Urban Poverty

Urban Poverty

1. A Doll's House

   • Victimised by society - given no support, treated as 'undeserving' (particularly women)
     • Anne-Marie forced to give up her daughter
       • "A poor girl what's got into trouble can't afford to pick and choose" - dialect emphasises her social class.
       • "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.

2. Hard Time - Dickens

   • Presented as good honest people - challenging typical middle-class Victorian views
     • Stephen shows loyalty to other workers even after they cast him out - won't tell Bounderby about Trade Union activity
     • "I hope I never had nowt to say not fitten for a born lady to hear" - dignity/pride among working class
     • Stephen is always kind to his wife: "I were very patient wi' her."
     • Stephen demonstrates Christian Forgiveness by forgiving Tom for throwing suspicion on him
   • Presents the idea that workers are being led astray by union leaders
     • Slackbridge speaks in hyperbole, makes him seem ridiculous: "Slaves of an iron-handed and grinding despotism."
     • Slackbridge demonised: "Judas Iscariot existed and Castlereagh existed and this man exists."
     • Workers cast Stephen out - something they wouldn't do without encouragement
   • Suggests that the problem is the system not the people
     • 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."
     • Industrialisation inflicts monotonous work on them, allows them no imagination
       • "Fairy Palaces" (irony)
       • 'Melancholy, mad elephants'
       • 'The Hands' (metonymy - reduces people to their functional use)
       • "Reg'latin 'em as if they was figures in a soom or machine" "wi'out souls to weary and sould to hope."
       • 'though the atmosphere was tainted, the room was clean.'
   • The urban poor are shown no repect
     • Bounderby calls them "pests of the earth" and believes all they want is "turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon."
   • Differences between the rich and poor highlighted
     • Stephen = 'taking nothing but a little bread' vs Bounderby = 'at lunch on chop and sherry'
     • "You are awlus right and we are awlus wrong."
     • "great folk ...are not bonded together for better or worse ... they can be set free fro' their misfortunet marriages."

3. Shirley - Charlotte Bronte

   • Illustrates common views of Victorian middle-class society
     • "domestics are in all countries a spoiled unruly set." (hints at idea of undeserving poor)
   • Criticises typical middle-class attitude of superiority towards the poor
     • Working men seen as honourable - "I can work, as Joe Scott does, for an honourable living."
     • 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...'
     • 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.'
     • 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."
     • "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."
     • 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.'
     • William Farren described as: 'a very honest man ... disposed to be honourably content if he could but get work to do.'
     • Shirley takes pleasure in charitable work: 'her seasonable bounty consoled many a poor family against the coming holiday.'