presented not only the adventures of the main characters, but also those of the secondary ones.

Victorian novel features;

  1. Omniscient narrator provided a comment on the plot and erect a rigid barrier between right and wrong (didactic aim)
  2. The setting s the city (symbol of industrial civilization, anonymous lives and lost identity)
  3. Long and complicated plot
  4. Creation of character and deep analysis of their lives
  5. Retribution or punishment in the final chapter Dickens - a town of red bricks The description of the modern city is depressing and repetitive. The city is rational, based on fact but the quality of the life is not good. Ten hospitals but no instrument for happiness. The life is boring, always the same, the life in the city swallow with lives in it. Irony in the description. Characteristics of the Realistic VictorianNovel • An emphasis on the here and now • Attention to specific action and verifiable consequences • Realists evoke common actions, present surface details, and emphasize the minor catastrophes of the middle class • They employ simple direct language and write about issues of conduct • Characterization is very important. There is often an abundance of characters and social types
  6. Literature of this age tends to come closer to daily life which reflects its practical problems and interests. It becomes a powerful instrument for human progress. Socially & economically, Industrialism was on the rise and various reform movements like emancipation, child labor, women’s rights, and evolution.
  7. Moral Purpose: The Victorian literature seems to deviate from "art for art's sake" and asserts its moral purpose. Tennyson, Browning, Carlyle, Ruskin - all were the teachers of England with the faith in their moral message to instruct the world.
  8. Idealism: It is often considered as an age of doubt and pessimism. The influence of science is felt here. The whole age seems to be caught in the conception of man in relation to the universe with the idea of evolution.
  9. Though, the age is characterized as practical and materialistic, most of the writers exalt a purely ideal life. It is an idealistic age where the great ideals like truth, justice, love, brotherhood are emphasized by poets, essayists and novelists of the age.

The Victorian Novel: main features

The most popular novels of the Victorian age were realistic, thickly plotted, crowded with characters, and long. Describing contemporary life and entertainment for the middle class.

First of all in the Victorian Age the dominating literary form was the novel.

It was in fact easier to be read and understood by simple people, its plot was more interesting than any other literary forms, the main protagonists of the novel were the same people who read it so that they felt deeply involved in the adventure told, the writer and his readers shared the same opinions, values and ideals because they belonged to the same middle class, the setting was mainly that of the same city where readers lived. In conclusion the novel was a kind of mirror which reflected society and where a self-identification of the readers was possible.

In this sense “didacticism” was the dominating aim of most of the novels of these years. As a consequence the narrator is generally omniscient: he operates a marked division between good and evil characters, he judges people and actions, he makes its stories finish with a wise distribution of “punishment” for the evil characters, “retribution” for the good ones.

The plot of the novels was generally very long and complicated by many sub-plots: the writer also wanted to give a marked impression of reality so that he presented not only the adventures of the main characters, but also those of the secondary ones.

Victorian novel features

  1. Omniscient narrator provided a comment on the plot and erect a rigid barrier between right and wrong (didactic aim)

  2. The setting s the city (symbol of industrial civilization, anonymous lives and lost identity)