistakable avowals4 in luscious5 strawberries

and hyperbolical peas. She knew still better, that Adam Bede — tall, upright,

10 clever, brave Adam Bede — who carried such authority with all the people

round about, and whom her uncle was always delighted to see of an evening,

saying that “Adam knew a fine sight more6 o’ the nature o’ things than those as

V I CTO R IAN AG E

8

1. foul, messy (trascurato).2. civilities, polite acts (cortesie).3. over head and ears in love with her, deeply in love (innamorato cotto).

4. avowals, declarations (dichiarazioni).5. luscious, delicious (deliziose).6. a fine sight more, a lot more (molto di più).

her refers to...

Luke Britton’s...

What does this reaction suggest?




9

thought themselves his better” — she knew that this Adam, who was often

rather stern7 to other people, and not much given to run after the lasses8, could

be made to turn pale or red any day by a word or a look from her. Hetty’s sphere

of comparison was not large, but she couldn’t help perceiving that Adam was

“something like” a man; always knew what to say about things, could tell her

uncle how to prop the hovel9, and had mended the churn10 in no time; knew,

with only looking at it, the value of the chestnut tree that was blown down, and

20 why the damp came in the walls, and what they must do to stop the rats; and

wrote a beautiful hand that you could read off, and could do figures in his

head — a degree of accomplishment totally unknown among the richest

farmers of that countryside.

2 Focus on characterisation. How are characters built (through showing or telling) and from whose point of view?

3 How do you think the relationship between Adam and Hetty will develop? Write aparagraph describing your predictions.

Te x t t w o

Below is a second extract, taken from the same chapter, which adds to Hetty’scharacterisation.

1 Read the text and find out what happens to Hetty and how she is affected by it.

But for the last few weeks a new influence had come over Hetty — vague,

atmospheric, shaping itself into no self-confessed hopes or prospects, but

producing a pleasant narcotic effect, making her tread the ground and go about

her work in a sort of dream, unconscious of weight or effort, and showing her

all things through a soft, liquid veil, as if she were living not in this solid world

of brick and stone, but in a beautified world, such as the sun lights up for us in

the waters. Hetty had become aware that Mr. Arthur Donnithorne would take a

good deal of trouble for the chance of seeing her; that he always placed himself

at church so as to have the fullest view of her both sitting and standing; that he

10 was constantly finding reasons for calling at the Hall Farm, and always would

contrive1 to say something for the sake of making her speak to him and look at

him. The poor child no more conceived at present the idea that the young squire

could ever be her lover, than a baker’s pretty daughter in the crowd, whom a

young emperor distinguishes by an imperial but admiring smile, conceives that

she shall be made empress.

it refers to...

7. stern, severe (severo).8. lasses, girls (ragazze).9. to prop the hovel, prevent the hut from falling (puntellare il capanno).

10. churn, large milk-can to make butter (zangola).

1. contrive, manage (riusciva).

itself refers to...

her refers to...

Mr Arthur Donnithorneis the squire of the village.

The poor child refers to...



2 Consider characterisation and language.

a Find quotations that reveal that:– life takes on a dreamlike quality for Hetty– Hetty feels detached from everyday reality– she is unaware of her hopes and dreams.

b What psychological features does characterisation most stress?

c How would you describe the language used?

concrete figurative detailed evocative

3 Underline the sentence that conveys the extent of the gap between the social classes of the time and the phrase that conveys the narrator’s comment on Hetty’s feelings. What predictions can you make about the likely development of the story?

Here is an outline of the plot so far.

s u m m a r y

The novel is set in the English Midlands at the beginning of the 19th century. The protagonist is Adam

Bede, the village carpenter, a hard-working young man of stern morals who falls in love with the vain and

frivolous Hetty Sorrel, the niece of the farmer Martin Poyser. While accepting Adam’s courtship, Hetty falls

in love and is seduced by the local squire°, Arthur. After the squire has deserted her, though promising to

help her if she is in trouble, she finds herself pregnant, but conceals the truth even to herself and becomes

engaged to Adam. Another main character in the novel is Dinah, a Methodist preacher, the niece of Martin

Poyser’s wife, who is in love with Adam.

Te x t t h r e e

The text below is taken from Chapter 35.

1 Read and find out what Hetty decides to do when she cannot escape reality any longer.

No, she has not courage to jump into that cold watery bed, and if she had,

they might find her — they might find out why she had drowned herself. There

is but one thing left to her: she must go away, go where they can’t find her.

After the first on-coming of her great dread, some weeks after her betrothal1 to

Adam, she had waited and waited, in the blind vague hope that something would

happen to set her free from her terror; but she could wait no longer. All the force of

her nature had been concentrated on the one effort of concealment, and she had

V I CTO R IAN AG E

10

° squire, a title given in the Middle Ages to a young gentlemantraining for knighthood. In the 19th century this term came to referto the chief landowner in a village.

1. betrothal, engagement of marriage (fidanzamento).

she refers to...

What might they find out?

great dread of what?

John Collier, Hetty Sorrel, Blackburn Museum & Art Galleries, Blackburn, Lancashire.

Bla

ckbu

rn M

useu

m &

Art

Gal

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s




11

shrunk2 with irresistible dread from every course that could tend towards a betrayal

of her miserable secret. Whenever the thought of writing to Arthur had occurred to

10 her, she had rejected it: he could do nothing for her that could shelter her from

discovery and scorn3 among the relatives and neighbours who once more made all

her world, now her airy4 dream had vanished. Her imagination no longer saw

happiness with Arthur, for he could do nothing that would satisfy or soothe5 her

pride. No, something else would happen — something must happen — to set her

free from this dread. In young, childish, ignorant souls there is constantly this blind

trust in some unshapen6 chance: it is as hard to a boy or girl to believe that a great

wretchedness7 will actually befall them8, as to believe that they will die.

2 Focus on language, narrative technique and characterisation.a Circle the verbs in the present tense. In what way does the change of tenses affect narration and

the reader’s response?

b Underline all the sentences and phrases that convey Hetty’s state of mind. What features of Hetty’spersonality are stressed?

c Find quotations that convey Hetty’s lack of contact with reality.

d Why does she not write to Arthur? In what way is her decision consistent with her behaviour so far?

e On what aspect of Hetty’s character does the narrator provide a moral generalisation? Quote fromthe text to support your answer.

3 How do you expect the story to go on?

s u m m a r y

Hetty at last decides to leave her village and ask for Arthur’s help, but on the way she delivers her baby

and kills it. She is arrested and condemned to death for child murder.

Te x t f o u r

The text below, taken from Chapter 47, describes Hetty’s arrival at the scene of theexecution accompanied by Dinah.

1 Read the text and find out what happens when the women reach the gallows.

The Last MomentIt was a sight that some people remembered better even than their own

sorrows — the sight in that grey clear morning, when the fatal cart with the two

young women in it was descried1 by the waiting watching multitude, cleaving its

way2 towards the hideous3 symbol of a deliberately-inflicted sudden death.

All Stoniton had heard of Dinah Morris, the young Methodist woman who

had brought the obstinate criminal to confess, and there was as much eagerness

to see her as to see the wretched4 Hetty.

2. shrunk, avoided (evitato).3. scorn, contempt (disprezzo).4. airy, imaginary (inconsistente).5. soothe, calm (placare).6. unshapen, improbable (improbabile).7. wretchedness, misery (disgrazia).

8. befall them, happen to them (capitare).

1. descried, seen (visto).2. cleaving its way, cutting its way through (facendosi strada).3. hideous, repulsive (odioso).4. wretched, despicable (sciagurata).

her miserable secret refers to...

What was her airy dream?

the fatal cart refers to...

the hideous symbol is...

her refers to...



But Dinah was hardly conscious of the multitude. When Hetty had caught

sight of the vast crowd in the distance, she had clutched5 Dinah convulsively.

10 “Close your eyes, Hetty.” Dinah said, “and let us pray without ceasing to God.”

And in a low voice, as the cart went slowly along through the midst6 of the

gazing crowds, she poured forth her soul with the wrestling7 intensity of a last

pleading8, for the trembling creature that clung9 to her and clutched her as the

only visible sign of love and pity.

Dinah did not know that the crowd was silent, gazing at her with a sort of

awe10 — she did not even know how near they were to the fatal spot, when the

cart stopped, and she shrank11 appalled12 at a loud shout hideous to her ear, like

a vast yell of demons. Hetty’s shriek13 mingled with the sound, and they clasped

each other in mutual horror.

20 But it was not a shout of execration — not a yell of exultant cruelty.

It was the shout of sudden excitement at the appearance of a horseman

cleaving the crowd at full gallop. The horse is hot and distressed, but answers the

desperate spurring14: the rider looks as if his eyes were glazed by madness, and

he saw nothing but what was unseen by others. See, he has something in his

hand — he is holding it up as if it were a signal.

The Sheriff knows him: it is Arthur Donnithorne, carrying in his hand a

hard-won release from death.

2 Focus on character.

a Make notes on Dinah. What aspects of her personality are underlined?

b How does her personality compare with Hetty’s?

3 Consider language.

a Underline the phrases and sentences that convey the attitude of the crowd to the events andcharacters. What feelings are emphasised?

b Focus on the use of tenses which switch from past to present. What effect does this devicecreate?

4 Consider narrative technique, language and the reader’s reactions. Which mostcontribute/s to creating suspense?

This is how the story ends.

s u m m a r y

Hetty’s sentence is commuted to transportation and Dinah eventually marries Adam.

V I CTO R IAN AG E

12

the trembling creature is...

it refers to...

he refers to...

5. clutched, grasped (afferrato).6. midst, middle (mezzo).7. wrestling, struggling (battagliera).8. pleading, intercession (supplica).9. clung, held fast (si aggrappava).

10. awe, reverential fear (timore reverenziale).11. shrank, drew back (indietreggiò). 12. appalled, terrified (sgomenta).13. shriek, scream (urlo).14. spurring, urging (spronare).

AG

raha

mD

ixon

1996




13

STUDY BOX Aspects of Realism in Mainstream Fiction

CHECK… Below are listed the main features of George Eliot’s fiction. Say to what extent

they are exemplified in the texts you have read.

a) creation of a very articulated fictional world ……………

b) mainly rural and provincial social settings ……………

c) skilful characterisation through showing and telling ……………

d) focus on psychological aspects of characterisation ……………

e) use of contrasting characters to highlight the contrast between positive and negative moral values ……………

f) obtrusive omniscient narrator ……………

g) stern moral code ……………

h) use of suspense ……………

…AND LEARN Realism in fiction means the portrayal of life as it really is without idealising

Realistic Fiction it or ‘beautifying’ it. This idea of adhering to the ‘truthfulness’ of the events

narrated implies a common set of values and a shared view of the world

between writers and reading public who are ready to accept fiction as a mirror

of reality and a true interpretation of their world. The realistic novel came into

existence in a period when the general assumptions of the time were those of a

common set of values according to which to judge reality. Realist novelists

were concerned with everyday events of their own period and environment.

They saw themselves both as entertainers and reformers, and were optimistic

about improving the society they belonged to and wrote for. Notwithstanding

this common ground, however, Victorian novelists vary widely in style and

themes (➔ PERSONAL FILE: QUICK REFERENCE, p. 63).

George Eliot’s George Eliot is considered by many critics one of the greatest Victorian Psychological Realism novelists and all her novels testify to the artistic level realistic fiction had reached by

mid-19th century. Adam Bede is a good example of the typical features of George

Eliot’s realism and of the aspects of continuity and innovation in the development

of the genre. Like Jane Austen (1775-1817) in the previous century, she drew her

source of inspiration, particularly in her early period, from the provincial

environment of her youth. But while Jane Austen limited her field to the landed

gentry, Eliot enlarged the social setting bringing to life the rural civilisation of the

period including all social classes. She perfected the art of characterisation

creating a gallery of life-like characters both through telling and showing and

improved the technique of showing characters not only through their words and

behaviour but also through other people’s reactions to them and through a skilful

handling of point of view. She enlarged the scope of realism focusing on the

inner life of her characters with detailed and sympathetic psychological

descriptions. She created skilful and deep psychological portraits which would pave

the way for the development of psychological fiction (➔ Step Four). Like Jane

Austen she also conformed to a strict moral code through which characters are

judged and she often contrapposed contrasting characters to make her moral point

more poignant. In Adam Bede, for example, Hetty, is shown in a critical light as

A. G

raha

m-D

ixon

, 199

6

John Singer Sargent, Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, c. 1892-93.

A portrait of a lady from the later Victorian period. ▼



egocentric, unfeeling and immoral and is in stark contrast with upright Dinah. Her

seducer, Arthur Donnithorne, is Adam Bede’s counterpart and is made to suffer the

consequences of his actions. Eliot’s novels also reveal concessions to the popular

taste of her time in elements of suspense and melodrama (➔ Step Three).

Victorian and Modern George Eliot is particularly notable for her delineation of female characters. Aspects of George Eliot’s She was the first novelist to explore in depth the question of woman’s role in

Female Characterssociety and in her novels she attacks the narrow-mindedness and hypocrisy that

surrounded sexual morality at the time and in this sense she is indebted to

Charlotte Brontë who in her Jane Eyre (1847), a novel which combines

Romantic, Gothic and Realistic features, traces a realistic portrait of a woman

who relies only on herself and her moral and intellectual qualities to gain self-

respect and independence. Like Charlotte, however, who like herself wrote under

a male pseudonym, George Eliot was by no means a feminist in the modern

sense. She upheld the traditional duties of family based on fidelity and honesty

and believed that the social function of women was primarily that of marrying,

bearing children and establishing loving relationships with others.

UPDATE Which form/s of entertainment nowadays has/have the same popularity as fiction had in the 19thcentury? Which make/s more concessions to popular taste? What are the features that nowadays mostappeal to popular taste?

V I CTO R IAN AG E

14

▼ ▼

BIOGRAPHY

GEORGE ELIOT (1819-80)

Wal

ters

-Noo

rdho

ff, 1

991 Life and Works Mary

Ann (Marian) Evans was

born in 1819. She attended

school until her mother’s

death in 1836, when she

became her father’s

housekeeper. She received a strict religious education, but

she read widely and studied Italian and German. When

her father died, she moved to London and became

assistant editor of the “Westminster Review” (1851-53):

her hard work and contributions made it the leading

intellectual journal of the day. She met many radicals and

free-thinkers and re-examined her views of Christianity.

She began a relationship with George Henry Lewes, a

writer and journalist who was separated from his wife.

Since he could not obtain a divorce, they decided to live

together, a decision which sacrificed her social reputation

and led to her being outcast from her family. It was only

after Lewes’s death, when she married a man twenty years

younger than herself that her brother resumed

relationships with her. She died in the same year in 1880.

It was Lewes who discovered and helped to develop the

novelist’s writing talent. Under the pen name George Eliot,

Evans began to write fiction. Her first work, Scenes of

Clerical Life (1857) appeared as separate tales in 1857. The

following year Adam Bede was published, a more ambitious

novel which met with both critical and public favour. Her

reputation was strengthened by The Mill on the Floss (1860)

and Silas Marner (1861). All these works dealt with the

provincial middle-class world which she knew from her

childhood and youth. In Romola (1863) she tried her hand

▼




15

Mystery and Horror Stories and the ‘Sensation Novel’ O B J E C T I V E S

In Step Three you will:

• analyse a short story by an American writer, Edgar Allan Poe and an extract from anovel by a British novelist, Wilkie Collins

• identify the main features of their fiction

• recognise aspects of innovation in relation to the socio-cultural context and tradition

EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-49) ➔ BIOG RAPHY, p . 24

The Oval Portrait (1842)

The first text of this Step is a complete short story by an American writer, Edgar Allan Poe.The short story developed in the US in the 19th century in the form of contributions tomagazines. Though Poe was not the inventor of the genre, which had already flourished

at a historical novel set in the Italian Renaissance but

returned to the familiar region of the English province in

Felix Holt (1866) and in Middlemarch (1871-72). The latter

novel consolidated her reputation as the greatest living

novelist and put an end to her social ostracism. Her last

great novel, Daniel Deronda (1874-76) was not so popular

but, in some respects, was her most original work.

Contents and Themes George Eliot’s works have two

main components. First, they were all inspired, to a greater

or lesser degree, by her own life and beliefs. Secondly, they

all reveal a serious intention to present an objective and

faithful picture of reality. She is notable for a deep insight

into human psychology, a faith in humanity which

replaced her lost faith in Christianity, and a strong sense of

moral duty based on the natural law of the affections

rather than on religious doctrine, legal bonds or social

customs. Eliot also wanted to promote a new view of the

lower classes and her novels often show how humble

people are capable of great strength of character.

Style Her greatest fictional achievement lies perhaps in

her ability to recreate in her novels the farming and

business life of the English provinces which she describes

and brings to life with skilful and detailed descriptions

both of the setting and the individuals. Her omniscient

narrator goes deep into the motivations of the single

characters and the relationship of the individual to society

but the tone is always tempered with humour and human

sympathy.

Fortune After her death, her reputation declined until

the middle of the 20th century when her merits were fully

acknowledged. She now ranks among the great Victorian

novelists. Certain critics would say she was the greatest

and Middlemarch the greatest of all Victorian novels.

Some of her works have been turned into successful films.


STEP Three



with Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64), in his review of Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales heprovided an analysis of the genre which set out the rules for the short story which wouldbe very influential on its development in Europe. The Oval Portrait first appeared in a magazine in April, 1842 with a lengthy introduction inwhich the narrator described himself ill with fever, exhausted from lack of sleep, woundedand under the influence of opium.

1 Read the first paragraph up to line 21.

a Make notes about:– setting (time and place)– characters– event

b What expectations about possible development have been created?

c In what way may Poe’s introduction influence the reader’s expectations?

2 Read the whole story.

a How far have your expectations been met?

b What strikes you about the structure of this story?

The château into which my valet1 had ventured to make forcible entrance,

rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in

the open air, was one of those piles of commingled2 gloom3 and grandeur which

have so long frowned4 among the Apennines, not less in fact than in the fancy of

Mrs. Radcliffe5. To all appearance it had been temporarily and very lately

abandoned. We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least

sumptuously furnished apartments. It lay in a remote turret of the building.

Its decorations were rich, yet tattered6 and antique. Its walls were hung with

tapestry and bedecked7 with manifold and multiform armorial trophies,

10 together with an unusually great number of very spirited modern paintings in

frames of rich golden arabesque8. In these paintings, which depended9 from the

walls not only in their main surfaces, but in very many nooks10 which the

bizarre architecture of the château rendered necessary — in these paintings my

incipient delirium, perhaps, had caused me to take deep interest; so that I bade11

Pedro to close the heavy shutters12 of the room since it was already night,— to

light the tongues of a tall candelabrum which stood by the head of my bed, and

to throw open far and wide the fringed curtains of black velvet which enveloped

the bed itself. I wished all this done that I might resign myself, if not to sleep, at

least alternately to the contemplation of these pictures, and the perusal13 of a

V I CTO R IAN AG E

16

1. valet, (domestico).2. commingled, blended (mescolati).3. gloom, (tetraggine).4. frowned, showed disapproval by facial expression (guardano torvi).5. Mrs. Radcliffe, reference to Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) famousGothic novelist whose Mysteries of Udolpho is partly set in theApennines.6. tattered, ragged (logore).

7. bedecked, decorated (ornate).8. golden arabesque, decorated with Moorish embellishments(Arabian art that flourished in Medieval Spain).9. depended, hang (erano appesi).10. nooks, corners (nicchie).11. bade, ordered (ordinai).12. shutters, wooden covers for windows (imposte).13. perusal, careful reading (lettura).

it refers to...

ourselves refers to...

Pedro is...




17

20 small volume which had been found upon the pillow, and which purported14 to

criticise and describe them.

