Several great authors rose from the Victorian Era, such as Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley and Jane Austen. All of these literary giants are still revered today for their works. The Victorian Era was wrought with scientific discoveries as well as the sprouting of social change. The changes of women’s rights and the expansion of personal freedoms could not and would not have happened the same way had the Victorian Era not unfolded the way it did. The women authors of the time were subtle only in their outward appearances, but their stories told a story of a bolder, stronger woman.
Jane Austen, author of Pride and Prejudice presented her strong woman within the guise of weakness. In the novel, the whole premise is for the family’s daughters to be married off in order to make sure they are all taken care financially of because it was not custom for wealth to be passed to female heirs, with the only prominent exception of royalty, nor was it accepted that women could have careers or other means to make their own money. Jane, the protagonist of Pride and Prejudice, is one of the daughters who are seeking to be married and her misadventures give examples of what was expected of a woman during this time period. Such qualities were described by her potential suitors as having: “a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved." (Austen). To which was replied: "I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe united." (Austen) This was a clear example of the author’s attempt to give her society a reality check on the expectations of women. Jane grows as an individual by using her own qualities to earn herself the love of Mr. Darcy. In the age of such scientific discoveries such as the telephone, light bulb and photography, many scientists were working on perfecting quality of life http://www.simplehistory.co.uk/time-travel/victorian-technology-and-inventions/ (Belbin) . Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein was her response to the times, asking “What if man went too far,” suggesting her fellow man to be wary of trying to emulate God through scientific discoveries. Mary Shelley shocked her fellows by her literary creation, proving to be more than a delicate house wife who only wrote poetry, as well as spearheading the genre of science fiction. She called Frankenstein “The Modern Prometheus,” which refers to the original story of Prometheus. The myth was about Prometheus, a titan, who stole the knowledge of fire and gave it to man, allowing man to forward itself and build civilizations. Prometheus was punished for trying to make men into gods by giving them the knowledge of fire and sentenced to torment by being bound and disemboweled by birds for all of eternity. Her “Modern Prometheus” was of Dr. Frankenstein discovering another way to create than the will of God, by piecing many parts of many bodies and surging the mass with electricity, Dr. Frankenstein created a terror who ripped away the Doctor’s loved ones like the original Prometheus’ entrails being ripped away by the vultures of the air. The story of Frankenstein was likely inspired by some early experiments relating to electricity. https://www.insidescience.org/news/science-made-frankenstein (Brown). Lord only knows how she might have reacted to organ transplants and blood transfusions, which are as common of medical procedures as vacancies. She probably would have said that we did not listen to her the first time. Works CitedAusten, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. London: Penguin Books, 2003. Belbin, Florence. Victorian Technology and Inventions. 2019. 19 June 2019. Brown, Alan. The Science That Made Frankenstein. 27 October 2010. <https://www.insidescience.org/news/science-made-frankenstein>. Shelley, Mary. New York: Dover Publications, 1994.
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