compare and contrast the respresentation of women in two victorian texts george eliots daniel deronda and henry mayhew s prostitution among needle women

Compare and Contrast the representation of women in two Victorian

texts . Pg .1 The mid Victorian Age (1851-1870 , is classified as a period of intense and

prolific activity in literature . The novelists such as George Elliot 's Daniel Deronda ' and

Henry Mayhew 's London Labour survey , found in the Morning Chronicle broke the

standard romance of the 19th Century novels with the female characters always ended having a happily ever after . George Elliot and Henry Mayhew , instead represented the

reality and problems of woman 's role in

life as well as their role in society

This is particularly evident in George Elliot 's Daniel Deronda ' In her

novel Elliot 's female characters provide a complex commentary on the acting demanded

of woman in society , a quality of a society that go beyond boundaries of race and

religion . The Jewish women in Elliot 's novel use acting and singing as career choices

that gives light to the idea and inspires the difference of the behavior that is expected of

women in English Culture . Her critique on her gender role in society is clear in the

novel 's attempt to consider the Jewish woman beyond the stereotypical role of a

performer . In fact , the role of performer begins to defend itself . It becomes an honest way

of posing that gives women in the Victorian age something other than the false promises

of married life

George Elliot shows the readers the English wives are petrified statues

who are disillusioned by the world that demands public stance Meanwhile , Elliot 's

Jewish characters are able to act out their emotions when off the stage which is demanded

of the English women in their relationships . This relationship between real and a

performance changes in the wide variety of the female characters . The female characters

rely constantly on the ability to give into circumstance , to embrace reality , as well as to

p give into society 's unequal terms

In comparison there is Henry Mayhew , a bohemian journalist who

was radicalized by his investigative survey of London Labour and the London Poor ' It

was serialized between (1849-1850 ) in the Morning Chronicle ' which has the second

largest circulation next to the Times . The survey is a collection of the most graphic

reports of unemployment and poverty alerted the public to the plight of the distressed

needlewomen who embodied the anxieties of different social concerns of the position of

single women , woman 's work , and sexuality . The women offered truthful accounts of

horrible living and working condition . The women 's statements confirmed as well as

challenged the assumptions of reports of both authors

The woman 's statements sometimes confirmed and sometimes

challenged the narrative assumptions of the report 's authors . However it is their

testimonies that were contested and were interpreted as not remembered accounts

and personal experiences rather than an analysis of the state and how it can be changed

-Works Cited-

Rogers , Helen , Victorian Studies - The good always powerful from Victorian Studies : The politics of Women 's Needlework in...