Long, long I read — and devoutly, devoutly I gazed. Rapidly and gloriously

the hours flew by and the deep midnight came. The position of the candelabrum

displeased me, and outreaching my hand with difficulty, rather than disturb my

slumbering15 valet, I placed it so as to throw its rays more fully upon the book.

But the action produced an effect altogether unanticipated. The rays of the

numerous candles (for there were many) now fell within a niche16 of the room

which had hitherto17 been thrown into deep shade by one of the bedposts18. I

thus saw in vivid light a picture all unnoticed before. It was the portrait of a

30 young girl just ripening into womanhood. I glanced at the painting hurriedly,

and then closed my eyes. Why I did this was not at first apparent even to my

own perception. But while my lids remained thus shut, I ran over in my mind

my reason for so shutting them. It was an impulsive movement to gain time for

thought — to make sure that my vision had not deceived me — to calm and

subdue my fancy for a more sober and more certain gaze. In a very few moments

I again looked fixedly at the picture.

That I now saw aright19 I could not and would not doubt; for the first flashing

of the candles upon that canvas had seemed to dissipate the dreamy stupor which

was stealing over my senses, and to startle20 me at once into waking life.

40 The portrait, I have already said, was that of a young girl. It was a mere head

and shoulders, done in what is technically called a vignette21 manner; much in

the style of the favourite heads of Sully22. The arms, the bosom, and even the

ends of the radiant hair melted imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow

which formed the background of the whole. The frame was oval, richly gilded

and filigreed in Moresque23. As a thing of art, nothing could be more admirable

than the painting itself. But it could have been neither the execution of the

work, nor the immortal beauty of the countenance, which had so suddenly and

so vehemently moved me. Least of all, could it have been that my fancy, shaken

from its half slumber, had mistaken the head for that of a living person. I saw at

50 once that the peculiarities of the design, of the vignetting and of the frame, must

have instantly dispelled such idea — must have prevented even its momentary

entertainment. Thinking earnestly upon these points, I remained, for an hour

perhaps half sitting, half reclining, with my vision riveted24 upon the portrait. At

length, satisfied with the true secret of its effect, I fell back within the bed. I had

found the spell25 of the picture in an absolute life likeliness of expression, which, at

first startling, finally confounded, subdued, and appalled me. With deep and

reverent awe26 I replaced the candelabrum in its former position. The cause of my

14. purported, claimed to (si proponeva).15. slumbering, sleeping (che dormiva).16. niche, nook (nicchia).17. hitherto, up to now (finora).18. bedposts, uprights in a four-poster bed (colonne di letto abaldacchino).19. aright, well (bene).20. startle, bring back with a shock (riportarmi di colpo).21. vignette, Poe refers either to a painting style in which the figure

shades off gradually into the background or a portrait that implies astory – for example, early death, happy marriage, or other situations.22. Sully, Thomas Sully (1783-1872) was a leading portrait artist ofPhiladelphia who (probably) was personally acquainted with Poe.23. filigreed in Moresque, intricate embellishment in the Moorishstyle.24. riveted, fastened firmly (incollati).25. spell, irresistible attraction (malia).26. awe, reverential fear (timore reverenziale).

them refers to...

Which action?

What might be the reason for such reaction?

A. Dixon, Princess Helena, miniature on ivory,Royal Collection, c. 1866.

Phaidon

, 199

9



deep agitation being thus shut from view, I sought eagerly the volume which

discussed the paintings and their histories. Turning to the number which

60 designated the oval portrait, I there read the vague and quaint words which follow:

‘She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee27.

And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded28 the painter. He,

passionate, studious, austere, and having already a bride in his Art: she a maiden

of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee; all light and smiles, and

frolicsome29 as the young fawn30; loving and cherishing31 all things; hating only

the Art which was her rival; dreading only the palette and brushes and other

untoward32 instruments which deprived her of the countenance of her lover. It

was thus a terrible thing for this lady to hear the painter speak of his desire to

portray even his young bride. But she was humble and obedient, and sat

70 meekly33 for many weeks in the dark high turret-chamber where the light

dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead. But he, the painter, took

glory in his work, which went on from hour to hour, and from day to day. And

he was a passionate, and wild, and moody man, who became lost in reveries; so

that he would not see that the light which fell so ghastly34 in that lone35 turret

withered36 the health and the spirits of his bride, who pined37 visibly to all but

him. Yet she smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly, because she saw that the

painter (who had high renown) took a fervid and burning pleasure in his task

and wrought38 day and night to depict her who so loved him, yet who grew daily

more dispirited and weak. And in sooth39 some who beheld40 the portrait spoke

80 of its resemblance in low words, as of a mighty marvel, and a proof not less of

the power of the painter than of his deep love for her, whom he depicted so

surprisingly well. But at length, as the labour drew nearer to its conclusion, there

were admitted none into the turret; for the painter had grown wild, with the

ardour of his work, and turned his eyes from the canvas rarely, even to regard

the countenance of his wife. And he would not see that the tints41, which he

spread upon the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of her who sat beside him.

And when many weeks had passed, and but a little remained to do, save one

brush upon the mouth and one tint upon the eye, the spirit of the lady again

flickered up42 as the flame within the socket of the lamp. And then the brush

90 was given, and then the tint was placed; and, for one moment, the painter stood

entranced43 before the work which he had wrought; but in the next, while he yet

gazed, he grew tremulous and very pallid, and aghast44, and crying with a loud

voice, “This is indeed Life itself!” turned suddenly to regard his beloved: — She

was dead!’

V I CTO R IAN AG E

18

27. glee, joy (gioa).28. wedded, married (sposò).29. frolicsome, gay (gioiosa).30. fawn, young dear (cerbiatta).31. cherishing, enjoying (godeva).32. untoward, unfavourable (avversi).33. meekly, patiently (pazientemente).34. ghastly, terrifying to the senses (sinistra).35. lone, solitary (solitaria).

36. withered, caused to fade (appassiva).37. pined, lost health (languiva).38. wrought, worked (lavorava).39. in sooth, in truth (in verità).40. beheld, saw (vide).41. tints, colours (colori).42. flickered up, revived (si ravvivò).43. entranced, enraptured (estasiato).44. aghast, horrified (inorridito).

She refers to...

her lover refers to...

the labour refers to...

the lady refers to...




19

3 The Oval Portrait is a short story in the Gothic tradition. Let us analyse how far the storyconforms to tradition and how far it departs from it.

a Focus on the description of the setting and events.

1 Which of the following aspects most contribute to giving it a Gothic flavour?

exotic elements reference to literary tradition remoteness decaythe finding of the book the protagonist’s physical and psychological condition solitude

2 Does mystery and horror originate more from dreadful events or from moods and states ofmind? Support your answer with quotations.

b Consider characters.

1 Make notes about their physical appearance and their personality. Which of the two charactersshows odd traits?

2 How would you describe their relationship to each other? Support your choice with appropriatequotations.

submissive loving selfish passionate destructivepossessive vampiresque protective

3 Would you describe the characters as stock characters? Why/why not?

c How far does the language used contribute to the creation of the atmosphere and tocharacterisation?

4 Consider the structure of the story. In what way does it conform to what is considered thetraditional story pattern and in what way does it depart from it?

WILKIE COLLINS (1824-89) ➔ BIOG RAPHY, p . 25

The Woman in White (1860)

The second text you are going to read in this Step is an extract from a novel by WilkieCollins, The Woman in White which is considered the prototype of the sensation novel.The very first lines of the preamble to the novel prepare the reader to expect events thatstretch beyond everyday experience: “This is the story of what a Woman’s patience canendure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve.”

1 Read the Bookmark Aspects of the Victorian Age (APPENDIX, p. 81) and find out in the

summary of the novel given below as many references as you can to the social context.

s u m m a r y

The novel is narrated by different narrators and also includes diary entries, documents and personal

accounts. The larger part of the story, however, is told by Walter Hartright, a drawing teacher who is

employed by Mr Fairlie to teach his nieces Laura and Marian. On his way from the station to reach the

place of his employment, in the middle of the night, he has a strange meeting with a woman all dressed

in white, whom he later learns is called Ann Catherick and has escaped from a mental asylum. He falls

in love with Laura who bears a striking resemblance to the woman in white. (Actually she turns out to

be an illegitimate daughter of Laura’s father and therefore her sister). Laura, however, had been

promised in marriage by her father to Sir Percival Glyde and, though in love with Hartright, she is



bound to keep her promise. Brokenhearted

Hartright leaves England, but soon after

the marriage Laura gets to know the real

nature of her husband who has only

married her in order to get her wealth. He

also turns out to be responsible for the

confinement in the asylum of Anne

Catherick to prevent her from revealing a

secret about Sir Percival which would ruin

him. Unable to get Laura to sign the

document which would allow him to get

his wife’s money, Sir Percival and his

friend Fosco take advantage of Anne

Catherick’s death to bury her as Lady

Glyde and get Laura confined in the

asylum as Anne Catherick. The trick,

however, is discovered by Marian who rescues her half-sister from the asylum but is not able to get her

recognised as Lady Glyde. They live in poverty and Marian looks after Laura whose experience has left

her unbalanced. Meanwhile Hartright returns and learns of Laura’s death.

The extract below is taken from Hartright’s narrative relating events after his return from abroad.

2 Read the text and find out what Hartright discovers while visiting Laura’s tomb.

Time had flowed on, and silence had fallen like thick night over its course.

The first sound that came after the heavenly peace rustled1 faintly like a

passing breath of air over the grass at the burial-ground. I heard it nearing me

slowly, until it came changed to my ear — came like footsteps moving

onward — then stopped.

I looked up.

The sunset was near at hand. The clouds had parted — the slanting2 light fell

mellow3 over the hills. The last of the day was cold and clear and still in the

quiet valley of the dead.

10 Beyond me, in the burial-ground, standing together in the cold clearness of

the lower light, I saw two women. They were looking towards the tomb, looking

towards me.

Two.

They came a little on, and stopped again. Their veils were down, and hid

their faces from me. When they stopped one of them raised her veil. In the still

evening I saw the face of Marian Halcombe.

Changed, changed as if years had passed over it! The eyes large and wild, and

looking at me with a strange terror in them. The face worn and wasted4

piteously. Pain and fear and grief written on her as with a brand.

V I CTO R IAN AG E

20

1. rustled, produced quick creaking sounds (frusciò).2. slanting, oblique (obliqua).

3. mellow, soft (morbida).4. wasted, ruined (sciupata).

it refers to...

I refers to...

it refers to...

MMMMA still from the film The Woman in White.

Hartright’s first meeting with the woman in white.




21

20 I took one step towards her from the grave. She never moved — she never

spoke. The veiled woman with her cried out faintly. I stopped. The springs of

my life fell low, and the shuddering of an unutterable5 dread crept over me from

head to foot.

The woman with the veiled face moved away from her companion, and

came towards me slowly. Left by herself, standing by herself, Marian Halcombe

spoke. It was the voice that I remembered — the voice not changed, like the

frightened eyes and the wasted face.

‘My dream! my dream!’ I heard her say those words softly in the awful

silence. She sank on her knees, and raised her clasped hands to heaven. ‘Father!

30 strengthen him. Father! help him in his hour of need.’

The woman came on, slowly and silently came on. I looked at her — at her,

and at none other, from that moment.

The voice that was praying for me faltered6 and sank low — then rose on a

sudden, and called affrightedly7, called despairingly to me to come away.

But the veiled woman had possession of me, body and soul. She stopped on

one side of the grave. We stood face to face with the tombstone between us. She

was close to the inscription on the side of the pedestal. Her gown touched the

black letters.

The voice came nearer, and rose and rose more passionately still. “Hide your

40 face! don’t look at her!” “Oh, for God’s sake, spare him —”

The woman lifted her veil.

“Sacred to the Memory of Laura, Lady Glyde —”

Laura, Lady Glyde, was standing by the inscription, and was looking at me

over the grave.

(The Second Epoch of the Story Closes Here)

3 Focus on narrative technique and language.

a From whose point of view are events related?

b Underline all the phrases referring to the setting.

c To what senses does the description particularly appeal? Provide examples.

d Find examples of foregrounding of words and sentences, repetitionand metaphorical language and say in what way they contribute to creating a disquieting atmosphere.

4 On the basis of your analysis what features of the narrative most contribute in your opinion to creating a sense of suspense and mystery?

5. unutterable, indescribable (inesprimibile).6. faltered, hesitated (esitò).

7. affrightedly, in a frightened way (spaventata).

him refers to...

Which woman?

us refers to...

R. T

odd-

Whi

te /

Pen

guin



V I CTO R IAN AG E

22

➔ T H E F I L M : T h e W o m a n i n W h i t e , p . 5 5

➔ T H E M U S I C : T h e W o m a n i n W h i t e , p . 6 0

▼

This is how the story ends.

s u m m a r y

Hartright takes the two women under his care and sets out to discover Sir Percival’s secret. He finds that he

was an illegitimate child and had no right to the title. In a last attempt to save his position by stealing the

parish register, Sir Percival is burnt to death and Fosco is forced to supply the information which will restore

Laura’s identity. He will then be killed by a member of an Italian secret society which he has betrayed.

STUDY BOX Features of Gothic, Mystery and Horror Fiction and of the Sensation Novel

CHECK… 1 Refer to Poe’s story.

a Say which of the following features of the Gothic tradition are present providingquotations from the text.

1 complicated plots 2 supernatural events, presence of ghosts3 setting in dark and mysterious places (e.g. Medieval Gothic castles or

monasteries with secret passages) usually in autumn or winter, preferably night-time with bad weather

4 virtuous heroes and heroines persecuted by a villain5 eerie and gloomy atmosphere with suggestions of terror and sorrow6 use of emotional language

b In what way does The Oval Portrait differ from the Gothic tradition?

2 On the basis of the summary of the plot and the extract you have read fromThe Woman in White, say which of the following features of the sensation novelyou can recognise, providing examples.

■■ 1 complicated plots based on horror, mystery, suspense and secrecy ……………

■■ 2 presence of a central secret ……………

■■ 3 wide use of deception and disguise ……………

■■ 4 deranged heroes and heroines ……………

■■ 5 persecution and/or seduction of a young woman; intrigue, jealousyand adultery ……………

■■ 6 illegal incarceration, fraud, forgery blackmail and bigamy, murder or attempted murder ……………

…AND LEARN Poe’s short story, The Oval Portrait, and the extract from The Woman in

E. A. Poe, Gothic White both exemplify another main current of 19th century fiction and of and Mystery Tales Victorian fiction which developed from the already existing Gothic tradition

and gave rise to a number of subgenres.




23

▼ ▼

▼

The Oval Portrait is a good example of Edgar Allan Poe’s Gothic

and mystery tales both as regards theme and form. Poe chose

traditional Gothic settings but focused on the psychological aspect of

mystery and horror. In his stories, in fact, horror and mystery derive

from the mind and the soul and are projections of subjective

sensibilities. He is a master in recreating disquieting atmospheres and

describing deranged or unsettled states of mind. He was obsessed by

death and one of his main themes concerns the uncertain boundary

between life and death and the relationship between the living and

the dead, clearly portrayed in the rapport between the painter and his

wife in The Oval Portrait. Another major difference as regards

tradition is his use of the short story, instead of a novel with

complicated plots which was the usual medium of Gothic fiction, to

achieve a more poignant and sustained suspense.

Poe’s stories fall into two main categories: those of horror, set in

unsettling atmospheres and those of ratiocination where he applied

the rules of logic to the absurd in life and which set the basis for the modern

detective story of which he is considered the inventor.

Gothic and mystery also flourished in Britain, in particular in the second

part of the Victorian Age and great novelists of the realistic tradition, such as Charles

Dickens, contributed to its development. One of the most significant developments

The Birth of of the trend, however, was the sensation novel. A hybrid, more than a genre, the the Sensation Novel sensation novel combined realism and melodrama, journalism and the

fantastic, domestic and exotic, like stage melodrama, together with a deep vein

of Gothic. It developed in the decade between The Great Exhibition of 1851

(the first general international exhibition held at the Crystal Palace Exposition)

and the International Exhibition of 1862 which is often considered the decade

of sensation in all fields. The exhibitions were a celebration of the rational

trend. There was, however, another kind of reaction which was less enthusiastic

about the fast pace of progress. Many felt unsettling feelings of uncertainty as

rapid social change destabilised the sense of a fixed social order based on

shared values.

Wilkie Collins Wilkie Collins’ The

Woman in White is the

prototype of a type of

fiction which voices the

social feelings of

uneasiness of the period.

At the core of the story

there is a secret which

will be unfolded at the

very end. The Gothicsetting of the story is no

longer a remote place but

a domestic environment.H. Courtnay Selous, The Opening Ceremony of the Great Exhibition, 1 May 1851, oil on canvas, London, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1851-52.

Selo

us /

Vic

toria

and

Alb

ert M

useu

m, L

ondo

n

Phai

don,

199

9

L. Daguerre, The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel, Edinburgh, Effect of Moonlight, oil on canvas, Liverpool,

Walker Art Gallery, c. 1824 (a detail).

A typical Gothic setting.



The family often becomes the source of threat instead of security and

respectable families also have some sort of dark secret to conceal. The centralcharacter is usually a deranged woman and many of the other characters are

stock characters of the Gothic tradition, such as the villain and the persecuted

maid, but the gallery of characters also includes social types of the period and

mirrors aspects of Victorian society, such as the fallen woman or the aristocratic

villain. The use of multiple narrators is a further undermining of the security

given by the omniscient perspective, challenging the reader with different

versions of the same event. The unsettling feelings however were usually

overcome at the end of the novel with the ultimate triumph of harmony andthe respect of social rules.

UPDATE In what way do you think the sensation novel is still influential on today’s popular forms of entertainment?

V I CTO R IAN AG E

24

BIOGRAPHIES

E. A. POE (1809-49)

Dut

ton

& C

o., 1

956

Life and Works E. A. Poe

was born in Boston into a

family of itinerant actors. After

his mother died in 1811, he

was adopted by a Richmond

merchant in Virginia and with

the new family moved to

England where he attended school for five years. Back in the

United States he broke relations with his family, leading a very

precarious life. He took to gambling and drinking, attended

university very irregularly and then enlisted in the US Army.

After having been expelled from West Point, he started living by

the pen, taking up editorial jobs with several magazines. He was

soon very busy writing reviews, essays, poems and short stories.

In 1836 he married his thirteen-year-old cousin Virginia

Clemm who died of tuberculosis ten years later. Her death

worsened his precarious mental balance and deepened his

obsession with death. The rest of his life is a story of poverty,

illness, addiction to alcohol, and of unhappy love affairs. In

1849 he was found delirious in a ditch in Baltimore. He died

shortly afterwards. He published three volumes of poems:

Tamerlane (1927), Al Aaraaf (1829) and Poems (1831). His

short novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym appeared in

1838. The majority of his other writings – poems, tales and

critical reviews – were published in magazines and his first

collection of short stories, Tales of Grotesque and Arabesque,

were collected for the first time in 1840, followed by Prose Tales

of E. A. Poe in 1843. His volume of poetry The Raven and Other

Poems was published in 1845.

Contents and Themes Poe is considered the father of the

‘modern short story’ because he was the first to give a critical

analysis of the genre. According to this analysis a short story

should revolve around a single theme with a tightly-knit plot

in order to reach a unity of effect and impression. His own

short stories fall into two categories: horror and detection. In

his horror tales (e.g., The Fall of the House of Usher) he

explores the inner irrational world of human personality and

shows his mastery in tracing the psychological disintegration

of a sensitive mind, while in his detection tales he shows his

mastery in the description of the workings of a logical mind.

Style He was a master of the short form, both in poetry

and fiction, but his originality of language is more evident

in fiction. Poe’s aim was to create effects that appeal to the

emotions and in his Gothic tales every word and every

image was chosen to produce a mood of terror in the reader.

