January 15, 2002

THE literary scene during the Victorian period, that stretches from 1832 till the end of the nineteenth century, was dominated by the novels of Charles Dickens, Thackeray, Bronte sisters, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. The Victorian novel arose out of the integrity, scepticism and revolutionary animus with which the novelists protested against the drift of nineteenth century life, marked as it was by the domination of material ends, corrosion of spiritual values and the triumph of machine over man.

The Victorian era was a period of rapid and continuous change. The breakdown of feudalism, that underpinned the social order in Western Europe for centuries and had struck deep roots as a way of life, was a slow-moving process. It was initiated by the onset of commercial revolution in the sixteenth century as the middle class became gradually stronger than the feudal aristocracy. The history of Western civilization since the renaissance was punctuated by a constant struggle between the forces of reaction and progress, between feudalism and capitalism, between religious orthodoxy and humanist philosophy. The struggle between reactionary and progressive forces was resolved after pitched battles in the nineteenth century.

The French revolution (1789-1805), which disseminated the spirit of enlightenment throughout Europe, washed away all remnants of feudalism. The commercial revolution of the eighteenth century was followed by the establishment of mechanized industry which spread very fast. By the third decade of the nineteenth century, industrial capitalism replaced agriculture as the dominant sector of the economy. Capitalism matured during the century and, at the same time, its contradictions surfaced. On the one hand, it liberated vast numbers of peasantry and field labour from the stranglehold of feudal customs and practices and, on the other, machine and capital combined to enslave the vast majority of the working people.

As the nineteenth century wore on, philosophical concepts associated with feudalism were thrown overboard. The hierarchical conception of society based on the inherent superiority of one class over another was discarded. Feudalism was based on a rigid social stratification while capitalist society allowed mobility from one class to another. The social change from feudalism to capitalism expressed itself in concepts like democracy, liberalism and humanism. A new image of man appeared on the horizon of life. This was the common man who did not boast of blue blood. He was the anti-hero, the protagonist of the nineteenth century novel.

Charles Dickens, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy created marvellous stories around such non-entities that did not figure in the fiction of yore. Though the protagonist was a shrunken figure, reduced in size and stature, yet the problems confronting him were stupendous, larger than those which his prototype, the tragic hero, faced. As capitalism subjected humanity to the psychological shock of continuous social and technological change, man could only adjust by new modes of organization. Where this organization was lacking, the individual was thrown at the mercy of socio-economic forces. This explains why protagonists of the modern novel are buffeted by cruel circumstance.

The industrial revolution brought about a disruptive change in English society. The dark satanic mills not only blackened the face of the countryside, but also destroyed the calm and serenity of rural life. The breakdown of agrarian society by the onrush of industrialism had profound human implications. Agriculture was not just a profession but a way of life cherished by the people, with its human and spiritual values, its intimate relationship with the rhythms of nature, and its simple morality and profound bonds. The dislocation caused by capitalism, in terms of human misery and alienation, was a major theme of the Victorian novel.

As the process of social change brought about by the industrial revolution was not confined to England but spread throughout Europe, the French and Russian novelists dilated on the theme of human misery, squalor and privation caused by it. Balzac painted a grim picture of the disinherited classes in urban areas and the plight of the rural populace. In Russian novels too, the situation is the same. But what strikes one most about the French and Russian novels is the sublimity of the novel form. Turgenev, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in Russia and Stendhal, Balzac and Zola in France wrote novels which not only reflect the historical milieu in which these were written but also are masterpieces of creative writing.

Charles Dickens, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy vie with their French and Russian counterparts. Their novels by and large reflect the ethos of a community of artisans, peasants and industrial workers. The middle class and landed gentry are also thrown in to complete the picture of the struggle that the working people came to wage against the forces of oppression and exploitation operating in society.

The Victorian era was also an age of religious and philosophical controversies. The moral and religious values, cherished by man for centuries, were questioned by scientific knowledge. The theories of Herbert Spencer, Charles Darwin and James Frazer undermined religious faith. The spirit of scepticism engendered by science and reason created a moral crisis. The theory of evolution and advances in anthropology corroded the glorified image of man held since the renaissance. The uncertainty about the nature of the universe and the shrunken status of man lies behind much of the melancholy meditation and pessimism which is characteristic of nineteenth century novelists.

A significant feature of the nineteenth century novel is the rejection of religious bigotry and moral dogmatism. There are Evangelists, Methodists, Calvinists, Unitarians and also those who harked back to the old Roman fold like John Henry Newman. Religious polemics created a lot of moral uncertainty. In the political sphere, democracy did away with the divine right of kings. The values of feudalism were thrown to the winds and the basis of Christian theology knocked out.

Another striking feature of the Victorian novel is its stress on social realism. By its very nature, the English novel rose as a realistic commentary on the contemporary socio-cultural milieu. It was the product of middle class ethos based on a matter-of-fact approach towards life. Henry Fielding, the father of the English novel, insisted that incidents and characters in the novel should be taken from actual life. In a hundred years the English novel was to flower in its quintessential characteristics of topicality and adherence to social milieu. The Victorian novel embodies these qualities in a large measure.

The Victorian era was characterized by many currents and crosscurrents of thought, belief and action. Every age has two faces, and so has the Victorian age, one that it turns to the past and the other that it turns to the future. It is nostalgic of the past, of rural English society, of yeomanry and country customs, of festivals and harvesting regalia. It is fearful of the future, of the teeming millions of working people, who may burst out in a volcanic protest against the misery of their condition. The Victorian novel not only reeks of a sentimental yearning for the past but also gives the impression that the future belongs to the working classes. Charles Dickens, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy reflect in different ways the life of the common man in nineteenth century society. On the contrary, there are many writers who whitewash the sordid spectacle of toil and strife. But the voices of protest against social iniquity became louder as the century drew to a close.

The Victorian society was a highbrow society that lived snugly on profits earned by investments throughout the length and breadth of the British empire. It sang of liberty and upheld democracy at home but denied these privileges to its colonies and trampled freedom movements there. It subjected the native people to degrading conditions of life but at home it took care to introduce better sanitation, higher wages, better cities, cleaner streets, education, technology, universal suffrage and all that. To the colonies it spelt oppression, violence, starvation, dehumanization and death. Victorian England certainly was a double-faced, hypocritical society but what of it? All this is history. The novel must reflect the actual conditions obtaining in this society if it is to be realistic and if it is to be a novel at all.

Henry James brought out this aspect of the novel: “Catching the very note and trick, the strange irregular rhythm of life, that is the attempt whose strenuous effort keeps fiction on her feet.” William Hazlitt regarded the novel as “a close imitation of man and morals; we see the very web and texture of society as it really exists, and as we meet it when we come into the world. If poetry has a divine quality, this savours of humanity”. The Victorian novel not only represented the social milieu but also demonstrated the moral vision of the novelist. As Arnold Kettle observes in The English novel: “The novel says something about life. It brings significance.”

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