English Literature / Unit 15 ENL 1441 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Reading a Victorian Fiction Passage
The idea
A Victorian fiction passage usually rewards five questions. First, who is narrating: a first-person hero looking back, such as Jane Eyre or Pip, or an omniscient narrator who comments, such as George Eliot's? Second, what is the narrator's attitude: sympathetic, ironic or moralizing; Eliot generalizes about human nature, Dickens satirizes, Thackeray mocks. Third, what social facts frame the scene: class, money, inheritance, marriage, work? Fourth, how is character shown: through tags and quirks, as in Dickens, or through inner reflection, as in Eliot? Fifth, what is the passage's purpose: reform, satire, sympathy or suspense in a serial instalment? Then answer the question by citing the narrator's stance and the social facts together.
In practice
Narrator, attitude, social facts, character, purpose.
Where people slip
Do not confuse the narrator's comment with a character's view. Victorian narrators often step outside the story to judge it.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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