Freudian literary analysis has often interpreted Poe’s work

as the exploration of the subconscious of a disturbed mind. ▼

▼ ▼




25


Fortune He was not very popular in his lifetime when

he was at best considered an appealing magazine article

writer and a successful journalist. He was more

appreciated abroad where his works had a deep influence

on European literature. His mystery, terror and horror

tales gave a strong impulse to the development of the

short story and of the Gothic tradition. His story The

Murders of the Rue Morgue, published in 1841, has come

to be considered the first model of detective fiction and

set the main canons of the genre in the figure of the Great

Detective and his friend and the use of ‘ratiocination’ to

solve mystery. The French Symbolists considered him a

genius and were deeply influenced by his use of language

(➔ CROSS-CURRICULAR CARD: Realism and Naturalism,

Aestheticism and Decadentism in European Literatures,

APPENDIX, p. 86).

WILKIE COLLINS (1824-89)

Nat

iona

l Por

trai

t Gal

lery

, 198

8 Life and Works The son

of a painter, Wilkie Collins

was born in London in 1824

and was educated at private

schools. When still a child he

went on a tour of Italy with

his family. Though he

qualified as a barrister, he never practised law, and his first

job was as a tea merchant. However, he soon turned to

writing, starting with a biography of his father. A close

friend of Charles Dickens, he contributed various articles

and short stories for his periodicals Household Words and

All The Year Round. He also wrote travel books and plays,

but he found his true vein in fiction where, after the

publication of a first historical novel, he became a master

in mystery, crime and suspense. The Woman in White

(1860) and The Moonstone (1868) have become classics of

the genre. Other famous titles include No Name (1862)

and Armadale (1866). He never married, but lived for

many years with Caroline Graves, and had three

illegitimate children by another woman, Martha Rudd. He

lived all his life in London, but travelled widely in France

and Italy, occasionally with Dickens, and in the United

States. In his final years he was afflicted by gout and

became addicted to opium but continued writing

copiously till his death in 1889.

Contents and Themes All his novels deal with

mystery, suspense and crime and he became a master of

all the main elements of the sensation genre. He is also

considered the originator of English detective fiction

because in The Moonstone he created the first detective

after Poe’s Dupin. This set the basis for the development

of detective fiction, another genre which voiced the

repressed fear originating from the social context and

would reach its peak with Arthur Conan Doyle and his

Sherlock Holmes. His fiction, however, also deals with

serious themes. He attacked hypocrisy, social abuses and

injustice in the legal system. His works show attention to

the position of the woman, particularly in his attack on

mercenary and arranged marriages and in his

extraordinarily sympathetic portrayal of independent

women.

Style He was skilful in the construction of plots and

successfully experimented in narrative technique as for

example in The Woman in White where his use of multiple

narrators creates an impression of verisimilitude

conveying different points of view from different social

and gender perspectives. He was also good at

characterisation and created vivid and sympathetic

portraits both of female and male characters.

Fortune He was very popular with the reading public of

his time, and contemporary critics also appreciated his

narrative gifts, but his popularity was somewhat marred by

his way of life which offended Victorian morals. Nowadays

he is generally considered a minor Victorian novelist,

though critics who specialise in the revision of the

traditional dichotomy between high and low popular

culture tend to revaluate him both for his narrative gifts

and his portrayal of Victorian society. His stories of mystery

and suspense have retained their popularity and his two

masterpieces have been turned into successful films.



Psychological Fiction: Henry James O B J E C T I V E S

In Step Four you will:

• analyse an extract from a short story by Henry James

• identify its main features

• recognise elements of innovation in the psychological treatment of mystery

• locate the story in the cultural and literary context

HENRY JAMES (1843-1916) ➔ BIOG RAPHY, p . 29

The Turn of the Screw (1898)

In this Step you are going to read another extract from The Turn of the Screw, a short story by Henry James.The Turn of the Screw is a ghost story, and as such it is deeply rooted in the development of fiction in the second half of the Victorian Age which saw the flourishing of the genre. The story, however, is rather complex, both as regards form and theme, and has always intrigued critics and artists because it lends itself to various interpretations. It was made into a film as The Innocents (1950) and turned into an opera with the same title by Benjamin Britten in 1954.

1 Go back to extract 4 in Step One ( p. 5), taken from the Prologue of the same story. Read it again and write a paragraph about the possible content of the story.

2 Read the summary and check your predictions.

s u m m a r y

The story is told by one of the guests and is based on a first-person narration in the form of a diary by a

young governess who is employed by an eccentric and fascinating gentleman to look after his orphaned

nephew and niece, Miles and Flora, in a country house named Bly. Attracted by the personality of the

man, the governess accepts his condition that she should take the whole responsibility for the household,

helped only by a kind housekeeper and promises never to bother her employer with any queries. At first

she finds the children angelic and is pleased with the surroundings, but very soon she feels the presence

of two evil ghosts, Peter Quint, a former valet at Bly and Miss Jessel, the previous governess, who had

had a guilty relationship in life. She soon becomes convinced that the children are under their evil

influence and are being corrupted. As she is determined to save them, she engages in a psychological

battle to exorcise the evil influence of the ghosts and rescue the children.

➔

V I CTO R IAN AG E

26

STEP Four

Oxf

ord

Uni

vers

ity P

ress

, 199

2




27

The text below is the very end of the story. The governess has just succeeded in gettingMiles to tell her the truth about the reason why he had been expelled from school. Even ifthe ghost of Quint is looking at them from the window, Miles tells the governess that hewas expelled because he told ‘things’ to some of his friends.

3 Read and find out what happens to Miles in the final confrontation with the governess.

I can’t name the exquisite pathos of the contradiction given to such a speech

by such a speaker; I only know that the next instant I heard myself throw off

with homely1 force: “Stuff and nonsense!” But the next after that I must have

sounded stern2 enough. “What were these things?”

My sternness was all for his judge, his executioner; yet it made him avert3

himself again, and that movement made me, with a single bound4 and an

irrepressible cry, spring straight upon him. For there again, against the glass, as if

to blight5 his confession and stay his answer, was the hideous6 author of our woe7

— the white face of damnation. I felt a sick swim at the drop of my victory

10 and all the return of my battle, so that the wildness of my veritable leap only

served as a great betrayal. I saw him, from the midst of my act, meet it with a

divination8, and on the perception that even now he only guessed, and that the

window was still to his own eyes free, I let the impulse flamed up to convert the

climax of his dismay9 into the very proof of his liberation. “No more, no more,

no more!” I shrieked to my visitant as I tried to press him against me.

“Is she here?” Miles panted10 as he caught with his sealed11 eyes the direction

of my words. Then as his strange ‘she’ staggered me12 and, with a gasp, I echoed

it, “Miss Jessel, Miss Jessel” he with a sudden fury gave me back.

I seized, stupefied, his supposition — some sequel to what we had done to

20 Flora, but this made me only want to show him that it was better still than that.

“It’s not Miss Jessel! But it’s at the window — straight before us. It’s there — the

coward horror, there for the last time!”

At this, after a second in which his head made the movement of a baffled13

dog’s on a scent and then gave a frantic14 little shake for air and light, he was at

me in a white rage, bewildered15, glaring16 vainly over the place and missing

wholly, though it now, to my sense, filled the room like the taste of poison, the

wide overwhelming presence. “It’s he?”

I was so determined to have all my proof that I flashed into ice to challenge

him. “Whom do you mean by ‘he’?”

30 “Peter Quint — you devil!” His face gave again, round the room, its

convulsed supplication. “Where?”

I refers to...

such a speaker refers to...

him refers to...

the hideous author of our woerefers to...

a great betrayal of...him refers to...

my visitant refers to... him refers to...

it refers to...

1. homely, familiar (affettuosa).2. stern, severe (severa).3. avert, turn away (voltarsi).4. bound, jump (salto).5. blight, inquinare.6. hideous, repulsive (odioso).7. woe, grief (sciagura).8. divination, foretelling (divinazione).

9. dismay, apprehension (sgomento).10. panted, gasped (ansimò). 11. sealed, tightly closed (serrati).12. staggered me, startled (mi colpì).13. baffled, bewildered (incerto).14. frantic, greatly upset (convulso).15. bewildered, upset (sconvolto).16. glaring, looking angrily (guardando con furore).



They are in my ears still, his supreme surrender of the name and his tribute to

my devotion. “What does he matter now, my own? — what will he ever matter? I

have you,” I launched at the beast, “but he has lost you for ever!” Then, for the

demonstration of my work, “There, there!” I said to Miles.

But he had already jerked straight round, stared, glared

again, and seen but the quiet day. With the stroke of the loss I

was so proud of he uttered the cry of a creature hurled17 over

an abyss, and the grasp with which I recovered him

40 might have been that of catching him in his fall. I caught him,

yes, I had him — it may be imagined with what a passion; but

at the end of a minute I began to feel what it truly was that I

held. We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart,

dispossessed18, had stopped.

4 Focus on the language.Write down on the table below words and phrases referring to the governess’ behaviour and feelings, the ghost and Miles’ reactions.

• The governess’ behaviour and feelings ……………

• The ghost ……………

• Miles’ reactions ……………

In the light of James’ psychological realism, the story is often read not as a real ghost story, but as a portrait of a neurotic woman.

5 Which of the words and phrases you listed in the table in exercise 4 may suggest that the ghosts are a projection of the governess’ inner problems, that she is neurotic and possessive and the ghosts do not exist?

STUDY BOX The Birth of the Psychological Novel

CHECK… 1 Say which character in the story the following quotations refer to.

a) “with a single bound and an irrepressible cry” ……………

b) “the coward horror” ……………

c) “I had him — it may be imagined with what a passion” ……………

d) “a baffled dog’s on a scent” ……………

e) “the beast” ……………

f) “a creature hurled over an abyss” ……………

…AND LEARN An American by birth, but both American and European in his intellectual

Henry James’ formation, Henry James on one hand belongs to the tradition of VictorianPsychological Realism fiction and on the other marks a significant turning point in its development.

He deeply believed in the importance of art and one of his main aims in writing

V I CTO R IAN AG E

28

the beast refers to...

▼

17. hurled, thrown with violence (gettata). 18. dispossessed, with no power (sfinito).

The ghost of Miss Jessel (above) in Benjamin Britten’s opera,

The Turn of the Screw.The governess drags Flora away

from the ghostly apparition (below).




29

was to raise fiction to the status of art. In this respect James marked a departure

from the general character of English literature which had so far made, even at its

highest levels, generous concessions to popular taste. He was influenced by

sophisticated writers such as the French Flaubert and shifted the focus of the novel

on character rather than action and became increasingly interested in the

psychological processes of his characters, developing a highly sophisticated language

to convey their limited perceptions of reality and their emotions. He applied realism

to psychology developing the foundations laid by authors such as George Eliot and

depicting the workings of the mind, thus becoming a pioneer of psychologicalrealism and the master of a rich, highly complex prose style and of delineation of

character. This psychological realism brought about a fragmentation of a world of

reference and paved the way for the development of typical 20th-century modes of

writing such as the stream of consciousness, a term coined in 1890 by James’

brother, the psychologist William James, and the interior monologue.

In his particular brand of psychological novels he shows an anti-Victorian

trend by bringing to the surface the sordid reality beneath the elegant surface of

contemporary Victorian life denouncing the greediness, materialism and

selfishness of the period.

The Turn of the Screw The Turn of the Screw is a clear example of James’ connection to and

departure from Victorian tradition and also of the joining of the two main

trends, the rational one of realism and the irrational Gothic one. He took one of

the most popular genres, the ghost story, but instead of relying on cliché,

sensationalism and emotional language, he privileged the analysis of states of

mind, the relativity of perceptions and the ambiguity of human motivations.

The ghosts themselves are ambiguous because they can be interpreted either as

real ghosts or as projections of the governess’ deranged state of mind.

▼ ▼

BIOGRAPHY

HENRY JAMES (1843-1916)

M. L

eow

, 190

8/N

atio

nal P

orta

it G

alle

ry, L

ondo

n

Life H e was born in

New York in 1843 into a

well-off family of Irish and

Scottish origin. His father

was a well-known

theologian and his brother,

William, became a famous

philosopher. He was

educated in New York, London, Paris and Geneva. As a

result of this cosmopolitan upbringing James became as

much a European as an American. On his return to the

States in 1862 he went to Harvard Law School but was

more interested in studying French and American

literature than law. From 1865 onwards he contributed

book reviews and short stories to periodicals, and in 1869

he returned to Europe for a Grand Tour, during which he

visited Italy for the first time. It made a deep impression

on him, as is apparent from his many return visits and

from his choice of Italy as the setting for many of his

novels. In 1875 he decided to settle in Europe, living in

Paris for a year before making London his first home. In ▼



V I CTO R IAN AG E

30

1898 he moved to Rye, in Sussex, and died there in 1916,

having decided to become a British citizen the year before.

Works, Contents and Themes The novels belonging

to his first years in Europe, such as Roderick Hudson

(1876), The American (1877), Daisy Miller (1879), deal

with the impact of European civilisation on the American

character and the clash between American puritanism and

European hedonism. The Portrait of a Lady (1881) is

generally considered the masterpiece of this first phase.

The 1880s saw a new phase in his literary career. The

subject matter of his novels changed to social reform and

revolution and his aim was to tell the history of his own

time (after the manner of the French writer Balzac). The

Bostonians (1886) and The Princess Casamassima (1886)

belong to that period but neither of them were successful

in England or America. This was probably the reason why

he started to write for the stage. Although none of his

plays was successful either, his interest in the theatre

influenced the development of his narrative technique.

Just as in a play the audience has to make interpretations

on the basis of what the characters say or do, so James

abandoned the omniscient narrator, deepening

characterisation and relying on a shifting of point of view.

This led to the third phase of his last great novels, written

in the final decade of the 19th century and the first decade

of the 20th. These were characterised by abstruse

symbolic imagery, multiple points of view and

considerable complexity. The Wings of the Dove (1902)

and The Golden Bowl (1905) belong to this period. It was

during this phase that he revised his most important

novels and added prefaces outlining his fictional theories.

Style Henry James is a key figure in the development

of fiction for his innovations in fictional technique. The

first important innovation was to discard the Victorian

tradition of the three-volume novel and its “easy

rambling narration” (as he called the style of his

predecessors), in favour of a more disciplined story

pattern. Secondly, James’s novels shifted the emphasis

away from dramatic events and exciting adventures to the

workings of the human consciousness – to individual

psychology and the complexities of human relationships.

This shift in emphasis resulted in the replacement of the

traditional omniscient narrator by a less obtrusive one,

and extensive use of the points of view, and internal

thoughts, of different characters. This technique was later

to be developed by 20th-century novelists into the

interior monologue.

Fortune Although a prestigious figure in the Anglo-

American literary world during his lifetime, James was

never a popular novelist like Dickens and Thackeray.

His last novels in particular have only ever been

appreciated by a small literary élite. However he has

always been greatly admired by literary critics and

fellow novelists for the seriousness with which he

regarded the art of fiction and his technical innovations.

For his critical writings James is now also considered

the father of the modern school of fictional criticism.

Although novels had always been commented on and

reviewed, in his famous essay The Art of Fiction he

attempted to develop a theory of fiction which would

recognise it as a serious art form and give it the same

high status as poetry and drama.




31


Assignment

NES written

APPLYING WHAT YOU KNOW

TOWARDS THE ESSAY

1 Read the extract below taken from Chapter 27 of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. After reading the text write an essay summarising its main features as regards:

a) narrative technique; b) characterisation and characters’ personalities; c) language; d) theme.Below are some guidlines for your analysis:

a Does the first-person narrator voice only subjective thoughts and feelings or does she also voicean omniscient perspective? What are the moral principles that are stressed?

b How do characters mainly come to life? In what way are they similar and in what way are theydifferent? What social and moral rules do they respect or disregard? In what way/s is Janeconventional and in what way/s is she unconventional (➔ Bookmark Social Issues in VictorianBritain, Appendix, pp. 83-85)? Which of the two characters comes out as the stronger? Why?

c How does the use of language reflect their personalities? What figures of speech are mainly used?

d What is the theme of the passage?

Jane Eyre has just discovered that Rochester, the man she loves, is married and thereforecannot marry her. She refuses his proposal to live with him all the same, telling him hewill soon forget her. Rochester answers Jane thus:

jane eyre

“You make me a liar by such language: you sully1 my honour. I declared I

could not change: you tell me to my face I shall change soon. And what a

distortion in your judgement, what a perversity in your ideas, is proved by your

conduct! Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a

mere human law, no man being injured by the breach?2 For you have neither

relatives nor acquaintance whom you need fear to offend by living with me?”

This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned

traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him. They spoke

almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. “Oh, comply!3” it said.

10 “Think of his misery; think of his danger — look at his state when left alone;

remember his headlong4 nature; consider the recklessness5 following on despair

— soothe6 him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who

in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?”

Still indomitable was the reply — “I care for myself. The more solitary, the

more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will

keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles

received by me when I was sane, and not mad — as I am now. Laws and

1. sully, make dirty (infanghi).2. breach, breaking of the law (infrazione).3. comply, obey (accetta).

4. headlong, reckless (impulsiva).5. recklessness, inconsiderate behaviour (sconsideratezza).6. soothe, calm (placa).



32

V I CTO R IAN AG E

principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such

moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour;

20 stringent are they, inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience

I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth — so I have

always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane — quite

insane: with my veins running fire, and my hearts beating faster than I can

count in throbs7. Preconceived opinions, foregone8 determinations, are all I have

at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.”

I did. Mr Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so. His fury was

wrought9 to the highest: he must yield to it for a moment, whatever followed; he

crossed the floor and seized my arm and grasped my waist. He seemed to devour me

with his flaming glance: physically, I felt, at the moment, powerless as stubble10 exposed

30 to the draught and glow of a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul, and with it

the certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter — in the eye.

My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his fierce face I gave an involuntary sigh; his

grip was painful, and my overtaxed11 strength almost exhausted.

“Never,” said he, as he ground his teeth, “never was anything at once so frail and

so indomitable. A mere reed12 she feels in my hand!” (And he shook me with the

force of his hold.) “I could bend her with my finger and thumb: and what good

would it do if I bent, if I uptore13, if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the

resolute, wild, free thing looking out of if, defying me, with more than courage

— with a stern triumph. Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it — the savage,

40 beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage will only let the

captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the house; but the inmate would escape to

heaven before I could call myself possessor of its clay dwelling-place. And it is you,

spirit — with will and energy and virtue and purity — that I want: not alone your

brittle14 frame. Of yourself you could come with soft fight and nestle against my

heart, if you would: seized against your will, you will elude the grasp like an essence

— you will vanish ere I inhale your fragrance. Oh! come, Jane, come!”

As he said this, he released me from his clutch15 and only looked at me. The

look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain: only an idiot, however, would

have succumbed now. I had dared and baffled16 his fury; I must elude his sorrow:

50 I retired to the door.

“Your are going, Jane?”

“I am going, sir.”

Richard Redgrave, Going into Service, oil on canvas, Private Collection, 1843.

In early Victorian times becoming agoverness was the only opportunity a

respectable woman had of earning herown living, but she often suffered fromloneliness and isolation. The girl in the

painting is saying ‘goodbye’ to her familybefore going into service.

Phai

don,

199

9

7. throbs, sleady beat (pulsazioni).8. foregone, foreseen (previste).9. wrought, built up (montata).10. stubble, dry stems of crops (stoppia). 11. overtaxed, used beyond limits (abusata).12. reed, type of tall grass (canna).13. uptore, eradicated (sradicassi).14. brittle, fragile (fragile).15. clutch, hold (presa).16. baffled, frustrated (frustrato).



33

A Classic Novelist: Charles Dickens

In this Module you will learn about the rise of the novel and how fictionbecame the main genre devoted to storytelling in the 19th century. Somenovelists and their work from this period have become ‘classics’. You willread some extracts from one of these classics of English literature, GreatExpectations (1860-61) by Charles Dickens. Your attention will be focusedon its features and how the author handles them; you will also see how thework reflects the values of the period in which it was written.

