How To Read a Victorian Novel

For good historical reasons, Victorian novels tended to be very long. (Great Expectations and Jane Eyre, believe it or not, are not that long by the standards of their day.) Such long, dense novels require more active, attentive, self-conscious reading than you are probably used to. Ideally, you should re-read, but since doing so is often difficult, this handout is designed to assist you in making even a single reading experience more productive.

General Advice:

Read with a pen (not a highlighter) in hand. Mark up the text, write questions and comments in the margins, take notes on the inside covers, etc. If you don't like to write in a book, keep a separate reading journal to record these things.
Read regularly. Don't let a novel sit too long between readings, and don't try to cover too much at a time. Both will make it too hard to remember plot, character, etc. Reading regularly also approximates the experience of the novels’ contemporary readers, for Victorian fiction was frequently published in serial form, often in weekly or monthly installments in magazines.
Use the textual apparatus. The class editions contain useful introductions, notes, and background material.

Using Charlotte’s Web and Pip's World: Charlotte’s Web and Pip's World place a lot of information at your fingertips, much of it applicable to The Mill on the Floss and Hard Times as well. There is biographical information, social history, literary history, criticism, etc. Homework assignments will have you using the Web, but be sure to explore on your own, pursuing issues and questions of interest to you.

Specific Points to Look For:

Plot: Much of our energy on a first reading is expended on keeping track of the plot, and Victorian novels are plot-heavy. Nonetheless, you must strive to be analytical even with the story line(s): (1) In Great Expectations, pay attention to where each installment ends, as they generally make coherent wholes. (This will be even easier to do with Hard Times, since you’ll be receiving and reading it in the original installments.) Notice how Dickens opens and closes an installment, what plot lines are advanced or deferred, etc. Look for structural relationships among each work's larger divisions as well: Dickens shaped Great Expectations into three parts for volume publication; Jane Eyre was also divided into three parts; Eliot divided The Mill into seven books. (2) Think about the relationships among the various plot lines. Characters and events in one plot line often clarify how we are to interpret characters and events in another plot line.

Names: The names of characters and places were not chosen casually; we learn a lot from names like Helen Burns, Jaggers, Stephen Guest, Satis House, St. Ogg’s, and Thornfield Hall.

Settings: Settings--whether rural or urban, interior or exterior--influence mood, help us to interpret their inhabitants' and/or their describers' personalities, and signal the direction of the plot. Dickens's description of the marshes and Brontë's of the interior of Thornfield Hall are not simply adding realistic details or pretty language to the novel.

Allusions: Victorian novels are rife with allusions of all sorts: to other works of literature, to artists and works of art, to music, to mythology, to the Bible, to historical events and figures, to contemporary social and political events. These, too, are not casual references. Textual notes will often clarify or at least identify these, but get in the habit of trying to determine the significance of these allusions for yourselves. Dickens's use of Hamlet, Miss Ingram's love of Byron's poetry, and Eliot's references to The Pilgrim’s Progress provide us with clues about how to interpret character and action.

Images, Figurative Language, and Themes: As you read you should be on the alert for images and figurative language that are repeated, particularly in what seem to be important places. When you become aware of one, stop and think if you can recall any instances prior to your moment of realization. In Jane Eyre, Brontë uses frequent references to fire. Becoming aware of such language, however, is only the first step. The real question is what is its purpose? Is there any connection to the plot, i.e. does this language provide any foreshadowing? What themes does it suggest are central to the novel, and what position does the novel take on them? Fires, for example, are usually associated in literature with passion and rebellion--is that appropriate here? What is the novel's view of passionate or rebellious behavior?

Narrative Voice and Characterization: Victorian novelists did not employ a simple concept of an omniscient, third-person narrator. As you read, pay attention to and constantly question that narrative voice: who's talking? how knowledgeable is he/she? how reliable is he/she? how does this perspective compare to the perspective of others? how is the narrator trying to manipulate me? Watch for development in the narrator, as for that matter in all the characters. Is a character's personality static and fixed, or does it change over time?

Gender, Class, and Empire: Literary critics of the last generation have made us aware of the importance of what often seem to be minor references to these issues. Victorian novels are frequently about upper-middle-class Englishmen in London and its environs. Yet behind and around these men are women, workers and servants, and an empire on which the sun never set. Be aware, then, of what women do and say (and don't do and don't say), of the roles they are encouraged to play and the penalties exacted if they don't play them. Take note of how characters earn their money, what social class they are members of, and who and why they marry (all of which items are usually described, however briefly, with great precision). Pay attention to characters who disappear to and re-appear from places like India, Africa, Australia, the Orient, the West Indies, and the Middle East, and notice what they do in these exotic places and how those experiences change them.

In short, pay attention when reading these novels to the details of their language. They may often seem (as Henry James described Dickens's last completed novel) "loose, baggy monsters," but little or nothing went into them without some artistic purpose.