The Dilemma And The Choices

It is universally believed that literature in the Victorian Age is characterized by its realistic style and its stress on morality. This thesis has put its focus on the aristocratic characters depicted in the Victorian novels. This thesis believes that since the Aristocracy come across a downfall in the Victorian Age both economically and politically, the aristocratic characters in Victorian novels have faced a moral dilemma, and in front of such a dilemma, different choices are made to cope with that.This thesis is composed of three chapters as well as an introduction and a conclusion. The introduction part gives a critical review on both the aristocratic characters in the Victorian novels and the morality in the Victorian novels. And then the argument, research methods and the significance of this thesis are introduced. The major methods adopted in this thesis are ethical literary criticism and the Marxist ethics. Chapter One includes three parts. The first part generally reviews the evolvement of the Aristocracy and then gives a definition of the Aristocracy in the Victorain Age. The second part depicts a general picture of the Aristocray in the Victorian Age from the economic and political perspectives and reflects the downfall of the Aristocracy's status. The third part points out that with the decline of its economic and political status, the Aristocracy in the Victorian Age faced a challenged morality—whether to maintain their traditional moral values or not. Chapter Two introduces the aristocratic characters in the Victorian novels and divides them into two groups: the nobility and the gentry. Chapter Three analyzes the moral dilemma that the Aristocracy is facing and summarizes three groups of people according to their different choices in front of such a dilemma, that is, the conventional group who stick to the old moral values, the bourgeois assimilated group who have embodied the good moral principles of the middle class and finally the indulgent and depraved group who abandon their traditional values but have not found the way out.The conclusion restates the view of this thesis and points out only the gourgeois assimilated group who fit into the new society can survive.