ttle girl is right or wrong (though the child »s view is obviously much more optimistic and hopeful). They are simply two individuals from dramatically different backgrounds and places in life, unable to see the other's perspective.nearly all works of literature, it is essential to have a point of opposition or conflict acting in the piece. In the previously mentioned works of nineteenth century British literature, there is a common theme present and that is the ongoing battle between goodness and evil, more specifically an optimistic attitude and a pessimistic attitude. The contradiction is used in a number of different ways to portray morals, transformations, and to offer up new sides of an argument that may only be visible to certain persons. Without these opposing concepts, there would be no action, no change, and thus, no story.
Talking about the XIX century we surely must mention the Chartist movement. Chartism was a working-class movement that emerged in 1838 out of the Anti-Poor Law agitation, bringing together several working class groups. Its name derived from the People s Charter, a document based on six points: universal manhood suffrage, equal electoral districts, payment for members of Parliament, elimination of the property qualification for Parliament, vote by ballot, and annual Parliaments. The Chartists circulated petitions calling for these reforms and, in 1839, 1842, and 1848, they massed in London to present their demands to Parliament, each time without success. The mass meetings and several violent confrontations with authorities led many to fear a violent revolution led by the Chartists. A split in the movement between the «physical force» and the «moral force» factions contributed to the popular perception that many Chartists were dangerous and violent agents of French radicalism. Although the movement died after 1848, it was an important precursor to the socialist movement later on. All of the Chartist reforms, except annual parliaments, were adopted by the end of the 19th century.Chartists introduced their own literature, which was the lirst attempt to create a literature of the working class. The Chartist writers tried their hand at different genres. They wrote articles, short stories, songs, epigrams, poems. Their leading genre was poetry. Though their verses were not so beautiful as those of their predecessors, the romantic poets, the Chartists used the motives of folk-poetry and dealt with the burning problems of life. They described the struggle of the workers for their rights, they showed the ruthless exploitation and the miserable fate of the poor, the struggle between good and evil. The Chartist writers called the toiling people to struggle for their rights and expressed a firm belief in the final victory of the proletariat.
The ideas of Chartism attracted the attention of many progressive-minded people of the time. Many prominent writers became aware of the social injustices around them and tried to picture them in their works. Thus this period of fierce class struggle was mirrored in literature by the appearance of a new trend, that of «Critical Realism». The greatest novelists of the age are Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell. These writers used the novel as a means to protest against the evils in contemporary social and economic life and to picture the world in a realistic way. T...
