Horrors Of the Victorian Era

Dickens uses the gothic motif’s in Great Expectations, but puts them into a contemporary Britain. This is because in the late Victorian period, people were no longer in fear of the physical landscape such as castles etc, instead they were terrified of the human body. Other novels that look at this include The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson 1886 and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wildes 1891.

However Dickens new that the people of the time were concerned about what was happening at the time, the current problems such as the needy, the desperate, the abandoned, urban slums and so on.

 Horrors of the Victorian era became inspiration for many novels. In these times many died young until the medical advances.  Before children were even born there was a danger of death for the mother and child at childbirth due to disease and infection. Even if they survived this they weren’t even likely to survive infancy and childhood due to malnutrition.

 Fatal diseases were a large part of the death toll in the Victorian era and many of these people would die at home with their families. This would usually hit people at early adolescence. One of the main being smallpox which was usually fatal, although with the small amount of people who lived they would be scared and sometimes even blind. TB was another horrible disease, the patients would begin by coughing up blood and in turn be coughing up their lungs until they could no longer breath.

The Independent Editors. (21 April 2009). Fatal Diseases Back From the Dead. Available: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/victorian-diseases-back-from-the-dead-1671563.html. Last accessed 16th February 2015.

Sewers weren’t made until 1859 so before that faeces and other human waste would be thrown into the streets and usually run into the water stream. This created diseases such as cholera which would spread quickly and easily due to the slums which were created from over population. Other fatal diseases of the times included typhoid, fever and dysentery.

 If disease didn’t get you, industrial accidents were another common way to go. The average life expectancy of a labourer was 22 years and people were concerned with the accidents that caused this. When there was heavy machinery there was a change of being crushed, sometimes people even fell into machinery and died. In the fabric mills it was known that people would get their fingers cut off and some would get their hair caught, pulling off their scalps. Even if these accidents didn’t occur the workers would be there for long hours, often with no breaks which effected their health. Some would even fall asleep while working.

Leech, J. (no date ). Industrial Accidents cartoon 2 of 2. Available: http://www.cartoonstock.com/vintage/directory/i/industrial_accidents.asp. Last accessed 16th February 2015.

 With these accidents and natural disasters there was also a fear of a man “jack the ripper”. His torment lasted only 3 months but he created panic in the streets of London’s East End. He brutally mutilated five women in the streets of Whitechapel, a place of major criminal activity including prostitution. He would carve out body parts, the stomach would be torn open and the head nearly severed off. The ripper disappeared as quickly as he arrived and speculation of who he was never came out as fact.

West, E. (August 31, 2011). Why Does Jack The Ripper Still Fascinate? Because it Feeds into Victorian Myths. Available: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100102637/why-does-jack-the-ripper-continue-to-fascinate-because-it-feeds-into-victorian-myths/. Last accessed 16th February 2015.

 These horrors influenced many of the novels written in the Victorian Era.

Reference:

In class

Johnson, B. (No Date). Jack The Ripper. Available: http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Jack-the-Ripper/. Last accessed 16th February 2015.