L E V E L ●●● intermediate

T Y P E O F M O D U L E text-based and contextual

P R E R E Q U I S I T E S knowledge of the conventions of fiction

O B J E C T I V E S • locate a classic novelist and his work in the development of fiction

• analyse the work of a classic novelist

• recognise the characteristics of a novelist’s style

• define classic fiction

M AT E R I A L S FICTION • from Great Expectations (1860-61) by Charles Dickens

T I M approx. 18 hours

L I N K S BEYOND LITERATURE: • Film, Great Expectations (1946); Great Expectations (1998)• Music, Great Expectations (1946)

BOOKMARK: Aspects of the Victorian Age (APPENDIX)BOOKMARK: Social Issues in Victorian Britain (APPENDIX)CROSS-CURRICULAR CARD: Realism and Naturalism, Aestheticism and Decadentism in European

Literatures (APPENDIX)

LEAD IN The Term Classic and Its Meanings

1 Let’s begin with a vocabulary game.

a Write down as many definitions of the term ‘classic’ you can think of.

b Compare with your classmates. How many different definitions have been given?Write them on the board.

c Pool all the definitions which refer to the field of literature.

d Do any of them also apply to novels? Why or Why not?

When you want to get an exhaustive definition of a literary term you mayneed to consult a specialised dictionary. On the next page are twodefinitions from two such dictionaries.

M O D U L E

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V I CTO R IAN AG E

34

2 Read the definitions. How many meanings can you identify? How do theycompare with yours?

“The adjective ‘classical’ usually applies to anything pertaining to Greece

and Rome. Nearly always there is the implication of the ‘best’, a standard

of excellence worthy of emulation. When applied to literature the word

Classical suggests that the work has the qualities of order, harmony,

proportion, balance, discipline...”Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, Penguin

“The term classic has an array of meanings. It may be applied to works

from the ancient Greco-Roman tradition or those written in imitation of

it … The most common usage today, however, is a more general one. We

say that a work is a classic when it has gained widespread and lasting

recognition, that is, when readers and critics over a period of time agree

that the work has merit that transcends the particular period in which it

was written … The terms may also refer to popular works that have

endured the test of time. The songs ‘Light My Fire’ (1967) by the Doors,

and ‘I Can’t Get No Satisfaction’ (1965) by the Rolling Stones, have been

called ‘rock classics’ or ‘classic rock’.”

The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, Bedford books

Classic Fiction in English LiteratureO B J E C T I V E S

In Step One you will:

• learn how fiction began and developed as a genre and came to be considered classicliterature

• learn about a leading classic novelist

The Bookmark on the opposite page offers essential information aboutthe development of fiction into a classic genre.

1 Study the Bookmark.

a Identify the main stages in the development and write them down in tabular form.

b Use your notes to make an oral report on the topic.

STEP One



M2 • A CLASSIC NOVELIST: CHARLES DICKENS

35

● THE RISE OF THE NOVEL The novel as an independentgenre emerged in Britain atthe beginning of the 18thcentury following theimprovement in printingtechnology which madepublishing cheaper andfaster. Journalism boomed,the first important Englishdictionaries and grammarswere published and helpedto standardise the Englishlanguage used by educatedpeople. Reading soon became a newform of entertainment among themiddle classes, who were on theincrease due to the IndustrialRevolution. As a consequence,the demand for reading materialincreased rapidly.

● THE MAKING OF THE GENRE The early eighteenth-centurynovel initially drew its form from non-fiction – diaries,autobiographies, travellers’tales, letters and biographies of adventurers. The novel alsoborrowed heavily from otherliterary genres: dialogue fromdrama, moral ideas from essays,imagery from poetry. By theend of the century, the novelhad acquired its own

conventions and an organicstructure and was generallyacknowledged as a literarygenre in its own right, on thesame level as drama and poetry.

● THE PIONEERS OF THE GENREThe three great pioneers of the 18th century novel wereDaniel Defoe (1660-1731), theauthor of Robinson Crusoe(1719), Samuel Richardson(1689-1761), who wrote thefirst epistolary novel Pamela(1740), and Henry Fielding,the author of Tom Jones (1749).They laid the foundations ofthe genre in terms of plot,characterisation, dialogue, use of a narrator and thecombination of realism,serious moral concern and insome cases humour.

● THE DEVELOPMENT OF FICTION INTO A CLASSIC GENRE Though still in its early stages,fiction soon became the mainform of entertainment for themiddle classes and novelwriting grew into a profitablebusiness and attracted moreand more writers. The longreign of Queen Victoria,known as the Victorian Age(1837-1901), saw theflourishing of the genre and

came to be known as the ‘Age ofFiction’, simply because of theimmense popularity the genregained in the period. Manyoutstanding writers turned to novelwriting which soon became aprofitable profession. The number ofnovels published yearly increasedenormously. The output varied bothin theme and tone, but it sharedcommon characteristics as regardsfictional conventions which reacheda high degree of complexity andrefinement and a close relationshipbetween the reading public and theauthor. Novels were also serialisedin magazines and this required thateach single instalment contained anelement of suspense to keep thereader’s interest and curiosity going.The novelist who best representsthe Victorian Age both in terms ofhis life and in his work is CharlesDickens (1812-70).

Bookmark The Road to Classic Fiction●

John Parry, London Street Scene, watercolour, 1837.This picture shows people reading posters in a Londonstreet in Dickens’ time.

2 Refer to the definitions on p. 34. Which of the meanings of the term can apply to Victorian fiction?

3 Read the following biography of Charles Dickens. Basing your answer on what you havelearnt in the Bookmark, say which aspects make him representative of the Victorian Age.

Phai

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V I CTO R IAN AG E

36

BIOGRAPHY

CHARLES DICKENS (1812-70)

An avid reader and enthusiastic scholar,

Charles was obliged to leave school for a

period when his father was put in prison for

debt. He had to work in a blacking factory and

this terrible experience is often echoed in his

representations of children and their exploitation

in his novels. He began his career as a journalist

but, being a talented storyteller, he soon achieved

critical and commercial success with the

publication of Pickwick Papers (1936-37). After

that, he devoted himself to writing fiction. He

published a succession of highly successful

novels, usually in monthly instalments, which

increased his popularity. He was admired at all

levels of Victorian society from Queen Victoria

herself down. He lived a very intense life. He also

worked as an editor of periodicals, supported

social causes, travelled widely in Europe and in

the United States, was an amateur actor and gave

public readings of his works.

Although Dickens never questioned the basic

values of his time such as hard work, romantic

love and family life, he was an effective critic of

the injustices of Victorian society. He frequently

denounced abuses in education, in the law and

employment, the injustice of social institutions

and the inequalities between the rich and the

poor. His best-known novels are: Oliver Twist

(1837-38), the story of an orphan exploited by a

band of thieves, which portrays the criminal

world developing in big cities as a counterpart to

the rise of a wealthy class; David Copperfield

(1849-50), which is to some extent

autobiographical and revisits his painful

childhood; Bleak House (1852-53), Hard Times

(1854) and Little Dorrit (1855-57) which are

remarkable for their portrayal of social selfishness

and greed and their support of the welfare of the

disadvantaged; Great Expectations (1860-61),

which is a ‘novel of formation’ as it focuses on the

psychological and moral development of the

central character, and is considered his best work.

Dickens displays his greatest talent in the

portrayal of character, especially in the crowd

of comic-realist figures who surround his

virtuous and unrealistic heroes and heroines.

A Classic PlotO B J E C T I V E S

In Step Two you will:

• learn the story–line of Great Expectations

• analyse the main features of its plot and subplots

• recognise the impact of plot on the reader

One of the reasons that makes novels of the past, in particular those of the 19thcentury, classics of fiction and fascinating to read is their plot. You already

know that plot is the feature that maintains the reader’s interest up to end.

You will later read some extracts from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, but inorder to understand how the plot works, you will need to work on the summary as well.

STEP Two


Ever

gree

n Li

ves,

198

3




37

1 Read the first part of the summary and complete the chart below with themain information about the characters in relation to Pip.

Name Role Personality Impact on Pip

Mrs Joe Gargery half-sister strict .........................................................

......................................... .......................................... .......................................... ............................................

......................................... .......................................... .......................................... ............................................

......................................... .......................................... .......................................... ............................................

s u m m a r y

PLOT SUBPLOTS

Philip Pirrip, called Pip for short, is an orphanbrought up by his half-sister and her husband, JoeGargery, the village blacksmith. He is afraid of hissister, who is very strict, but has a close relationshipwith Joe whose apprentice he is expected to becomewhen he is fourteen. On one of his solitary visits tohis parents’graves he meets and helps a convictwho has escaped from a prison ship. Even if theepisode has a deep emotional impact on him at thetime, Pip soon forgets it.

One day Miss Havisham, a rich eccentric old ladyasks him to her house to play with her ward Estella,a beautiful girl. Pip falls in love with her at firstsight. But Estella comments scornfully on his coarseappearance and clumsy behaviour. So Pip becomesashamed of his situation as a village boy anddreams of ‘becoming a gentleman’ in order to winEstella. The girl is sent abroad to finish hereducation. Pip stops his visits to Miss Havishamwhen he starts his apprenticeship with Joe, which isthe life he had always been meant for. One day a lawyer, Mr Jaggers, comes up from London with news for him.An anonymous benefactor wants togive Pip some money and educate him as a gentleman in London.

The convict whose name is Magwitch is eventuallyrecaptured and transported to a penal colony in Australia.

Miss Havisham lives as a recluse in a house where all the clocks are stopped at the same time. She neverleaves her bedroom and wears a faded wedding dress.

A prison ship like the one from which Magwitch,the convict, had escaped before meeting Pip in theopening scene of Great Expectations. Ev

ergr

een

Live

s, 1

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V I CTO R IAN AG E

38

2 What do you think will be Pip’s role in the novel?

3 Read the rest of the summary and complete the following notes about the various stagesin the relationship between Pip and Estella.

Pip first meets Estella in Miss Havisham’s house.

He meets her a second time .....................................................................................................................................................................................................

...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

s u m m a r y

PLOT SUBPLOTS

Pip believes Miss Havisham to be his unknown

benefactor, although he has no real evidence to

prove it. He goes to London to start his life as a

gentleman. Mr Jaggers is in charge of giving him

the money he needs. In the city Pip shares rooms

with Herbert Pocket, the son of a relative of

Miss Havisham’s. The young man tells Pip

Miss Havisham’s story which explains her

eccentric behaviour.

Life in London changes Pip. In his ambition to

become a gentleman he forgets his old way of life

and when Joe comes to London to inform him that

Miss Havisham wants to see him, he feels ashamed

of his friend’s coarse manners. When he goes back

to the village he stays at the village inn and returns

to London without even seeing Joe. At Miss

Havisham’s he meets Estella again, now a refined

young lady and more beautiful than ever.

Not only does this visit confirm Pip in the

conviction that Miss Havisham is the maker of his

fortune, but also that she hopes to see him married

to Estella. Back in London Pip often meets Estella

and his love grows stronger and stronger. Estella

warns him of her inability to love anyone because,

as a result of Miss Havisham’s teaching, she only

plays with men’s feelings to revenge the cruel

disappointment of Miss Havisham’s wedding day.

Pip’s life is suddenly shattered when Magwitch,

the convict he had helped in his childhood,

comes to visit him and tells him that he is his

benefactor.

After the first shock at this discovery, Pip’s good

nature prevails and he feels gratitude and affection

for the old man.

Miss Havisham was abandoned on her wedding

day and has never left her house since.

She hates men and is bringing up Estella to take her

revenge on men.

Miss Havisham asks Pip to look after Estella in

London.

Magwitch is Pip’s real benefactor and has come

back to London illegally from Australia, where he

had been transported for life and has made a

fortune as a sheep farmer. He will be hanged if he

is discovered in London. He wanted to see Pip

whose past kindness he had not forgotten and for

whom he has provided as if he were his own son.




39

He also organises Magwitch’s flight, with the help of

Herbert, when his presence in London is discovered.

The convict, however, is caught and dies in prison,

but not before discovering that his long-lost

daughter is alive and has become a fine young lady;

she is no less than Estella. As Pip’s wealth is

confiscated he is heavily in debt and falls severely ill.

He is nursed by Joe who also pays his debts. Herbert

meanwhile has set up a business abroad with the

money Pip had given him before going bankrupt.

When he recovers he joins Herbert abroad where he

works hard to make a position for himself. By this

time Estella has married a rich man who treats her

brutally, and she is eventually left a widow. When

Pip goes back to his native village at the age of 34 he

is a changed man. He finds life in the village has

changed too. Joe has married again after the death

of his wife and has a child named Pip. Miss

Havisham is long dead. Pip goes to see her old house

and unexpectedly meets Estella who has gone there

to see the place for the last time. The novel closes

with Pip and Estella leaving the house together. It is

not explicitly stated that Pip will eventually fulfil his

dream of marrying Estella, although the final words

of the novel imply it, “I saw no shadow of another

parting from her.”

Magwitch had had a daughter but had lost track

of her in her infancy while the mother’s child was

being tried for murder.

Jaggers, who was also Miss Havisham’s lawyer,

had actually entrusted the girl to Miss Havisham

to adopt while he had employed the mother as his

housekeeper after her acquittal.

A postcard illustrating keymoments in the story ofGreat Expectations.

S. H

arris

on /

R. A

llen

Pres

s Lt

d. B

ath



V I CTO R IAN AG E

40

Reading the summary you will have realised that besides the main plot, in which Pip isthe central character throughout the novel, there are various subplots; they are completestories in their own right which develop alongside the main one. The two most interestingsubplots concern Miss Havisham and the convict.

4 Consider the main plot and the two subplots.

a Note down what coincidences link the characters of the three plots to one another.

b Who is the linking character of the two subplots?

c What aspects of Pip’s character are highlighted by the impact of the two subplots on his life?

The novel was published in weekly instalments and was divided into three volumes whenit was first published in book form.

• Volume One included chapters 1-19 (Pip’s life from the age of seven to eighteen. Life in the village)

• Volume Two included chapters 20-39 (Pip’s life from the age of eighteen to twenty-three. Life in London)

• Volume Three included chapters 40-59 (Pip’s life from the age of twenty-three tothirty-four. Life in London, abroad and back in the village).

5 Look at the contents of the three volumes.

a Is there any correspondence between the division into volumes and the periods of Pip’s lifecovered?

b Why do you think Volume Two covers only five years of Pip’s life while the other two covereleven?

6 Why do you think the novel lacks a clear conclusion?

• to leave the reader free to speculate about possible developments

• to stress the idea that life is unpredictable

• because the novelist could not make up his mind about the ending

• other (specify) ……………

7 From the activities you have done, what aspect do you think is most likely to involvethe reader?

• the complexity of the story–line

• the conflict between characters

• the scope of the fictional world created

• the suspense

• individual dramatic events/moments





41

Reading from the NovelO B J E C T I V E S

In Step Three you will:

• analyse the characterisation of the protagonist

• describe the fictional features of a classic novel

CHARLES DICKENS (1812-70) BIOG RAPHY, p . 36

Great Expectations (1860-61)Now you are going to read some pages from Great Expectations.

Te x t o n e

The first extract tells of a crucial event in Pip’s life.

1 Read and say:

➔

STEP Three

a where Pip is

Though she called me “boy” so often, and with a carelessness that was far she is Estella

from complimentary, she was of about my own age. She seemed much older

than I, of course, being a girl, and beautiful and self-possessed1; and she was as

scornful2 of me as if she had been one-and-twenty, and a queen.

We went into the house by a side door — the great front entrance had two

chains across it outside — and the first thing I noticed was, that the passages

were all dark, and that she had left a candle burning there. She took it up, and

we went through more passages and up a staircase, and still it was all dark, and

only the candle lighted us.

10 At last we came to the door of a room, and she said, “Go in”.

I answered, more in shyness than politeness, “After you, miss”.

To this, she returned: “Don’t be ridiculous, boy; I am not going in”. And

scornfully walked away, and — what was worse — took the candle with her.

This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the only thing This refers to…

to be done being to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told from within to

enter. I entered, therefore, and found myself in a pretty large room, well lighted

with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it. It was a dressing-

1. self-possessed, calm and confident (sicura di sé). 2. scornful of, contemptuous of (sprezzante).

b what part of the plot the text belongs to.



V I CTO R IAN AG E

42

room, as I supposed from the furniture, though much of it was of forms and

uses then quite unknown to me. But prominent3 in it was a draped4 table with

20 a gilded5 looking-glass, and that I made out6 at first sight to be a fine lady’s

dressing-table.

Whether I should have made out this object so soon, if there had been no

fine lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an arm-chair, with an elbow resting on the

table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen,

or shall ever see.

She was dressed in rich materials — satins, and lace, and silks — all of white.

Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair,

and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some bright

jewels sparkled7 on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay

30 sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-

packed trunks8, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for

she had but one shoe on — the other was on the table near her hand — her veil

was but half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for

her bosom lay with those trinkets9, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and

some flowers, and a prayerbook, all confusedly heaped about the looking-glass.

It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things, though I saw

more of them in the first moments than might be supposed. But, I saw that

everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago,

and had lost its lustre, and was faded10 and yellow. I saw that the bride within

40 the bridal dress had withered11 like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no

brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had

been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure

upon which it now hung loose, had shrunk to12 skin and bone. Once, I had

been taken to see some ghastly13 waxwork14 at the Fair, representing I know

not what impossible personage lying in state15. Once, I had been taken to one

of our old marsh churches to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress, that

had been dug out16 of a vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and

skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have

cried out, if I could.

50 “Who is it?” said the lady at the table.

“Pip, ma’am.”

“Pip?”

“Mr Pumblechook’s boy, ma’am. Come — to play.”

“Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close.”

It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of the

surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped at twenty

3. prominent, noticeable (evidente).4. draped, decorated with folded cloth (drappeggiata).5. gilded, painted gold (dorato).6. made out, saw (capii).7. sparkled, shone (brillavano).8. trunks, cases (bauli).9. trinkets, small decorative articles (suppellettili).10. was faded, had lost brightness (era sbiadita).

11. withered, decayed (appassita).12. shrunk to, reduced to (ritirata).13. ghastly, horrible (orribile).14. waxwork, models of human beings made in wax (statue di cera).15. lying in state, (of a dead body) lying in a public place so that peoplemay honour it (esposto nella camera ardente).16. dug out of, disinterred from (disseppellito).

She refers to…

the bride is…

me refers to…




43

minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at twenty minutes

to nine.

“Look at me”, said Miss Havisham. “You are not afraid of a woman who has

60 never seen the sun since you were born?”

I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie comprehended

in the answer “No”.

“Do you know what I touch here?” she said, laying her hands, one upon the

other, on her left side.

“Yes, ma’am.” (It made me think of the young man.)

“What do I touch?”

“Your heart.”

“Broken!”

She uttered the word with an eager17 look, and with strong emphasis, and

70 with a weird18 smile that had a kind of boast19 in it. Afterwards, she kept her

hands there for a little while, and slowly took them away as if they were heavy.

“I am tired”, said Miss Havisham. “I want diversion, and I have done with

men and women. Play”.

I think it will be conceded by my most disputatious20 reader, that she could

hardly have directed an unfortunate boy to do anything in the wide world more

difficult to be done under the circumstances.

“I sometimes have sick fancies21, she went on, “and I have a sick fancy that I

want to see some play. There, there!” with an impatient movement of the fingers

of her right hand; “play, play, play!”

80 For a moment, with the fear of my sister’s working me22 before my eyes, I Why should his sister

had a desperate idea of starting round the room in the assumed character of Mr work him?

