Urban Poverty

Urban Poverty

A Doll's House
1. Victimised by society - given no support, treated as 'undeserving' (particularly women)
  1. Anne-Marie forced to give up her daughter
    1. "A poor girl what's got into trouble can't afford to pick and choose" - dialect emphasises her social class.
    2. "How could you bear to give your child away - to strangers?" - Interrogative highlights Nora's disbelief, dash adds emphasis to the fact that she was forced to give her child to people she didn't know - Ibsen asking a rhetorical question of the audience, asking if this treatment of the poor is right.
Hard Time - Dickens
1. Presented as good honest people - challenging typical middle-class Victorian views
  1. Stephen shows loyalty to other workers even after they cast him out - won't tell Bounderby about Trade Union activity
  2. "I hope I never had nowt to say not fitten for a born lady to hear" - dignity/pride among working class
  3. Stephen is always kind to his wife: "I were very patient wi' her."
  4. Stephen demonstrates Christian Forgiveness by forgiving Tom for throwing suspicion on him
2. Presents the idea that workers are being led astray by union leaders
  1. Slackbridge speaks in hyperbole, makes him seem ridiculous: "Slaves of an iron-handed and grinding despotism."
  2. Slackbridge demonised: "Judas Iscariot existed and Castlereagh existed and this man exists."
  3. Workers cast Stephen out - something they wouldn't do without encouragement
3. Suggests that the problem is the system not the people
  1. Stephen trapped in an unhappy marriage (institutions biased against the working classes): "You'd have to get an Act of Parliament to enable you to marry again, and it would cost you."
  2. Industrialisation inflicts monotonous work on them, allows them no imagination
    1. "Fairy Palaces" (irony)
    2. 'Melancholy, mad elephants'
    3. 'The Hands' (metonymy - reduces people to their functional use)
    4. "Reg'latin 'em as if they was figures in a soom or machine" "wi'out souls to weary and sould to hope."
    5. 'though the atmosphere was tainted, the room was clean.'
4. The urban poor are shown no repect
  1. Bounderby calls them "pests of the earth" and believes all they want is "turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon."
5. Differences between the rich and poor highlighted
  1. Stephen = 'taking nothing but a little bread' vs Bounderby = 'at lunch on chop and sherry'
  2. "You are awlus right and we are awlus wrong."
  3. "great folk ...are not bonded together for better or worse ... they can be set free fro' their misfortunet marriages."
Shirley - Charlotte Bronte
1. Illustrates common views of Victorian middle-class society
  1. "domestics are in all countries a spoiled unruly set." (hints at idea of undeserving poor)
2. Criticises typical middle-class attitude of superiority towards the poor
  1. Working men seen as honourable - "I can work, as Joe Scott does, for an honourable living."
  2. Harsh life of a tutor/governess (neither part of the staff or the family) - 'Louise Moore was a satellite of the house of Sympson: connected, yet apart...'
  3. Dangers of treating the poor with no respect: 'He knew when he was misjudged and was apt to turn unmanageable with such as failed to give him his due.'
  4. The pride of the rural poor similar to that of the urban poor in Hard Times: "I believe you would rather have starved than gone to the shops without money."
  5. "I cannot help thinking it unjust to include all poor working people under the general and insulting name of 'the mob' and continually to think of them and treat them haughtily."
  6. The poor presented as honest people vulnerable to being led astray by manipulative leaders: 'men always in debt and often in drink - men who had nothing to lose, and much - in the way of character. cash and cleanliness to gain.'
  7. William Farren described as: 'a very honest man ... disposed to be honourably content if he could but get work to do.'
  8. Shirley takes pleasure in charitable work: 'her seasonable bounty consoled many a poor family against the coming holiday.'

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