Great Expectations Essay

Submitted By LivingOnAPrayer1
Words: 739
Pages: 3

Great Expectations –
Upper class Victorians acquired their status mainly by being born into it. Also, they got their positions by being a successful merchant in the Industrial Revolution. Few people though, earned their positions through education, and literature. Writers and artists were not common and it was hard for them, to get their position, and, they tried to keep it that way.
Victorians had a class based jobs. Aristocrats mostly concerned themselves with government and policies, while wealthy shop owners ran the shops. Artists worked for richer merchants and ran smaller shops. During the Industrial Revolution few workers were farmers, but most moved to the city and worked in the new factories that the wealthy merchants owned.
Education for the Victorians was not equal; not equal between classes, or even gender. Many children were educated in free parish schools until they were about 12 to 15 years of age. Gentlemen were taught at home until they were at an age where they could attend Eton, Rugby, Westminster, and other schools. After that, they went to colleges like Oxford or Cambridge. Ladies, on the other hand, we educated almost completely at home. She learned French, drawing, dancing, music, the use of globes, and skills like plain sewing, embroidery, and accounts.
Many wealthy Victorians usually had both a house in the country for hot summer months, and a town house. The town house was located in London, or another of Britain’s larger cities. The majority of the population, however, lived in tenement houses in the cities.
Traditional foods were eaten by Victorians; they ate meat like beef, pork and chicken. They also ate bread and rye and drank ale and beer. The upper class Victorians could also enjoy more imported foods, like citrus, and drank fine wines with their meals.
There were three main classes in England in the 19th century. There were the Aristocracy, the
Middle Class, who were the factory owners, and the working class. The aristocracy was the highest class and most people were born into it. It was hard to get in to it in any other way. The second was the
Middle Class, who owned the factories and most businesses. Then there was the working class. In the working class, it was not uncommon to see women, and even children in the factories to earn money for their families.
Victorian women of the 19th Century liked to flaunt about how wealthy they were by how they dressed. Wealthy Victorian women hardly wore makeup, rarely they secretly used blush, and thought that having pale skin was very beautiful. Having pale skin signified that they were rich and didn’t have to labor away in the sun. Sometimes, they even drew blue lines on their skin, so that it looked as if their skin was almost translucent.
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