Pumblechook’s chaise-cart. But, I felt myself so unequal to the performance that

I gave it up, and stood looking at Miss Havisham in what I suppose she took for

a dogged23 manner, inasmuch as24 she said, when we had taken a good look at

each other:

“Are you sullen25 and obstinate?”

“No ma’am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can’t play just now. If

you complain of me I shall get into trouble with my sister, so I would do it if I

could; but it’s so new here, and so strange, and so fine — and melancholy —” I

90 stopped, fearing I might say too much, or had already said it, and we took

another look at each other.

Before she spoke again, she turned her eyes from me, and looked at the dress

she wore, and at the dressing-table and finally at herself in the looking-glass.

“So new to him,” she muttered, “so old to me; so strange to him, so familiar

to me; so melancholy to both of us! Call Estella.”

As she was still looking at the reflection of herself, I thought she was still

talking to herself, and kept quiet.

17. eager, intense (intenso).18. weird, strange and frightening (spettrale).19. boast, self-satisfaction (vanto).20. disputatious, pedantic (pedante).21. fancies, desires (desideri).

22. working me, beating me (picchiasse).23. dogged, obstinate (testardo).24. inasmuch as, because (poiché).25. sullen, bad-tempered (musone).



V I CTO R IAN AG E

44

“Call Estella”, she repeated, flashing a look at me. “You can do that. Call

Estella. At the door”.

100 To stand in the dark in a mysterious passage of an unknown house,

bawling26 Estella to a scornful young lady neither visible nor responsive, and

feeling it a dreadful27 liberty so to roar28 out her name, was almost as bad as

playing to order. But, she answered at last, and her light came along the dark she refers to…

passage like a star.

Miss Havisham beckoned29 her to come close, and took up a jewel from the

table, and tried its effect upon her fair young bosom and against her pretty

brown hair. “Your own, one day, my dear, and you will use it well. Let me see you

play cards with this boy.”

“With this boy! Why, he is a common labouring-boy!”

110 I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer — only it seemed so unlikely

— “Well? You can break his heart.”

“What do you play, boy?” asked Estella of myself, with the greatest disdain.

“Nothing but beggar my neighbour30 miss.”

“Beggar him,” said Miss Havisham to Estella. So we sat down to cards.

It was then I began to understand that everything in the room had stopped,

like the watch and the clock, a long time ago. I noticed that Miss Havisham put

down the jewel exactly on the spot from which she had taken it up. As Estella

dealt the cards, I glanced at the dressing-table again, and saw that the shoe upon

it, once white, now yellow, had never been worn31. I glanced down at the foot

120 from which the shoe was absent, and saw that the silk stocking on it, once white,

now yellow, had been trodden ragged32. Without this arrest of everything, this

standing still of all the pale decayed objects, not even the withered bridal dress

on the collapsed form could have looked so like grave-clothes, or the long veil so

like a shroud33.

So she sat, corpse-like, as we played at cards; the frillings34 and trimmings35

on her bridal dress, looking like earthy paper. I knew nothing then, of the

discoveries that are occasionally made of bodies buried in ancient times, which

fall to powder in the moment of being distinctly seen; but, I have often thought

since, that she must have looked as if the admission of the natural light of day she refers to…

130 would have struck her to dust.

“He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!” said Estella with disdain, before our

first game was out. “And what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!”

I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to

consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so strong, that it

became infectious, and I caught it.

26. bawling, shouting in a loud voice (urlando).27. dreadful, terrible (tremenda).28. to roar, to shout loudly (gridare).29. beckoned, signalled (fece cenno).30. beggar my neighbour, a game of cards (in Italian asino, omino nero).

31. worn, put on (indossata).32. trodden ragged, walked on till it had fallen to pieces (a brandelli).33. shroud, cloth for covering a dead body (sudario).34. frillings, decorations (increspature).35. trimmings, decorative additions (guarnizioni).




45

She won the game, and dealt36. I misdealt37, as was only natural, when I knew

she was lying in wait for me to do wrong; and she denounced me for a stupid

clumsy38, labouring-boy.

“You say nothing of her,” remarked Miss Havisham to me, as she looked on.

140 “She says many hard things of you, but you say nothing of her. What do you

think of her?”

“I don’t like to say,” I stammered39.

“Tell me in my ear,” said Miss Havisham, bending down.

“I think she is very proud,” I replied, in a whisper.

“Anything else?”

“I think she is very pretty.”

“Anything else?”

“I think she is very insulting.” (She was looking at me then with a look of She refers to…

supreme aversion.)

150 “Anything else?”

“I think I should like to go home.”

“And never see her again, though she is so pretty?”

“I am not sure that I shouldn’t like to see her again, but I should like to go

home now.”

“You shall go soon,” said Miss Havisham, aloud. “Play the game out.”

Saving for the one weird smile at first, I should have felt almost sure that

Miss Havisham’s face could not smile. It had dropped into a watchful and

brooding expression — most likely when all the things about her had become

transfixed40 and it looked as if nothing could ever lift it up again. Her chest had

160 dropped, so that she stooped41; and her voice had dropped, so that she spoke

low, and with a dead lull42 upon her; altogether, she had the appearance of

having dropped, body and soul, within and without, under the weight of a

crushing blow.

I played the game to an end with Estella, and she beggared me. She threw

the cards down on the table when she had won them all, as if she despised them for them refers to…

having been won of me.

“When shall I have you here again?” said Miss Havisham. “Let me think.”

I was beginning to remind her that to-day was Wednesday, when she

checked43 me with her former impatient movement of the fingers of her right

170 hand.

“There, there! I know nothing of days of the week; I know nothing of weeks

of the year. Come again after six days. You hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Estella, take him down. Let him have something to eat, and let him roam44

and look about him while he eats. Go, Pip.”

36. dealt, gave out the cards (diede le carte).37. misdealt, gave out the cards in the wrong way (diedi le carte inmodo errato).38. clumsy, awkward in movement (goffo).39. stammered, said hesitatingly (balbettai).

40. transfixed, immobilised (paralizzate).41. stooped, bent (era curva).42. lull, calm (calma).43. checked, stopped (interruppe).44. roam, wander about (andare in giro).



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I followed the candle down, as I had followed the candle up, and she stood it

in the place where we had found it. Until she opened the side entrance, I had

fancied45, without thinking about it, that it must necessarily be night-time. The

rush of the daylight quite confounded46 me, and made me feel as if I had been

180 in the candlelight of the strange room many hours.

“You are to wait here, you boy,” said Estella; and disappeared and closed the door.

2 Focus on Pip again.

a Underline all the words and phrases that convey his reactions to the scene and the other characters.

b How would you summarise his feeling?

Pip is …………… (choose from the list)

astonished self-conscious sad frightened embarrassed cross

3 Focus on the relationship between Pip and the other two characters.

a Write down in your notebook words, phrases and sentences that describe the physical appearanceand the personality of the two characters Pip meets.

Estella Miss Havisham

Physical appearance ................................................................................. .....................................................................................

Personality ................................................................................. .....................................................................................

b Which character is described in greater detail?

c Summarise briefly how the two characters appear. You can use the adjectives below or supply your own.

beautiful old scornful shy frightening frightened spiteful tired strange

4 Consider characterisation.

a How are the characters created (through description, narration or dialogue)?

b Do they show any change in their behaviour in the extract you have read?

c Which character is influenced by interaction with the others and how?

5 Consider the setting.

a How is the scene described?

■■1 The description starts from the general and narrows down to particulars.

■■2 The description starts from particulars and widens to the general.

■■3 The description starts from the general and narrows down to particulars and follows a linearroute going into details on the aspects that most strike Pip.

b Which are the main places mentioned?

c Which of the places is described in more detail?

45. fancied, believed (creduto). 46. confounded, surprised (disorientò).




47

d Which of the following sentences can be used to describe the setting? Supply appropriatequotations to support your choice.

■■1 The setting is completely cut off from theexternal world.

■■2 It is very dark.

■■3 It is pervaded by a sense of decay.

■■4 It is cut off from the normal flow of time.

■■5 It is cosy.

■■6 It has a spectral quality.

■■7 It is like a frozen picture.

The particular atmosphere of the setting derives from many interrelated aspects that runthrough the whole scene. For example no colours are mentioned, the whole scene is inblack and white and a sense of decay and death permeates it. Moreover the impact ofEstella’s attitude to Pip conveys a sense of awkwardness.

6 Consider the language.

a Make notes in your notebook of the words, phrases and similes that convey these aspects underthe headings below.

Sense of Colour Sense of Decay

............................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................

b Which of the following features characterise the language used in the extract?

■■ adjectives which convey subjective impressions

■■ personification

■■ simile

■■ metaphor

■■ factual adjectives

■■ cumulation of details

7 Focus on narrative technique. Which of the following features apply to the narrator in this extract? Tick (✓) as appropriateand supply an example for each.

■■1 The narrator is not a character in the story.

■■2 The narrator is the protagonist of the story.

■■3 The narrator adopts Pip’s point of view.

■■4 The narrator adopts different points of view:of himself as a child, of himself as an adult.

■■5 The point of view of Pip as a child is

predominant.8 Consider your position as a reader.

a Whose point of view do you share?

➔ T H E F I L M : G r e a t E x p e c t a t i o n s ( 1 9 4 6 ) , p . 5 7

➔ T H E F I L M : G r e a t E x p e c t a t i o n s ( 1 9 9 8 ) , p . 5 9

➔ T H E M U S I C : G r e a t E x p e c t a t i o n s ( 1 9 4 6 ) , p . 6 1



V I CTO R IAN AG E

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b Are you led to identify with or distance yourself from the protagonist?

Te x t t w o

Here is the last extract which shows another aspect of the protagonist.

1 Read and say: a who is with Pip b what part of the plot the

“May I make so bold,” he said then, with a smile that was like a frown1, and he refers to…

with a frown that was like a smile, “as ask2 you how you have done well, since

you and me was out on them lone shivering marshes?”3

“How?”

“Ah!”

He emptied his glass, got up, and stood at the side of the fire, with his heavy

brown hand on the mantelshelf. He put a foot up to the bars, to dry and warm

it, and the wet boot began to steam; but, he neither looked at it, nor at the fire, Why do you think he

but steadily looked at me. It was only now that I began to tremble. began to tremble?

10 When my lips had parted, and had shaped some words that were without

sound, I forced myself to tell him (though I could not do it distinctly), that I had

been chosen to succeed to some property.

“Might a mere warmint4 ask what property?” said he.

I faltered5, “I don’t know.”

“Might a mere warmint ask whose property?” said he.

I faltered again, “I don’t know.”

“Could I make a guess, I wonder,” said the Convict, “at your income since

you come6 of age! As to the first figure now. Five?7”

With my heart beating like a heavy hammer of disordered action, I rose out

20 of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it, looking wildly at him.

“Concerning a guardian,” he went on. “There ought to have been some

guardian, or such-like, whiles8 you was9 a minor. Some lawyer, maybe. As to the

first letter of that lawyer’s name now. Would it be J?”

All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its disappointments, What is the truth of

dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude Pip’s position?

that I was borne down10 by them and had to struggle for every breath I drew.

“Put it,” he resumed, “as the employer11 of that lawyer whose name begun12

with a J, and might be Jaggers — put it as he had come over sea to Portsmouth,

and had landed there, and had wanted to come on to you. ‘However, you have

30 found me out,’ you says13 just now. Well! However did I find you out? Why, I

1. frown, displeased look (sogghigno).2. as ask, and ask.3. you and me was out on them lone shivering marshes, (dialect)standard English ‘you and I were out on those lonely shiveringmarshes’.4. warmint, (dialect) vermin.5. faltered, hesitated (balbettai).6. come (dialect) came.

7. As to the first figure now. Five?, i.e. would the first figure of yourincome be 5?8. whiles, (dialect) while.9. you was, (dialect) you were.10. borne down, crushed (schiacciato).11. Put it as the employer..., i.e. let’s assure that the employer...12. begun, (dialect) began.13. you says, (dialect) you say.




49

t the text belongs to.

wrote from Portsmouth to a person in London, for particulars of your address.

That person’s name? Why, Wemmick.” Wemmick is Jagger’s

I could not have spoken one word, though it had been to save my life. I secretary

stood, with a hand on the chair-back and a hand on my breast, where I seemed

to be suffocating — I stood so, looking wildly at him, until I grasped at the

chair, when the room began to surge14 and turn. He caught me, drew me to the

sofa, put me up against the cushions, and bent on one knee before me: bringing

the face that I now well remembered, and that I shuddered15 at, very near to

mine.

“Yes, Pip, dear boy, I’ve made a gentleman on you16! It’s me wot17 has done

40 it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea should go to you.

I swore arterwards18, sure as ever I spec’lated19 and got rich, you should get rich.

I lived rough20, that21 you should live smooth22; I worked hard, that you should

be above work. What odds23, dear boy? Do I tell it, fur you to feel a obligation?

Not a bit. I tell it, fur24 you to know as that there hunted dunghill dog wot you

kep life in25, got his head so high that he could make a gentleman — and, Pip,

you’re him!”

The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him, the repugnance the man is…

with which I shrank from him, could not have been exceeded if he had been

some terrible beast.

50 “Look’ee26 here, Pip. I’m your second father. You’re my son — more to me

nor27 any son. I’ve put away money, only for you to spend.”

2 Consider the relationship between Pip and the convict.

a How would you describe the convict’s feelings and mood? Choose from the list below giving an

14. surge, move (ondeggiare).15. shuddered, shook with horror or revulsion (mi fece rabbrividire).16. on you, (dialect) of you.17. wot, (dialect) what, here used to mean who.18. arterwards, (dialect) afterwards.19. spec’lated, (dialect) speculated, tried to make money (feci dellespeculazioni).20. lived rough, had a difficult life (ebbi una vita dura).

21. that, in order that.22. live smooth, have an easy life (avessi una vita facile).23. What odds?, what does it matter.24. fur you, (dialect) for you.25. as that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in, (dialect) thatthat wretched human being whose life you saved.26. Look’ee, (dialect) look.27. nor, (dialect) than.

example for each choice.

• He is very proud of what he has achieved inhis own life.

• He enjoys revealing he is Pip’s

benefactor.

• He feels affection for Pip.

• He is sure he has done a positive thing.

• He enjoys seeing what Pip has become.

b Underline the verbs, phrases and sentences that reveal Pip’s reactions to what the convict tellshim. What effect does the contrast between Pip’s feelings and the convict’s create?




V I CTO R IAN AG E

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c What do you, as a reader, think of Pip and his reaction?

Dickens and the Classic NovelO B J E C T I V E S

In Step Four you will:

• identify the characteristics of Dickens’ style

• define a classic novel

The exercises you have done in the previous Step should have made youaware of many of the characteristics of Dickens’ style. The term ‘style’ coversthe specific way of using language which is a characteristic of an author, butmore broadly it also includes the specific way of handling the variousfeatures of a genre by an author.

The Bookmark below summarises in note form the main features of Dickens’style.

STEP Four

● STORY AND PLOT– Complex, often based on

main character’s

development, rich in

sensational and

melodramatic devices

– emphasis on some events

through the handling of

fictional time.

● FICTIONAL WORLD– Gallery of memorable

characters, created both

through showing and

telling, often caricatured;

– lively interaction between

characters

– very detailed settings in tune

with the story-line and the

characters

– creation of very emotional

atmospheres.

● NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE AND READER’S INVOLVEMENT– Omniscient narrator– involvement of the reader

through the handling of point ofview

– emotional tone– direct address by the narrator

– choice of sensationalsituations and themes.

● LANGUAGE– Highly figurative

language– repetition of key

words and syntacticalstructures

– flair for dialogue– detailed descriptions.

● THEMES– Exploitation of children– poor educational system,

psychological and moralgrowth of one character

– unsafe factory conditions– greediness and selfishness

of rich upper classes– the plight of the working

class– triumph of good over evil.

Bookmark Dickens’ Style●

Robert William Buss, Dickens’s Dream, watercolour and pencil,1875. The picture shows Dickens in his study surrounded bythe characters of his novels.

Nat

iona

l Por

teai

t Gal

lery




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1 Read it and say which features you have come across in the texts you have read, supportingyour choices with appropriate evidence from the texts.

Below is a definition paragraph of the classic novel as exemplified in Dickens’ Great Expectations.

2 Read the paragraph and say which meaning the word ‘classic’ takes on in the case of fiction.

The classic novel is characterised by the creation of a complex fictional world

which the reader accepts as real. It is centred around a powerful character having

an eventful life and acting against a lifelike and detailed setting. The novel generally

ends in a happy way or at least with good triumphing over evil. The narrative voice

is usually that of an omniscient narrator who expresses the dominant moral views

of the time. The reader is involved both emotionally and rationally because s/he

shares his/her views of the world with the novelist. All the conventions of fictions

are present and are exploited in a very articulated way. These features are typical of

the novels of the first part of the Victorian Age which have come to be seen as

10 models against which to judge all the further evolutions of the genre.

STUDY BOX Classic Fiction in Context

CHECK… Check what you have learnt in this Module by completing the following

paragraph about Great Expectations.

The main 1) ............................................................................ of the novel revolves around Pip’s life from the

age of seven to the age of thirty-three. The 2) ............................................................................ is narrated

by a first-person 3) ............................................................................ through description,

4) ............................................................................ and narration. The 5) ............................................................................ narrator

is Pip, the main character, who employs two different 6) ............................................................................ .

The first is that of himself as a 7) ............................................................................ ; the second is that of

himself as an 8) ............................................................................ remembering and commenting on past

9) ............................................................................ . The reader shares Pip’s point of view as an adult in

Luke Fildes, Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward, oil on canvas, 1874.The painting illustrates poor people in Victorian Society.

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V I CTO R IAN AG E

52

Abraham Solomon, Brighton Solomon, oil on wood, c. 1860. The painting shows the upper middle class inVictorian times holidaying at the seaside.

judging events but he is also able to participate in and sympathise with the

10) ............................................................................ of Pip as a child. 11) ............................................................................ come to

life both through their interaction and the narrator’s description. While Pip as a child

is seen through his own eyes as an adult, the other characters are seen mainly through Pip’s

eyes as a child. Pip’s 12) ............................................................................ emerges mostly from his reactions to what

he sees and from his interaction with other characters. The 13) ............................................................................ ,

is described in great detail. The language is highly figurative but also detailed and descriptive

and repetition is frequently used.

…AND LEARN The term ‘classic fiction’ is synonymous with the realistic fiction which had

Realistic Fiction first emerged in Britain in the 18th century but particularly flourished in the

early Victorian Age (1837-1901). In that period more and more authors took to

novel writing, enlarging the scope of the genre and refining fictional techniques.

The aim of realistic fiction is to represent life as it really is, that is, to create a

fictional world which the reader accepts as real and to which s/he responds both

emotionally and rationally. This implies a set of values equally shared by writer

and readers as a frame of reference.

Novelists and Society Novelists saw and denounced the evils of their time, such as poverty, the

exploitation of children and workers, and the inadequate educational system, the

selfishness of the upper classes. However, like their reading public, they did not

question the fundamental idea that the establishment was right, that progress was

beneficial and social evils were only a temporary and inevitable setback. Life was

seen and judged from the same point of view by novelists and readers alike. The

fictional world of the novels represented what was good and bad in the society of

the time. The stories were complex and involving and generally had a happy end

with good triumphing over evil. Main characters conformed to the accepted rules

of moral behaviour. Both characters and events were presented through the eyes of

an omniscient narrator who gave voice to and supported the conventional set of

values of the time. This sense of a shared world between novelists and their public


▼ ▼

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53


Assignment

NES written

accounts for the success of the genre and explains some of the main features of the

realistic novel and the similarities between the various novelists notwithstanding

differences of style and theme. APPLYING WHAT YOU KNOW

TOWARDS THE ESSAY

Below is a short summary of another classic novel of the 19th century, Vanity Fair (1847-48) by W. M. Thackeray, and a passage from it.

