Date of Award

2006

Type

Thesis

Major

English Language and Literature - Literature Concentration

Degree Type

Bachelor of Arts in Language and Literature

Department

English

First Advisor

Daniel W. Ross

Abstract

The Victorian Age created a revolution in technology that defined the age and has fostered its social ideologies. In every civilization, the technologies of the time reflect the social issues of the culture. For instance, the development of the printing press in the fifteenth-century revealed desires for higher literacy rates; the invention of the cotton gin incited the social injustices of American slavery; the progress of the Internet embodies this century's attachment to fast-food, fast-money, and fast-information. Likewise, in the Victorian Age, the invention of underground tunnels exposed some important social issues which developed in the period. Just as the physical image of a tunnel promotes a sense of enclosure and confinement, the tunnel symbol seems subconsciously to pervade Victorian literature and art as it reflects the treatment of women in the eyes of the male artist. Specifically, the way in which women are portrayed, both poetically and socially, reflects the desire by men to imprison or enclose the sexual power of women. For the Victorians, tunnels represent not only the thriving age of industrialization, but they also symbolically suggest the social confinement of nineteenth-century women.

For the Victorians, change was occurring everywhere. From Darwinian evolution to the rise of Capitalism to the Industrial Revolution, this age seemed to reflect the growing demands of mass production and the belief in urbanization. With the invention of railways and the subway, the world would soon realize the growing power of Britain and her people. For the first time, Englishmen abandoned the simple transportation systems of carriages and horses and started to depend on mechanical vehicles—vehicles which were built underground, operated underground, and moved people underground. In effect, these long-stretching tunnels became a Victorian symbol of technological advancement.

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Honors Thesis

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