Alienation during the Victorian Era - 2655 Words

Alienation Many characters during the Victorian to early Modern literature era were alienated. Causes of alienation during this time period included familial separation, social class or gender restrictions, and self-isolation from society. These characters may display the common causes of alienation, but ared still connected to their families and society. Some characters may alienate themselves, yet find that they can never truly separate from family and/or society. While on the surface many characters may seem to be alienated, it is clear that every character is not alienated and is connected through familial ties, love, or money. Characters were alienated during this time period due to four main causes: family, social class, gender,†¦show more content†¦Dorian separates himself even more from society as commits himself to â€Å"eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins† (Wilde 77) after the death of his temporary love, Sibyl Vane. He follows a destructive path of selfishness and soon begins to have no consideration for others as he shows no remorse after Sibyl’s death. Dorian is by himself without any help from other people because of his selfish ways. Dorian’s hedonistic views only allow him to seek the pleasures of an â€Å"exquisite life† (Wilde 100). This isolation of other views causes Dorian to continually sin because of the pleasure seeking throughout his life and will ultimately cause his death. Another self-isolation of life includes Stephen Dedalus, in James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man who le ads a story of alienating himself from early childhood to adulthood. From childhood, he is alienated from his large family as he is sent to a Jesuit boarding school where he has a hard time with other students as he felt his body [too] small and weak amid the [other] players (Joyce 8), and is very unhappy there. As an adult and the artist stage in his life, Stephen goes to study at university and feels alienated from Ireland. Stephen rejects Irish politics andShow MoreRelated Comparing Hap by Thomas Hardy and The Second Coming by Yeats1410 Words   |  6 PagesComparing Hap by Thomas Hardy and The Second Coming by Yeats      Ã‚   Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was one of the great writers of the Late Victorian era. One of his great works out of the many that he produced was his poem Hap, which he wrote in 1866, but did not publish until 1898 in his collection of poems called Wessex Poems. This poem seems to typify the sense of alienation that he and other writers were experiencing at the time, as they saw their times as marked by accelerating social and technologicalRead MoreSummary Of Gods Grandeur845 Words   |  4 PagesConflict among contexts of the Victorian era, Catholicism and Gerard Manley Hopkins, has shaped Hopkins’ distinctive poetic exploration of religious faith in his poems. 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