1 Read both and then write an essay (approx. 250-300 words) on the novel’s main featuresfollowing the outline below.

• The Story What is it about?

• Narrative technique Who narrates the story and how is it narrated?

• Characters Who are they? What are they like? How are they created?

• Setting What kind of setting is it? What function does it fulfil?

• Language What are the main features of the language used in the extract?

s u m m a r y

This novel is based on the life and adventures of two contrasting characters, Rebecca Sharp, the orphan

of an artist and a French opera dancer and Amelia Sedley, the daughter of a rich City merchant. It is

set at the time of the Napoleonic Wars.

Amelia, though apparently secure and happy, experiences a series of misadventures: her father’s

bankruptcy, an unhappy marriage soon ended by her husband’s death in the war, money problems.

At the end she finds happiness in her second marriage to Captain Dobbin, a friend of her husband’s

who had always been in love with her. Rebecca, on the other hand, after the failure of her plan to marry

Amelia’s brother, becomes a governess and the favourite of a rich lady, Miss Crawley, whose nephew,

Rawdon, she marries. She experiences ups and downs in her life and resorts to all sorts of scheming in

1. her, refers to Rawdon’s sister-in-law. 2. She, refers to Rawdon’s wife, Becky.

order to improve her social and financial position. Eventually her

marriage breaks up and she turns to a disreputable life on the Continent.

Vanity Fair by W. M. Thackeray

Rawdon left her1 and walked home rapidly. It was nine o’ clock at night. He

ran across the streets, and the great squares of Vanity Fair, and at length came up

breathless opposite his own house. He started back and fell against the railings,

trembling as he looked up. The drawing-room windows were blazing with light.

She2 had said that she was in bed and ill. He stood there for some time, the light

from the rooms on his pale face.



54

He took out his door-key and let himself into the house. He could hear

laughter in the upper rooms. He was in the balldress in which he had been

captured the night before. He went silently up the stairs; leaning against the

10 banisters at the stairhead. Nobody was stirring in the house besides — all the

servants had been sent away. Rawdon heard laughter within — laughter and

singing. Becky was singing a snatch of the song of the night before; a hoarse

voice shouted “Brava! Brava!” — it was Lord Steyne’s.

Rawdon opened the door and went in. A little table with a dinner was laid

out — and wine and plate. Steyne was hanging over the sofa on which Becky sat.

The wretched woman was in a brilliant full toilette, her arms and all her fingers

sparkling with bracelets and rings; and the brilliants on her breast which Steyne

had given her. He had her hand in his, and was bowing over it to kiss it, when

Becky started up with a faint scream as she caught sight of Rawdon’s white face.

20 At the next instant she tried a smile, a horrid smile, as if to welcome her

husband: and Steyne rose up, grinding his teeth, pale, and with fury in

his looks.

He, too, attempted a laugh — and came forward holding out his hand.

“What, come back! How d’ye do, Crawley?” he said, the nerves of his mouth

twitching as he tried to grin at the intruder.

There was that in Rawdon’s face which caused Becky to fling herself before

him. “I am innocent, Rawdon,” she said; “before God, I am innocent.” She clung

hold of his coat, of his hands; her own were all covered with serpents, and rings,

and baubles. “I am innocent. Say I am innocent,” she said to Lord Steyne.

30 He thought a trap had been laid for him, and was as furious with the wife as

with the husband. “You innocent! Damn you,” he screamed out. “You innocent!

Why, every trinket you have on your body is paid for by me. I have given you

thousands of pounds which this fellow has spent, and for which he has sold you.

Innocent, by —! You’re as innocent as your mother, the ballet-girl, and your

husband the bully. Don’t think to frighten me as you have done others. Make

way, sir, and let me pass;” and Lord Steyne seized up his hat, and, with flame in

his eyes, and looking his enemy fiercely in the face, marched upon him, never

for a moment doubting that the other would give way. But Rawdon Crawley

springing out, seized him by the neckcloth, until Steyne, almost strangled,

40 writhed, and bent under his arm. “You lie, you dog!” said Rawdon. “You lie, you

coward and villain!” And he struck the Peer twice over the face with his open

hand, and flung him bleeding to the ground. It was all done before Rebecca

could interpose. She stood there trembling before him. She admired her

husband, strong, brave, and victorious.

“Come here,” he said. — She came up at once.

“Take off those things.” — She began, trembling, pulling the jewels from her

arms, and the rings from her shaking fingers, and held them all in a heap

quivering and looking up at him. “Throw them down,” he said, and she dropped

them. He tore the diamond ornament out of her breast, and flung it at Lord

50 Steyne. It cut him on his bald forehead. Steyne wore the scar to his dying day.

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FILM

2 What are the similarities and differences between the texts you have read in the Moduleand this one?

Beyond Literature

THE WOMAN IN WHITE (1997) directed by Tim Fywell, starring Tara Fitzgerald as Marian, JustineWaddell as Laura and Andrew Lincoln as Walter Hartright

This adaptation of Collins’ novel recreates the suspense in the book and also gives aninsight into 19th-century English society. Before starting to work on the clip revise thesummary of the story on pp. 19-20 and 22.

1 (PREVIEWING) Below is a possible version of the screenplay for this clip.

a Read it and form a mental picture of what is going on.

b Find the following information:

1 What characters are involved?2 What different settings are there?3 What is the crucial event about?4 What makes it clear that the warden is not Sir Percival’s accomplice?5 How does the scene compare with the original plot?

SCRIPT

Scene 1. INTERIOR. Dark corridor and large bare room.(1 tracking shot) Three characters walk along a corridor. They reach a balcony overlooking a room lit up bydaylight. Downstairs a woman is sitting on a chair in a corner facing a wall. Marian walks along the balconywhile Walter starts talking to the Warden.WALTER Oh, I’ve just remembered Sir Percival had this message for you.WARDEN For me, Sir?(2 ..........................................................) Marian walks along the balcony.WALTER He wanted to know if you’d heard from Mrs Cartherick, Ann’s mother.WARDEN No, Sir, I haven’t heard anything from Mrs Cartherick. As Sir Percival said, ...(3 very long shot)The woman sitting on a chair; her face is not visible.(4 medium shot) MARIAn (going down the stairs slowly): Ann ... (5 very long shot) MARIAN (almost at the foot of the stairs): Ann ...(6 close-up) MARIAN (on the lower floor looking at the woman): It is a friend ...(7 medium long shot) The woman is sitting with a listless attitude; her long hair hides her face; she startsturning her head.(8 close-up) MARIAN (horrified expression): Oh ... Laura(9 extreme close-up) Laura’s face has a vacant expression.(10 from close-up to extreme close-up) Marian in tears embraces Laura.(11 ..........................................................) Walter rushes downstairs from the balcony above.(12 extreme close-up) MARIAN (embracing Laura): Oh, my God in heaven(13 close-up) Walter stops transfixed by shock. (14 ..........................................................) Laura looks towards him; Marian’s face also turns towards him.(15 close-up) WALTER (rushing to embrace Laura): Laura(16 ..........................................................) Marian kisses Laura.(17 very long shot) The three characters below; the warden looks down from the balcony.

Scene 2. INTERIOR. Warden’s office.(18 medium shot) The warden is sitting on an armchair with worried expression.

FILM MUSIC VISUAL ART

( p. 22)➔



56

BEYOND LITERATURE

WALTER We’ll see you are not blamed. (19 close-up) WALTER (to the warden): And for now nobody needknow she has left.



57

FILM

2 (FIRST VIEWING) Watch the clip and explain whether the sequence is similar to or differentfrom what you imagined.

3 (SECOND VIEWING) Watch again carefully.

a Write the appropriate type of shot in the blanks in the text above:medium shot close-up

extreme close-up tracking shot

b Point out in which shot/s the contrast light/darkness is emphasised. To what effect do you think?

music score of the clip go to the Music Section, p. 60.

4 (THIRd VIEWING)

a Identify which of the shotsin brackets are also highangle and low angle. Inwhich case do theyconvey the subjectivepoint of view of one of the

characters?

b What type of shots have anarrative function andwhich ones have beenused to convey feelingsand pathos?

In order to analyse the

FILM

( p. 47)➔



58

BEYOND LITERATURE

GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946)

directed by David Lean, starring Anthony Wager as young Pip, JeanSimmons as young Estella and Martha Hunt as Miss Havisham

The film has become a classic.

1 (FIRST VIEWING. SOUND ON) Watch the clip. Here is a list of shots in the sequence. They aregiven in jumbled order. While watching, number them in the correct order.

■■ a) Hands playing a game of cards.

■■ b) Detail of a book on a table covered with cobwebs and with a spider.

■■ c) Pip and Estella go up the stairs.

■■ d) Pip opens the door and enters Miss Havisham’s room.

■■ e) Pip drops his cards.

■■ f) Pip approaches Miss Havisham.

■■ g) Estella enters Miss Havisham’s room.

■■ h) Estella goes away and Pip knocks at the door.

■■ i) Pip gets closer to Miss Havisham.

■■ j) Estella approaches Miss Havisham and is shown a necklace.

■■ k) Pip and Estella stand in front of a door.



59

GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1998)

DIRECTED BY ALFONSO CUARÓN, STARRING ETHAN HAWKE AS FINN, GWYNETH

PALTROW AS ESTELLA, ROBERT DE NIRO AS THE CONVICT, ANNE BANCROFT AS MISS

NORA DINSMOOR, JEREMY KISSNER AS YOUNG FINN AND RAQUEL BEAUDENE AS

YOUNG ESTELLA

This film is a modern version of Dickens’ classic novel. You are going to watch the sameepisode as in the previous clip.

1 (FIRST VIEWING) Watch and compare this clip with the one from David Lean’s Great Expectations.Point out similarities and differences as regards:

– setting – characters’ clothes/physical appearance– atmosphere – characters’ behaviour/reactions

2 (SECOND VIEWING) Watch and listen carefully. Fill in the blanks in the script below.

SCRIPT

FINN (narrator): Old Miss Dinsmoor hadn’t been seen in years. I’d heard that she was 1) ..................................

YOUNG ESTELLA: Go ahead.

YOUNG FINN: Aren’t you 2) .................................. ?

YOUNG ESTELLA: Don’t think so.

FINN (narrator): ... but 3) .................................. knew how crazy. Her room 4) .................................. of dead flowers

and cat piss.

(a record player and records; the 5) .................................. starts playing; a cage with a green

6) .................................. in the middle of the room; the back figure of a woman who starts

7) .................................. to the music; the woman turns about and 8) .................................. towards Finn.)

MISS DINSMOOR: Chobum! Besame, besame mucho.

Each time I cling to your kiss I hear music 9) .................................. .

Besame, besame mucho.

Hold me my darling and say that you’ll always be 10) .................................. .

3 Watch again and match the images (below left) and the film technique (below right) usedin the clip.

1 Finn enters the room a) long shot2 record player and records b) close-up3 Finn approaching the cage c) medium shot4 parrot in the cage d) detail5 Finn’s eyes looking at the parrot e) subjective point of view6 woman holding boy in her arms f) zooming in

4 Which of the two film clips did you like better? Why?

FILM

FILM

( p. 47)➔



60

THE WOMAN IN WHITE (1997)music by David Ferguson

We will now consider the music of the clip from The Woman in White which was composed byDavid Ferguson (➔ Biography below).

1 (FIRST LISTENING) Watch and listen. a When does the music start?b How would you describe the music and the sensations it arouses?

sweet menacing lugubrious soothing tense melancholic sombre passionatec Can you detect any significant change in the musical sequence? If so, where?

2 (SECOND LISTENING) Watch and listen again. In column A are listed shots of the sequenceand in column B the description of the music in jumbled order.

a Match them.

A B

1 Marian approaches Laura a) enters voice with descending melodyaccompanied by the harp

2 Marian goes down the stairs b) ascending theme played by acuteand addresses Laura strings

3 Laura slowly turns her head and Marian c) ascending main theme played by recognises her the cello

4 Marian hugs Laura d) slow descending melody of winds

b Where does the music underline the following feelings?

■■ underlines key moments in the narration■■ evokes feelings of tension and suspense■■ has a premonitory function

■■ underlines sudden changes of perspective■■ underlines solutions of mystery■■ stresses mystery

b Where does the theme particularly hint at a link between Laura and Ann’s destinies?

c In what way does the music involve the viewer?

1 reaches an emotional climax and then eases2 becomes more passionate with a sense of

aching and distress

3 evokes feelings of nostalgia and melancholy4 evokes suggestions of further impending

dangers

The theme of this piece is the main theme of the film and is often associated with thewoman in white and her apparitions.

3 (THIRD LISTENING) Focus again on the whole sequence.a Which of the following aspects does the theme underline? It…

BIOGRAPHY

DAVID FERGUSON (b. 1953)

Film and TV soundtrack composer, he was

born in 1953 in South London. He started his

career in the theatre, but in the ’80s he joined

a group and turned to pop music. When the

group split up he started soundtrack work for

Channel 4. His music for film versions of best

sellers such as Ruth Rendell’s novels gained

him fame and he is now ranked among the

best British film composers.

BEYOND LITERATURE

MUSIC

( p. 22)➔



61

MUSIC

MUSIC

GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946)music by Walter Goehr

You are going to analyse some of the aspects of the musical comment of the film cliptaken from Great Expectations, composed by Walter Goehr (➔ Biography below).

1 (FIRST LISTENING) Watch the clip again and focus on the music.

a When does the musical comment stop and when does it start again?

b Would you say that the music underlines actions or feelings?

2 (SECOND LISTENING) Focus on the first part of the musical comment.

a Match the main actions listed on the left with the appropriate musical comments listed on the right.

1 The children go up the stairs.

2 The children reach the top of the stairs.Estella leaves Pip and Pip stares at theclosed door.

3 Pip knocks on the door and slowly opens it.

a) The crescendo reaches its apex with achord and an acute tremolo and an incisive playing of ottavinos. Descendingscale of bassoons and then low stringsaccompanied by an acute tremolo of violins.

b) The tremolo of strings turns into a disquieting ascending phrase of the whole orchestra, in crescendo. The crescendo stops abruptly when Miss Havisham starts speaking.

c) The music is characterised by a crescendoof winds against a background of a steadyand pressing rhythmic beat.

b Match each description with the following functions.■■ 1 underlines both the action and the protagonist’s anxiety and involves the viewer in the

protagonist’s emotions■■ 2 stresses Pip’s anxiety and fear ■■ 3 underlines both the action and Pip’s feelings of fear and wonder.

3 (THIRD LISTENING) Listen again and focus on the second part of the musical comment. a When does the music underline Pip’s point of view or Miss Havisham’s point of view?b How would you describe the quality of the music in this part?

disturbing soft eerie soothing premonitory tense

BIOGRAPHY

WALTER GOEHR (1903-60)

C onductor and composer of German

birth, he settled in England and took

British nationality in 1933. He conducted

the most famous European orchestras of

the time, among which that of the BBC.

He wrote orchestral music and music for

the radio and films.

( p. 47)➔



Personal FileThe Personal File consists of several sections students can use to meettheir own specific needs with or without their teacher’s guidance.• Quick Reference provides a brief and essential outline of the Module

content and/or any revision material you may need;• Review and Extension serve specific functions. Review revisits key

words and concepts the Module has taught. Extension extends students’knowledge on one or more aspects of the Module;

• Get Ready for Testing offers two kinds of tests. Those for internalcertification are objective and self-assessed. Those for the Nuovo Esamedi Stato (NES) are of various kinds and more complex.

Keys for self-correction are on pp. 76-78.



63

Q U I C KR E F E R E N C E

Principal Features of Fiction

■ FICTIONAL TEXTS create a fictional world through narration, description anddialogue. Writers of fiction can choose existing conventions or create new ones. Two types of fiction are the novel and the short story.The novel originated and became popular in the 18th century; it is usually longer than ashort story, it builds up a more complex world, can include a variety of characters andmay have different types of plot.The short story is shorter, it gives a glimpse of life, is centred around a single keymoment in people’s lives and can represent a turning point for the main character(s). Its traditional structure involves an introductory section, a middle or developmentand a conclusion.

■ ELEMENTS OF NARRATIVE include the story, a setting, events and characters. The organization of the events into a story is called the ‘plot’. This organization usuallydiffers from the chronological sequencing of the story. The sequencing of the plot isreferred to as ‘fictional time’. Setting refers to time, place and social environment.Characters are revealed in two ways: by what the author tells us about them and whatthey show us through their words and actions.Methods of narration vary. The point of view of the narration and the choice ofnarrator are crucial. The point of view can be stable or shift during the narrative.Narrators can be omniscient or non-omniscient. Two traditional narrators used in fictionare the first and third-person narrator. Beyond the text lies the reader and the writer has an implied reader in mind whencreating the narrative.The writer’s message which s/he conveys through the narration is referred to as its‘theme’.

M1M2



R E V I E WA N D

E X T E N S I O NModule 1

64

1 Complete the following statements about fiction.

1 Fiction was the main form of ................................... of the middle classes.

2 The foundations of the genre in terms of plot, characterisation, dialogue and narrator were

established in the ................................... .

3 The first narrative form was the ................................... introduced by Daniel Defoe in his Robinson Crusoe.

4 The ................................... was introduced by Henry Fielding in his Tom Jones.

5 The main aim of 19th-century novelists was to achieve ................................... .

2 Match the items of column A to the appropriate definitions in column B.

A Ba) report events from different perspectives

1 first-person unreliable narrators b) explain characters’ psychological motivations2 omniscient narrators c) the narrative voice is not trustworthy3 multiple narrators d) know everything of the fictional world they have created

e) describe events from a limited perspective

3 Fill in the gaps in the following description which summarises the relationships betweenthe main characters in Adam Bede.

Adam Bede is the (1) .......................................... who falls in love with (2) .......................................... . She, however, is

seduced by the local (3) .......................................... Arthur Donnithorne. When she is sentenced to

(4) .......................................... for the murder of her (5) .......................................... she is assisted

by (6) .......................................... , a female preacher who is in love with (7) .......................................... and who will

eventually marry (8) .......................................... .

4 Complete the following notes about George Eliot’s fiction.

1 mainly rural and provincial social ..........................................

2 characterisation through .......................................... and ..........................................

3 focus on .......................................... aspects of characterisation

4 obtrusive ........................................... narrator

5 stern moral ..........................................

➔ key, p. 76

➔ key, p. 76

➔ key, p. 76

➔ key, p. 76

R E V I E WA N D




R E V I E WA N D


65

R E V I E WA N D


5 Say if the following elements apply to The Oval Portrait by E. A. Poe or to The Woman inWhite by Wilkie Collins or both.

The Oval The WomanPortrait in White Both

01 story within the story ■■ ■■ ■■02 night-time ■■ ■■ ■■03 bad weather ■■ ■■ ■■04 eerie and gloomy atmosphere with suggestions of terror

and sorrow ■■ ■■ ■■05 use of emotional language ■■ ■■ ■■06 complicated plot based on horror, mystery, suspense

and secrecy ■■ ■■ ■■07 presence of a central secret ■■ ■■ ■■08 deranged heroine ■■ ■■ ■■09 first-person narrator ■■ ■■ ■■10 multiple narrators ■■ ■■ ■■

6 Fill in the gaps in the following paragraph about Henry James.

Henry James is a key figure in the development of fiction for his innovations in fictional

(1) ................................... . His novels shifted the emphasis away from dramatic (2) ................................... and

exciting adventures to the working of the human (3) ................................... . This shift in emphasis resulted

in the replacement of the traditional (4) ................................... narrator by a less obtrusive one, and

extensive use of the (5) ................................... , and internal thoughts, of different characters.

This technique was later developed by 20th-century novelists into the (6) ................................... .

➔ key, p. 76

➔ key, p. 76



66

R E V I E WA N D


The following extracts are taken from the novels and stories you have read in the Module, althoughextracts from Poe are not included.

