The Victorian Era was between the years 1837-1901. The world was evolving and society was changing. Prior to this era Christianity reigned supreme but during this time free thinking was becoming more popular and questioning the existence of God was becoming a theme. Women began to take their place in the home and domestic settings rather than in career or job settings. The best way to chronicle these times was through the literature it produced. Through literature we can see that society was a great big entity that was not to be challenged. All individuals were to play their part and most had to wear a metaphoric mask in the face of society to not to rock the status quo. Manners and withholding ones true emotions were required if you wanted to fit in or be favored. Two works that I feel were written as a call for society to look at themselves and question why things are the way they are, are: The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Both works focus on an individual that are on opposite ends of the societal spectrum. However both show inequality toward the individual from society. While the slave in Browning’s poem is treated inhumanly and downright horribly due to her looks and skin color, Wilde’s Dorian Gray is treated with favor and granted anything he desires due to his good looks. The slave is benevolent yet Gray is malevolent however both are treated unequally due to what society sees: a black woman and a handsome young man.
Both of these pieces of literature from the victorian era beg for a change in society and equality for all.
The Runaway Slave At Pilgrims Point by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a poem about a woman slave and the significant trials that she has faced. With the subject matter being that of societal issues and what needs to change, this poem fits well into the first wave of victorian literature. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is a novel about a beautiful young man who is the subject of a great painting. Dorian Gray is influenced by the onlookers of his beauty and in turn begins a narcissistic lifestyle. For all of his deeds his portrait turns uglier and more severe while he keeps his beauty. For the time period Wilde wrote the novel it was deemed scandalous and not well received. This piece fits well within the third wave of victorian literature as it questions the relationship between the artist and art. Wilde’s work also fits into the first wave as it looks into societal issues and makes us question ourselves.
The Runaway Slave At Pilgrims Point approaches the reader through a lens. We, the reader, are able to feel what the slave must have felt and were able to see why the slave woman made the choices that she made. It also helped us to ask ourselves “if I were in his/her shoes would I have chosen to do different?” and it is in that question that through empathy or we should or will change our stance on the subject. Wilde went in another direction and made his readers turn inward and see our faults as an individual in order to project them outward subsequently changing our habits as a society. With The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde also began to broaden minds and horizons with his uninhibited way of telling this story.
The Runaway Slave At Pilgrims Point by Elizabeth Barrett Browning challenges society to change its stance on slavery. In order to succeed at this Barrett Browning showed the reader what it is like to be a slave woman and the trials she may have faced in her circumstance. At one point the slave woman was “happy” and in love with another slave. “And from that hour our spirits grew as free as if unsold, unbought: oh, strong enough, since we were two, to conquer the world, we thought.” (Barrett Browning) But even love was off limits for slaves and they were soon ripped apart by their masters. This is easily played on the reader as everyone at some point in their lives has had the freedom of loving another. Here is the first time the writer challenges to reader to take another look at slavery and its consequences. After giving birth to a half white baby the slave woman makes the decision to kill the baby and runaway from her master. Barrett Browning begs the reader to ask themselves what would they do in that circumstance. “O pilgrim-souls, I speak to you! I see you come out proud and slow from the land of the spirits pale as dew and round and round me ye go. O pilgrims, I have gasped and run all night long from the whips of one who in your names works sin and woe!” (Barrett Browning). In order to really change we must feel what each other is feeling.
“I am not mad: I am black. I see you staring in my face- I know you, staring, shrinking back, ye are born of the Washington-race, and this land is the free America, and this mark on my wrist-(I prove what I say) Ropes tied me up here to the flogging place.” (Barrett Browning).
This poem may not have changed society’s stance on slavery, however it did make the reader look at the problem and begs them to take steps to change it.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde explores the need for society to change by internalizing our own faults as individuals. Wilde begins this story with the painter, having finished his portrait of Dorian Gray, admiring the beauty of the man. Dorian begins a life of narcissism and malevolent deeds and sells his soul for his ever-lasting beauty while for every bad deed his portrait turns uglier. The man begins to see his bad ways but it was already too late. “No Harry, I have done too many dreadful things in my life. I am not going to do any more. I began my good actions yesterday.” (Wilde) By seeing this happen to Dorian Gray the reader begins to think what they are doing wrong in their life and at what cost? One of Gray’s lovers kills herself because of a break up with Gray and her family suffers the consequences. These circumstances make the reader wonder what their actions have on others.
“Society, civilized society at least, is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating."
"It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef. And, after all, it is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has given one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private life. Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold entrees, as Lord Henry remarked once, in a discussion on the subject; and there is possibly a good deal to be said for his view. For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it. It should have the dignity of a ceremony, as well as its unreality, and should combine in the insincere character of a romantic play with the wit and beauty that makes such plays delightful to us. Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.” (Wilde.) Here Wilde discusses his views on society and its tendency to only care about appearances. As long as your appearances in society is up to par then it doesn’t matter what your sins are so long as they stay in the dark. In the end the beautiful, yet malevolent, man that was the source of much heartache dies with none of the beauty he started with. “When they entered they found hanging upon the wall, a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not until they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was.” (Wilde) The writer sends a message of the importance to stay humble, care about your fellow man, and that beauty is not everything. The importance of this piece is that in order for society or the world to change, we have to work on ourselves and make those changes first.
Works Cited
Browning Barrett, Elizabeth. “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point”. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Victorian Era. Joseph Black. Second Edition. Ontario: Broadview Press, 2012. 138-141. Print.
Wilde, Oscar. “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Edited by Joseph Black, The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Victorian Era, 2nd ed., vol. 5, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press, 2012. Print
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