1 Read the texts.

a Assign them to the appropriate novel/short story.

b Revise the summary of the plot and explain to what part the extracts refer.

Text One from ...............................................................................................................

I can see Douglas there before the fire, to which he had got up to present his back, looking

down at this converser with his hands in his pockets. “Nobody but me, till now, has ever heard. It’s

quite too horrible.” This was naturally declared by several voices to give the thing the utmost price,

and our friend, with quiet art, prepared his triumph by turning his eyes over the rest of us and

going on: “It’s beyond everything. Nothing at all that I know touches it.”

Text Two from ...............................................................................................................

There was a feeble dawn in the room when Hetty awoke, a little after four o'clock, with a

sense of dull misery, the cause of which broke upon her gradually, as she began to discern the

objects round her in the dim light. And then came the frightening thought that she had to conceal

her misery, as well as to bear it, in this dreary daylight that was coming. She could lie no longer; she

got up and went towards the table: there lay the letter; she opened her treasure-drawer: there lay

the earrings and the locket – the signs of all her short happiness – the signs of the life-long

dreariness that was to follow it. Looking at the little trinkets which she had once eyed and fingered

so fondly as the earnest of her future paradise of finery, she lived back in the moments when they

had been given to her with such tender caresses, such strangely pretty words, such glowing looks,

which filled her with a bewildering delicious surprise – they were so much sweeter than she had

thought anything could be. And the Arthur who had spoken to her and whose arm she felt round

her, his cheek against hers, his very breath upon her – was the cruel, cruel Arthur who had written

that letter – that letter which she snatched and crushed and then opened again, that she might read

it once more. The half-benumbed mental condition which was the effect of the last night's violent

crying, made it necessary to her to look again and see if her wretched thoughts were actually true –

if the letter was really so cruel. She crushed it up again in anger. She hated the writer of that letter –

hated him for the very reason that she hung upon him with all her love – all the girlish passion and

vanity that made up her love.

➔ key, p. 77

10



67

R E V I E WA N D


Text Three from ...............................................................................................................

By the time the Countess’s widowhood was expired, I had found means to be received into

her house; I had her women perpetually talking in my favour, vaunting my powers, expatiating

upon my reputation, and boasting of my success and popularity in the fashionable world.

Text Four from ...............................................................................................................

So she spoke. In writing those last words, I have written all. The pen falters in my hand. The

long, happy labour of many months is over. Marian was the good angel of our lives — let Marian

end our Story.

2 Who is the narrator in each extract?

3 Which of the features concerning an author’s style and theme which you have studied arepresent in the extracts?

➔ key, p. 77

➔ key, p. 77



68

R E V I E WA N D


1 Complete the table below in note form.

Rise of the Novel: when: ..............................................................................................................................................................................

why: ..................................................................................................................................................................................

Forms it drew on: ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Pioneers: who: .................................................................................................................................................................................

Features: ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Development: when: ..............................................................................................................................................................................

2 Choose the correct answer.

1 Pip is a) Joe's sonb) an orphanc) the convict's nephew

2 Estella is Miss Havisham's a) nieceb) wardc) granddaughter

3 Pip's life changes thanks to a) Miss Havishamb) the convictc) the lawyer

4 Pip and Estella a) meet only as childrenb) meet as children and then once again in Londonc) meet as children, in London and are reunited at the

end of the novel.5 The character who acts as a link between a) Joe

the two plots is b) Miss Havishamc) the lawyer

3 Answer the following questions.

1 What is the basis of the main plot in Great Expectations?2 What are the two main subplots?3 Which part/s of Pip’s life is/are given prominence and why?4 What kind of novelist is Dickens?5 What are his main themes?6 What are the distinctive features of his fiction?

4 Write three paragraphs about the novel Great Expectations by expanding your notes inactivity 1.

➔ key, p. 76

➔ key, p. 76

➔ key, p. 76



69

R E V I E WA N D


1 Read the following extract from Great Expectations and say to what part of the novel itbelongs.

“Now, I1 return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he

has great expectations”.

Joe and I gasped, and looked at one another.

“I am instructed to communicate to him”, said Mr Jaggers, throwing his finger at me sideways,

“that he will come into a handsome property. Further, that it is the desire of the present possessor

of that property, that he be immediately removed from his present sphere of life and from this

place, and be brought up as a gentleman – in a word, as a young fellow of great expectations.”

My dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality; Miss Havisham was going to

make my fortune on a grand scale.

“Now, Mr Pip”, pursued the lawyer, “I address the rest of what I have to say, to you. You are to

understand, first, that it is the request of the person from whom I take my instructions, that you

always bear the name of Pip. You will have no objection, I dare say, to your great expectations being

encumbered with2 that easy condition. But if you have any objection, this is the time to mention it”.

My heart was beating so fast, and there was such a singing in my ears, that I could scarcely

stammer3 I had no objection.

“I should think not! Now you are to understand, secondly, Mr Pip, that the name of the

person who is your liberal benefactor remains a profound secret, until the person chooses to reveal

it. I am empowered to mention that it is the intetion of the person to reveal it at first hand by word

of mouth to yourself. When or where that intention may be carried out, I cannot say; no one can

say. It may be years hence.

(C. Dickens, Great Expectations, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1970)

2 Summarise the extract following the outline.

– what news the lawyer has for Pip– who Pip thinks his benefactor is– what the benefactor’s two conditions are

3 Describe the lawyer’s language and behaviour, using the adjectives below or supplyingyour own.

colloquial friendly formal businesslike emphatic intimidating legalistic comic

4 Underline the words and phrases that convey Pip’s reactions to the news.

a How would you describe Pip’s feelings when he hears the news?

b What aspect/s of his character does his reaction suggest?

1. I, is the lawyer.2. encumbered with, limited by (limitate).

3. stammer; say hesitatingly and clumsily, repeating words(balbettare).

➔ key, p. 77

10

20

➔ key, p. 77

➔ key, p. 77



70

Module 1G E T R E A DY

F O RT E ST I N G

INTERNAL CERTIFICATION

STEP One

1 Read the following quotations taken from the texts you have read in Step One of theModule.

a Assign them to the appropriate text.1 “... my strongest effort is to avoid any such arbitrary picture, and to give a faithful account of men

and things as they have mirrored themselves in my mind.”2 “... she was in the position of hundreds of other women, who marry men without being greatly

attracted by them or greatly repelled by them.”3 “It is not my intention to follow, step by step, the incidents of my courtship, or to narrate all the

difficulties I had to contend with...”4 “The case, I may mention, was that of an apparition in just such an old house as had gathered us for

the occasion - an appearance of a dreadful kind, to a little boy sleeping in the room with his mother...”

b For each text say what kind of narrator is employed.

c Say to which text/s the following functions of the narrator apply.1 describes an aspect of social context2 evokes a particular atmosphere3 the narrator speaks about realism in fiction4 the narrator states his intentions

STEP Two

1 Read the following quotations taken from Adam Bede and answer the questions.

a) “... always knew what to say about things, could tell her uncle how to prop the hovel, and had

mended the churn in no time”1 Who is the character described?2 Who does “her” refer to?

b) “... he always placed himself at church so as to have the fullest view of her both sitting andstanding; that he was constantly finding reasons for calling at the Hall Farm...”

3 What character is being described?

c) “It was a sight that some people remembered better even than their own sorrows...”4 What event is described?

d) “It was the shout of sudden excitement at the appearance of a horseman cleaving the crowd atfull gallop.”

5 Who is the horseman?6 What is his errand?

Write your score Band Action

46➔58 Go on

.................... / 58 32➔45 Review

0➔44 Repeat

➔ key, p. 78

*12

➔ key, p. 78

*6

* The numbers on the left indicate the maximum number of points for each exercise.



71

GET READY FOR TESTING

2 Fill in the gaps in the paragraph below.

George Eliot belongs to mainstream Victorian (1) .......................................... which aimed to present an

objective and faithful picture of (2) .......................................... . She is notable for her ability to recreate the

farming and business life of the English (3) .......................................... which she brings to life with detailed

descriptions both of the (4) .......................................... and the individuals. She gives sympathetic portraits

of humble (5) .......................................... with great strength of character. Her characters, particularly

(6) .......................................... characters, come to life both through (7) .......................................... and telling and

through the narrator’s comments. Her (8) .......................................... narrator goes deep into the motivations

of the single characters and the relationship of the individual to society which she judges with

a strong sense of (9) .......................................... duty though her tone is always tempered with

(10) .......................................... and human sympathy.

STEP Three

1 Say if the following quotations are taken from The Oval Portrait by E. A. Poe or from The

Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

The Oval The WomanPortrait in White

1 “.... grew daily more dispirited and weak.” ■■ ■■2 “Time had flowed on, and silence had fallen like thick night

over its course.” ■■ ■■3 “The rays of the numerous candles (for there were many) now fell

within a niche of the room which had hitherto been thrown into deep

shade by one of the bedposts.” ■■ ■■4 “The voice that was praying for me faltered and sank low - then rose

of a sudden, and called affrightedly, called despairingly to me

to come away.” ■■ ■■5 “Their veils were down, and hid their faces from me.” ■■ ■■6 “... he would not see that the tints, which he spread upon the canvas

were drawn from the cheeks of her who sat beside him.” ■■ ■■

2 Say if the following statements about Poe and Wilkie Collins are true (T) or false (F).

T F

1 Poe and Wilkie Collins exemplify the Gothic current of 19th-century fiction. ■■ ■■2 Poe wrote only detective stories. ■■ ■■3 Wilkie Collins is the inventor of the sensation novel. ■■ ■■4 Poe’s stories focus on the psychological aspect of mystery and horror. ■■ ■■5 Wilkie Collins sets his novels in Gothic castles. ■■ ■■6 The characters in The Woman in White mirror social types of the period. ■■ ■■

➔ key, p. 77

*10

➔ key, p. 77

*6

➔ key, p. 77

*6



72


STEP Four1 Say if the following statements about Henry James and The Turn of the Screw are true (T)

or false (F).

T F10 James belongs to the current of the sensation novel. ■■ ■■20 His work was deeply rooted in the development of traditional Victorian fiction. ■■ ■■30 He is a forerunner of 20th-century narrative techniques. ■■ ■■40 The Turn of the Screw brings the two main trends of 19th-century fiction,

the rational one of Realism and the irrational Gothic one. ■■ ■■50 The story is told by an omniscient narrator. ■■ ■■60 It is set in a country house. ■■ ■■70 The new governess finds the children angelic. ■■ ■■80 She believes the children are under the influence of evil ghosts. ■■ ■■90 She engages in a psychological battle to exorcise the evil influence of the ghosts. ■■ ■■10 The extract is the very beginning of the story. ■■ ■■11 The style aims at creating sensation. ■■ ■■12 It is not clear whether the ghosts are real or a projections of the governess’

deranged state of mind. ■■ ■■

2 Choose the right answer for each of the questions below.

1 Which of the following types of novels developed in the 19th century? (choose three)

■■a realistic fiction

■■b Gothic fiction

■■c science fiction

■■d detective fiction

■■e psychological fiction

2 Which of the following narratives employ more than one narrator?

■■a Barry Lyndon

■■b Adam Bede

■■c The Woman in White

■■d The Turn of the Screw

3 George Eliot’s output paved the way for the development of the psychological novel with:

■■a her use of suspense

■■b her skilful characterisation

■■c her focus on female characters

4 Which author is considered the inventor of the detective story?

■■a Wilkie Collins

■■b E. A. Poe

■■c Henry James

5 Henry James’ fiction is a milestone in the development of literature for:

■■a his mastery of psychological realism

■■b his ability to please popular taste

■■c his indictment of Victorian values

6 In the second part of the Victorian Age:

■■a the importance of fiction decreased

■■b novelists became more critical of social values

■■c novelists relied only on sensation to please the reading public

➔ key, p. 77

*12

➔ key, p. 77

*6



73


NES (Nuovo Esame di Stato)

Discussion Questions

1 Answer the following discussion questions.

1 What are the most characteristic features of 19th-century realistic fiction?2 How did the Gothic tradition develop in the 19th century?3 In what way did Wilkie Collins contribute to the development of the novel?4 What are the main innovative aspects of James’ fiction?

The Oral Report

1 Choose two of the authors you have studied in the Module and prepare a short talk topresent them to the class outlining their main features and the points they have in common.



74

INTERNAL CERTIFICATIONSTEP One

1 Say if the following statements are true (T) or false (F). T F

10 The novel emerged in Britain at the beginning of the 17th century. ■■ ■■20 The improvement in printing technology was one of the reasons for its development. ■■ ■■30 Reading became the main form of entertainment among the lower classes. ■■ ■■40 The early novel drew its form from non-fiction. ■■ ■■50 The novel also borrowed some of its features from other literary genres. ■■ ■■60 Dickens was one of the pioneers of the genre. ■■ ■■70 Novel writing also became a profitable profession. ■■ ■■80 Fictional conventions developed greatly. ■■ ■■90 There developed a close relationship between novelists and the reading public. ■■ ■■10 Dickens was the most popular Victorian novelist. ■■ ■■

STEP Two

1 Below are some statements about the plot of Great Expectations. On the basis of the textyou have read and the linking summaries, decide if they are true (T) or false (F). Then numberthe true ones in the order they occur in the plot.

T F■■ a) After the lawyer’s revelation about his great expectations, Pip goes to London. ■■ ■■■■ b) Great Expectations tells the whole story of Pip’s life. ■■ ■■■■ c) Pip is expected to become a blacksmith, like Joe, when he grows up. ■■ ■■■■ d) The novel starts when Pip is seven. He is an orphan who lives with his sister

and her husband Joe Gargery. ■■ ■■■■ e) When Pip is fourteen, and already an apprentice to Joe, his dreams of becoming a

gentleman come true because an unknown benefactor provides him with an income. ■■ ■■■■ f) The novel ends with Pip marrying Estella. ■■ ■■■■ g) When Pip meets Estella at Miss Havisham’s house and falls in love with her,

he becomes ashamed of his social station and dreams of becoming a gentleman. ■■ ■■■■ h) Pip secretly believes Miss Havisham to be his benefactor. ■■ ■■■■ i) As a child, Pip helps a convict to escape. For a time he is haunted by the memory

of the fact, but then forgets about it. ■■ ■■■■ j) When Pip learns who the convict is, he feels very grateful for the sacrifices the

convict has made to allow him to become a gentleman. ■■ ■■■■ k) In London Pip leads the life of a gentleman and becomes ashamed of his former

relationship with Joe who belongs to a lower social class. ■■ ■■■■ l) After his first reaction of disgust and shame, when he learns who the convict is,

Pip’s good nature prevails and he helps him to escape again when he is found out. ■■ ■■■■ m)The convict is caught and Pip is ruined. ■■ ■■■■ n) When he comes back to his native village, at the age of 33, Pip meets Estella again. ■■ ■■■■ o) After the convict’s death Pip goes back to his native village to live with Joe. ■■ ■■

Module 2G E T R E A DY

F O RT E ST I N G

➔ key, p. 78

*10

➔ key, p. 78

13

Write your score Band Action

36➔45 Go on

.................... / 45 26➔35 Review

0➔25 Repeat

* The numbers on the left indicate the maximum number of points for each exercise.



75


STEP Three1 Fill in the gaps.

Pip, the protagonist, is the first person narrator. In the passage about his first visit to Miss

Havisham’s house he relates events from two different (1) .......................................... . One point of view is that of

himself as a (2) ..........................................; the other point of view is that of himself at the time of narration, as an

adult remembering and commenting on past (3) .......................................... . This technique enables the author to

create a vivid scene which is seen simultaneously through the eyes of a child and of an adult. The

(4) .......................................... finds himself in the position of Pip as an adult in judging events but he is also able to

participate in and sympathise with the feelings of Pip as a child. The narrative technique also influences

the way characters come to life. They do so both through their interaction in (5) .......................................... and the

narrator’s description. Pip’s personality emerges mostly from his reactions to what he sees and from

interaction with the other (6) .......................................... . He is both shy and frightened. The (7) .......................................... is

also described in great detail through young Pip’s eyes. The strangeness of the room is created through

his astonished and frightened reactions. The scene is built up through (8) .........................................., dialogue and

narration. The passage is about a significant moment in Pip’s life and in his perception of himself. The

(9) .......................................... .......................................... enables the reader to experience things through the eyes of Pip as a

child while at the same time offering him an adult (10) .......................................... .

STEP Four1 Beside each description of Dickens’ style write the appropriate technical term.

1 Skilful dialogue and detailed descriptions are widely employed. ..........................................

2 It is often based on the main character’s development. ..........................................

3 Omniscient narrator or first-person narrator is employed. ..........................................

4 Exploitation of children, poor educational system, unsafe factory conditions. ..........................................

5 The tone is often emotional. ..........................................

6 Language is highly figurative with repetition of key words and syntactical structures. ..........................................

NES (Nuovo Esame di Stato)The Essay1 Write an essay on Dickens’ Great Expectations following the outline given below (250-300

words).

StoryNarrative Technique narrator / point of view / effect on the readerCharacters who are they? / what are they like? / how are they created?Setting what kind of setting is it? / what function does it fulfil?LanguageTheme

The Oral Report1 Choose one of the two extracts to illustrate Dickens’ main narrative features in an oral

report to your class.

➔ key, p. 78

10

➔ key, p. 78

12



76

R E V I E WA N D

E X T E N S I O NKeys 1

Module 11 1 entertainment, 2 18th century, 3 first-person,

4 omniscient, 5 realism2 1 c), e); 2 b), d); 3 a)3 1 protagonist, 2 Hetty, 3 squire, 4 death, 5 illegitimate,

6 Dinah, 7 Adam, 8 him4 1 setting; 2 showing, telling; 3 psychological; 4 omniscient;

5 code5 1 The Oval Portrait; 2 both; 3 The Oval Portrait; 4 both; 5 both;

6The Woman in White; 7 The Woman in White; 8 The Womanin White; 9 The Oval Portrait;10 The Woman in White

6 1 technique, 2 events, 3 mind, 4 omniscient, 5 point of view,6 interior monologue

Module 21 Rise of the Novel: at the beginning of the 18th century /

improvement in printing technologyForms it drew on: diaries, autobiographies, travellers’ tales,letters and biographies of adventurers; dialogue from drama,moral ideas from essays, imagery from poetryPioneers: Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and HenryFieldingFeatures: realismDevelopment: main form of entertainment for the middleclasses, it flourished in the Victorian Age (1837-1901) whichcame to be known as the ‘Age of Fiction’

2 1b, 2b, 3b, 4c, 5c

3 1 The basis of the main plot in Great Expectations is the lifeand character’s development of Pip. / 2 The two mainsubplots concern Miss Havisham and the convict. / 3. Thepart of Pip’s life which is given prominence is from the ageof 18 to 23. / 4 Although Dickens never questioned the basicvalues of his time, he was an effective critic of the injusticesof Victorian society. / 5 He frequently denounces abuses ineducation, in the law and employment, the injustice of socialinstitutions and the inequalities between the rich and thepoor. Exploitation of children, poor educational system,psychological and moral growth of one character, unsafefactory conditions, greediness and selfishness of rich upperclasses, the plight of the working class, triumph of good overevil are his main themes. / 6 Complex plots, rich insensational and melodramatic devices; creation of a galleryof memorable characters, often caricatured; very detailedsettings; creation of very emotional atmospheres; use ofomniscient narrator who involves the reader through thehandling of point of view; emotional tone; highly figurativelanguage, repetition of key words and syntactical structures.



77

R E V I E WA N D

E X T E N S I O NKeys 5

Module 11 a) and b) Text One: from The Turn of the Screw (prologue);

Text Two: from Adam Bede (When Arthur breaks off hisrelationship with Hetty); Text Three: from Barry Lyndon (whenBarry is at the peak of his fortunes and succeeds in marryingLyndon’s widow); Text Four: from The Woman in White (endof the novel).

2 Text One: first-person narrator; Text Two: third-personnarrator; Text Three: first-person narrator; Text Four: first-person narrator

3 Text One: description of the psychological relationships ofthe characters; Text Two: psychological description ofcharacter’s state of mind; narrator’s comment oncharacter’s personality; Text Three: narrator’s comment onsociety; characterisation; Text Four: presence of multiplenarrators

Module 21 The extract belongs to the initial part of the novel.

2 The lawyer informs Pip that he will come into a handsomeproperty and that he will be moved from the place wherehe lives to be brought up as a gentleman. Pip thinks hisbenefactor is Miss Havisham. The benefactor’s twoconditions are that Pip is to keep the name of Pip and thatthe benefactor’s name is to remain secret until the personchooses to reveal it.

3 The language is formal, businesslike and legalistic in thelawyer’s speech. It is also emphatic and intimidating in thelack of interaction between the lawyer and Pip. A comiceffect may be detected in the contrast between the lawyer’sspeech and Joe and Pip’s reaction.

4 a) Pip is overjoyed and can’t believe his ears because hishopes are fulfilled. / b) He seems to be ambitious andsomewhat selfish.



78

Keys 11G E T R E A DY

F O RT E ST I N G

Module 1

STEP One1 a) 1 George Eliot, Adam Bede (1859); 2 Wilkie Collins,

The Woman in White (1860); 3 W. M. Thackeray, Barry Lyndon(1843); 4 Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898) / b) 1 omniscient narrator, 2 multiple narrators, 3 first-person unreliable narrator, 4 first-person narrator / c) 1 Text2, 2 Text 4, 3 Text 1, 4 Texts 1 and 3

STEP Two1 a) 1 Adam Bede, 2 Hetty / b) 3 Arthur Donnithorne / c) 4

Hetty at the gallows / d) 5 Arthur Donnithorne, 6 handingin a release from death

2 1 Realism, 2 reality, 3 provinces, 4 setting, 5 people, 6 female, 7 showing, 8 omniscient, 9 moral, 10 humour

STEP Three1 1 The Oval Portrait, 2 The Woman in White, 3 The Oval

Portrait, 4 The Woman in White, 5 The Woman in White, 6 The Oval Portrait

2 1T, 2F, 3T, 4T; 5F, 6T

STEP Four1 1F, 2F, 3T, 4T, 5F, 6T, 7T, 8T, 9T, 10F, 11F, 12T

2 1b, d, e; 2c, d; 3b; 4b; 5a; 6b

Module 2

STEP One1 1T, 2T, 3F, 4T, 5T, 6F, 7T, 8T, 9T, 10T

STEP Two1 aT, bF, cT, dT, eT, fF, gT, hT, iT, jF, kT, lT, mF, nT, oF.

1d, 2c, 3i, 4g, 5e, 6a, 7h, 8k, 9l, 10m, 11n

STEP Three1 1 points of view, 2 child, 3 events, 4 reader, 5 dialogue,

6 characters, 7 setting, 8 description, 9 narrative technique,10 perspective

STEP Four1 1 style, 2 plot, 3 narrative technique, 4 themes, 5 language,

6 style



Appendix



V I CTO R IAN AG E

80

W. M. THACKERAY (1811-63)

Barry Lyndon (1843)

(from Chapter 1)

I had a quick ear and a fine voice, which my mother cultivated to the best of her

power, and she taught me to step a minuet1 gravely and gracefully, and thus laid the

foundation of my future success in life. The common dances I learned, as, perhaps, I

ought not to confess, in the servants’ hall, which, you may be sure, was never without

a piper2, and where I was considered unrivalled both at a hornpipe3 and a jig4.

In the matter of book-learning, I had always an uncommon taste for reading

plays and novels, as the best part of a gentleman’s polite education, and never let

a pedlar5 pass the village, if I had a penny, without having a ballad or two from

him. As for your dull6 grammar and Greek, and Latin, and stuff, I have always

10 hated them from my youth upwards, and said, very unmistakably, I would have

none of them.

you refers to...

him refers to...

them refers to...

1. to step a minuet, dance a minuet (ballare il minuetto).2. piper, musician who plays a pipe (suonatore di cornamusa).3. hornpipe, dance performed especially by sailors.

4. jig, quick, merry dance (giga).5. pedlar, travelling salesman of small articles (ambulante).6. dull, boring (noiosa).

( p. 4)➔



APPENDIX

81

The historical period to which the writersyou are studying in this Module belong isknown as the Victorian Age. It corresponds to the long reign of QueenVictoria (1837-1901). The label ‘Victorian’has become symbolic of a verymonolithic period. There are a numberof reasons which account for this view ofthe era. The first is the long reign ofQueen Victoria herself, which provided astrong sense of continuity and stability.Another major reason was Britain’sstability in political terms if comparedwith the turmoils of the other EuropeanStates. In the first part of the centuryEurope was swept by a wave ofrevolutions culminating in 1848 and in thesecond half of the century by thenationalistic uprisings which brought

about the unity of Italy and Germany and finally the collapse of the Hapsburg Empire. The British Empire (➔ BOOKMARK,p. 83) was a further reason for the sense of unity and stability, giving people pride in belonging to the greatest power inthe world. While the rightfulness of other Empires was being challenged in Europe by national ideals, Britain strengthenedits own huge Empire to support its economic system and in 1876 Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India.

● THE MIDDLE CLASSIn this period Great Britain was transformed from an agricultural country into a rich, industrial nation, and saw theprogressive rise of the middle class (bankers, merchants, factory owners, etc.). When Queen Victoria came to thethrone, the nation could be divided into three main classes: the aristocracy (mainly large landowners who held powerin Parliament), the middle class (manufacturers, bankers, financiers and merchants), whose increasing wealth andrespectability were opening the way to positions of power, and the working class (factory workers and rural labourers)whose extreme poverty provokeddiscontent. By the end of the century themiddle class held the power previouslyheld by the aristocracy at times achievedthrough marriage alliances, and classdistinction became more based oneconomics than on hereditary (➔ BOOKMARK, pp. 83-85).

● MIDDLE CLASS VALUESIt was the middle class, therefore, who setthe standards of the so-called Victorianvalues. Their morality was based onrespectability, good manners, thrift,duty, hard work, probity and faith inmaterial progress. There was a strongbelief in the family, which was usuallylarge and in which the father’s authoritywas unquestioned. ‘Home’ became theparadigm of social order and stability.

Bookmark Aspects of the Victorian Age●

H. Tanworth Wells, Victoria Regina, oil on canvas, 1887.Young Queen Victoria at 18 receives the news that she has become queen from the Archbishop of Canterbury and a Lord.

▼ ▼

W. Powell Frith, Many Happy Returns of the Day, oil on canvas, Harrogate, Mercer Gallery,1856.

A Victorian family celebrating a birthday.

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▼ ▼

A good marriage, possibly into the aristocracy, was the aim and fulfilment ofmiddle-class girls. The other side of the respectable façade was representedby poverty, exploitation, bad sanitary conditions, prostitution, illegitimacy andvery high crime figures in large cities, London in particular. These negativeaspects were considered as temporary evils by the middle classes whosedominant mood in the first part of the period was optimism and faith inprogress. The social mobility of the time through industry and commercereinforced this belief.

● SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNRESTDuring the first decades of the century harsh working conditions infactories, high food prices and economic depression caused muchdiscontent among the labourers and they began to organise themselvesinto working-class movements. Their discontent was voiced in 1838 bythe Chartists, a group of radicals and workers who presented toParliament a document called the ‘People’s Charter’ advocating aradical reform of Parliament meant to give the vote to the lower classes.The charter, however, was rejected and factory workers had to wait forthe Reform Bill of 1867 to be granted the right to vote and for the TradeUnion Act of 1871 to have their unions legalised. Discontent was voicedalso in Ireland where the failure of the potato crop on which poorpeople depended for survival in 1845 caused a terrible famine whichkilled thousands and caused massive emigration, but the problem ofIreland was political as well as economic. Unrest increased towards theend of the century with more and more pressing demands for HomeRule which were also supported by the spreading European ideal ofNationalism. In the 1870s, moreover, the British economy entered aperiod of depression which lasted for the rest of the century becauseof increased competition from other industrial countries, especially theUnited States and Germany.

● VIEWS OF PROGRESSProgress was the motto of the Victorian Age which saw great advances in all branches of science. The idea ofprogress, however, was challenged by Romantic and Realistic artists and lost its fascination in the last decade of thecentury when it was associated with ideas of degeneration and decline. Up to the 1860s middle-class Victoriansclung to the belief that ultimate truths could be discovered by reason and science, but in the second half of thecentury doubts surfaced. The publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species by Means of NaturalSelection in 1859 shook the system. In this book he argued the natural origin of man. This theory denied God’sdesign in the creation of living beings and discredited the account of that creation in the Bible. VictorianProtestantism, which based itself on the Bible, was deeply affected.

● FICTION AND SOCIETY The great transformations of the period also brought about a major change in the field of literature and the artswhich up to the late 18th century had relied on royal patronage or the patronage of wealthy aristocrats for theirdevelopment. In this period writing became a remunerative job following the rules of the market. The increase inliteracy created a wide and varied reading public. The novel became the main form of entertainment of themiddle classes and at the same time the vehicle through which they shared their set of values with the rest of thenation. Reading novels was not only a private activity but a communal one as well. Novels were often read aloud inthe home by one member of the family to all the household, servants included.

A detail from the Jubilee album of Queen Victoriaillustrating two of the greatest achievements ofindustrial progress: the railway and electricity.

J. L

. Cha

rmet

, 198

7



APPENDIX

83

● INDUSTRIALISATION

The effects of industrialisation in19th-century Britain were profoundand far-reaching. The intenseindustrialisation of the North andthe Midlands, the unrest ofworkers and their organization intoworkers’ movements or unions, thecontinued exploitation of children asworkers, unhealthy workingconditions and the developingpower of a new middle class offactory owners inevitably becamethe subject of literature. Theindustrial revolution had, of coursebegun much earlier but it is in theVictorian Age that industrialisationbecomes so intense as to causemajor changes in Britain’sdemography and structure.

Britain’s economy changed frombeing that of an agrarian andmaritime economy with a relativelysmall quantity of cottage industry° tobeing one based on factory-basedindustry involving an enormous fluxof people away from the countrysideinto industrialised towns.A new class was born, theindustrial middle class, whose firmbelief in the inevitability of progressand their materialistic andutilitarian philosophy promoted afactory system which broughtenormous wealth to themselves andto the country. On the other sidewere the workers, bothbeneficiaries and victims of thesystem. They did, in fact, escape theextreme poverty of other countries

such as Ireland, yet they were stillvery poor, enough for many childrento die from hunger, and they wereworked for long hours in horrendousconditions. Many died of industriallyrelated diseases and accidents. Theinjustices of their lives inspired manyto organize and attempt to fight thesystem – trade unions°° were bornand workers organized strikes,picketing and demonstrations.

● THE EMPIREBritain’s new prosperity and sense ofoptimism, inspired in part by theadvance of industrialisation, also hasits roots in the expansion andexploitation of the territories includedin the British Empire. Imperialismwas not only an economic reality, itwas, too, a state of mind – a

Bookmark Social Issues in Victorian Britain●

▼ ▼

William Logsdail, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, oil on canvas, London, Tate Gallery, 1888.

Logs

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/Pha

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, 199

9

Queen Victoria with two Indian attendants.

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998

° cottage industry, small craftwork businesses, which werebased in the home such as spinning and weaving.

°° trade unions, the first were accepted and recognized in the 1870salthough workers had begun to organize some decades before.



V I CTO R IAN AG E

84

▼ ▼conviction that Britain (and otherEuropean countries such asFrance, Belgium and Holland)had a right to control, exploit,subjugate and ‘civilise’ othernations – which permeated theset of beliefs of the 19th centuryand whose influence can still befelt a century later.At the beginning of the 19thcentury, the Empire was reallyjust a collection of settlements –ports, islands and coastal regionswhich facilitated trade. Realisingthe enormous untapped potentialof the inland regions, settlersbegan to move towards morecentral territories and then toprotect their trade routes.Companies such as the EastIndia Company° were both

trading companies and militia –fighting to conquer newterritories and to exclude othercolonizers. The enormouswealth such companiesgenerated was recognized by theState and their authority wasreplaced by that of the Crown.During the second half of thecentury Britain extended itscontrol over large parts of theIndian sub-continent (India,Afghanistan, Burma, the Punjab,Baluchistan), Africa (Egypt,Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda,Rhodesia, Zambia, South Africa)and in the so-called ‘whitecolonies’ (Australia, Canada,New Zealand, Ireland).By the end of the century,relations were beginning to alter

and people were beginning toquestion the treatment of thecolonizers towards thecolonized and the wholeinjustice of Imperialism. Somecolonies became dominions –the ‘white colonies’ initiated theprocess in which countries tookback more control over theirinternal affairs (Canada, forexample, became a dominion asearly as 1867) – but manyothers had to fight for anotherhalf century before changesoccurred.

● WOMENIt is not until the early 20thcentury that women began toemerge from behind the shadowof male dominance – 19th century

° East India Company, established since the beginning of the 17thcentury, it expanded its trading posts greatly in the second half ofthe 18th century. It exported tea, cotton, wood and pepper and

imported cotton textiles and other British goods. The Governmentof Britain replaced the company’s authority in India in 1857,bringing the country under the rule of a viceroy of the Crown.

A tennis party in India.

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Suffragettes demanding the right to vote.

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APPENDIX

85

▼ ▼

England was a man’s world. That said, however, women’sposition in society wasundergoing gradual change. In the early and mid-centurywomen’s behaviour was judgedaccording to a strict set ofVictorian morals, a moralitywhich was much less rigorouslyapplied to men. Women wereexpected to be dedicated to thecare of the family, either as adaughter or a wife, and above allbe of spotless virtue. By the endof Victoria’s reign, this severejudgment of female morals wasjust beginning to be questioned,particularly in literature. Women, moreover, had littlecontrol over their finances – all of a woman’s propertyautomatically became theproperty of her husband onmarriage. In the latter part of thecentury, women were finallyallowed education throughentry to schools and collegesand began to undertakeprofessions – financialindependence would be animportant first Step towardsgreater autonomy.

Women of the lower classes had, of course, been workingthroughout the Age. Theirworking conditions wereabominable and it wasn’t until1842°° that it became illegal toemploy women and children downmines. Many of the jobs aboveground were little better andwork-related illnesses, disabilitiesand deaths were common. At all levels of society, women’sself-realisation seemed to bepossible only through marriage, inparticular a marriage which raisedones social status, yet the realityof wedlock was often a merecontinuation of the servitude offamily life and flirtations with menof a higher class often meantdisillusion and ruin.The lot of women was closelylinked to the issue of social class.In previous ages, three distinctclasses predominated – the lowerclass, the middle class and theupper classes or the aristocracy.Movement between classes hadbeen almost impossible andobeisance had to be paid to thoseclasses which were above. It istrue, however, that the optimism,

wealth and progress of theVictorian Age brought about anew definition of class whosebarriers became less rigid. A newand powerful group of lower andupper middle class women couldbe found in the families offactory owners, mainly from theNorth, many of whom had comefrom the lower classes. During the19th century, people were stilladjusting mentally to this newidea of class, the southern gentry,for example, struggled to acceptthe prepotency and brashness oftheir new northern ‘class-mates’.Their existence demanded a newopenness of mind many did notyet have. Each class had had itsown definition of appropriatebehaviour, for example it wasacceptable for women of thelower classes to show theirfeelings in public but not formiddle or upper class women –self control was a prerequisite ofbeing a ‘Lady’. Drinking, gamblingand indulging in a little opiumwere seen as typical and tolerableexcesses for a young gentlemanbut absolutely censored in womenof any class.

°° 1842, the year of the introduction of The Mines Act which forbade the employment of children under the age of 10 and women underground.



86

ITALIANLITERATURE

Realism and Naturalism, Aestheticism and Decadentism in European Literatures

RealismAlthough Realism describes an attitude of the writer tohis material which can be found at any time of history, the19th century is considered as the period when itoriginated and developed as a literary movement. Thenovel was the favourite literary form of realist writers andwas used to depict objectively the life of the middleclasses whose power had become predominant in society.The movement of Realism was international but it had itstheoretical roots in France. The French masters wereStendhal (1788-1842, Le Rouge et le Noir, 1830) andBalzac (1799-1850) whose novels and stories were knowncollectively as the Comédie Humaine. Realism was veryinfluential on English novelists such as Dickens andThackeray. Also the Irish playwright G. B. Shaw had beengreatly influenced through the plays of the Norwegiandramatist H. Ibsen (1828-1906). Ibsen’s early works beganfrom Realism while his later ones turned to Naturalism.

NaturalismNaturalism was a late development of Realism in Europefrom the 1870s onwards. The term describes literarycompositions with a deterministic view of life based onthe belief that human beings are controlled by the socialand economic environment. Novels were used to exposesocial evils and express the pessimistic vision of an ageoverwhelmed by industrial progress and science. Naturalism originated from the works of the Frenchnovelist Emile Zola (1840-1902, Thérèse Raquin, 1867; LesRougon-Macquart, 1871; Germinal, 1885). He emphasiseddeterminism caused by inherited characteristics, whileGustave Flaubert (1821-80, Madame Bovary, 1857;L’Education Sentimentale, 1869) underlined economicdeterminism. In Britain only George Gissing is considereda naturalistic writer, but the movement also had someinfluence on Thomas Hardy and extended to early 20th-century writers, e.g., Arnold Bennett.In Russian literature, Naturalism was associated withthe writers Tolstoy (1828-1910) and Chechov (1860-

1904). Similar to naturalistic fiction was the movementof the Italian Verismo, which had its main exponent inVerga (1840-1922, I Malavoglia, 1881; Mastro DonGesualdo, 1889) and influenced the early works ofPirandello (1867-1936).

AestheticismAestheticism was a tendency which blossomed duringthe 1880s and owed much to the French doctrine of ‘Artfor Art’s Sake’, which means that art is self-sufficientand serves no moral or political purpose. The novel ARebours (1884) by J. K. Huysmans (1848-1907) was theFrench manual of Aestheticism. It was much admired byWilde who introduced it as the ‘yellow book’ into ThePicture of Dorian Gray (1891). The influence ofAestheticism is also noticeable in the early works of theGerman poet R. M. Rilke (1875-1926), of the Austrian H.von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929), and of the BelgianMaeterlink (1862-1949). In Italy the movement arrivedlater and it blended with Decadentism. It was mainlyrepresented by some poetic works of D’Annunzio(1863-1938) and Pascoli (1855-1912).

DecadentismDecadentism developed in the last decade of the 19thcentury. The term was adopted by new poets andwriters because it reflected the uneasiness of theirstates of mind and attitudes in that period, and is oftenused to refer to the last stage of Aestheticism. It is alsoconnected with Symbolism, a movement which grewout of the work of Baudelaire (1821-67) and is aboveall associated with the poets P. Verlaine (1844-96), A.Rimbaud (1854-91) and S. Mallarmé (1842-98). TheFrench symbolists used symbols to evoke the subtleaffinities between the material and spiritual worlds.They are particularly important in English literature fortheir influence on the two most important poets writingin English in the first half of the 20th century: T. S. Eliotand W. B. Yeats. They also influenced the developmentof the Russian symbolist movement.

LITERATURE

1 Consider the movements described above and explain:

a whether any of them was originally born in England

b which of them exerted great influence on English literature

c which European country had the most influential literature in the 19th century.

Cross-curricular Card



Documents

B. De Luca, D. J. Ellis, P. Pace, S. Ranzoli Books and .... De Luca, D. J. Ellis, P. Pace, S. Ranzoli Books and Bookmarks COMPLEMENTARY AND LINK MODULES Victorian Age LOESCHER EDITORE