Historical Geography of Victorian London - Essay Example

?Using examples show how we can use writing (fiction and/or non-fiction) by Charles Dickens and/or his contemporaries, to enhance our understanding of selected aspects of the historical geography of Victorian London. Charles Dickens has been considered as the greatest novelist from the Victorian era producing some of the most recognisable characters and descriptions in English literature (The New York Times, 2007). Another measure of Dickens’s popularity is that his work has not gone out of print even today (Swift, 2007). One potent reason for Dickens’s success is his use of vivid realism in order to paint realistic pictures of Victorian England. Most of Dickens’s work is set in or around London, though there are other works that have been construed in settings that are more industrial. Reflections from Dickens’s work can be utilised in order to paint a geographical picture of London from the Victorian era. This technique of geographical survey has been on the rise and has produced unique observations that would have been otherwise secluded from public view. This paper will attempt to analyse the various views and descriptions presented by Dickens’s through his works as per the residential segregation in the city of London. The various facets of urban and social life expressed in the divisions of residential neighbourhoods will allow the creation of a reasonable picture as per Victorian London’s geography. This paper will emphasize on a number of works by Dickens’s including Oliver Twist (1838), Dombey and Son (1846 – 48) Bleak House (1852 / 53), Little Dorrit (1855 / 56) and Great Expectations (1860 / 61) but not Hard Times (1854) because the latter is based on an industrial setting that resembled Liverpool or Manchester more closely than it resembled London. Furthermore, the first three novels provide a continuous picture of London’s public geography under evolution. Other works such as A Tale of Two Cities (1858 / 59) are based partly on London and partly elsewhere so these are not being included for discussion. The onset of the Industrial Revolution affected life in all forms and manners including the urban landscapes. The population of Great Britain grew by 102% between 1801 and 1851 to approach eighteen million souls. The rapid pace of industrialisation bolstered the economy on one hand and left millions in misery on the other hand. This image of misery has been a hallmark of Victorian literature and the ensuing geographical inferences gathered from it. Generally when Victorian literature or geography is thought about, it is presumed that industrial establishments with narrow crooked streets, two to three storied cramped living quarters, a lack of sanitation and open public places is being talked about. This generalisation is imposed on all Victorian metropolises from the era whether one talks about London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow or other cities. However, this image of London is far from reality from the era as per the works of Dickens’s as well as according to geographical descriptions from the era (Banks, 1967) (Dyos & Wolff, 1973). In contrast to the images of long factory chimneys, London was not an industrial establishment at all. Instead, London was based on finance capitalism rather than industrial capitalism. The city and its geographical life were dominated by the “world of lawyers, bankers, brokers, merchants, clerks and governmental institutions” (Woudenberg, 1996). The writings of Dickens’s also reflect this reality as most of his work concerning London is overly consumed with descriptions of locales that do not exhibit the typical industrial metropolis settings. Most of Dickens’s work being studied for this paper provides active descriptions of locales such as (Collins, 1987): the City and Westminster; the Inns of Court area; the poorer regions towards the East such as Limehouse and Whitechapel; the Southern areas such as Lambeth, Southwark, Bermondery, Deptford; the shabbier living quarters of the clerks based in Somers and Camden Towns, Islington and Pentonville. There are a few notable aspects when the works of Dickens’s are explored in relation to the geography of Victorian London. The City and Westminster areas are the financial and commercial capitals of the world while the suburbs mentioned above are auxiliary regions that support the clerk populations that work in these business districts. Notably the City and Westminster business districts were well kept and maintained much similar to the modern metropolis’s of today while the living quarters for the clerks were much less maintained. It must be kept in mind that these observations are in respect of the open spaces such as streets, parks and the like as well as in terms of the residential quarters. Sanitation issues manifest themselves repeatedly in Dickens’s works in respect of the shabbier suburbs that supported the populations of clerks working in London. This serves to indicate that the streets of suburbs in the South and East of London were unsanitary and carried rat populations. Again, the aspect of rats loitering around in streets (as well as houses) is repeatedly visible in Dickens’s works such as Little Dorrit (Dickens, 2009) (Butt, 1959). The descriptions of residential quarters for the affluent and the ordinary reflect a large divide such as in Dickens’s Great Expectations that tends to concentrate more on the lives of the affluent. The descriptions from these novels indicate that the rich and the poor were forced to live in separate residential districts that were far removed from each other in terms of the amenities and living conditions being offered. Another issue that must be kept in mind while analysing Dickens’s works is the particular period they are penned in. The decade of the 1850’s was characterised by a London full of traffic jams along with constant demolition and rebuilding of entire neighbourhoods (Schwarz, 1992). The onslaught of constant change meant that entire neighbourhoods were being relocated through rebuilding efforts. Slums were being removed in order to make way for modern amenities such as railway lines and this tended to produce another form of residential segregation. It has been suggested that Victorian London offered the opportunity of living in a “middle class neighbourhood that was only a five minute walk removed from the most desolate slums” (Woudenberg, 1996). This observation has been reinforced by other research on the issue particularly when it comes to reflections of London’s geography according to Dickens (Schwarzbach, 1979). Evidence for residential segregation stems from Dickens’s observations in novels such as Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. The characters in both novels are able to walk from posh living areas into the city’s slums relatively quickly. For example, Oliver Twist is taken from the slums of the city and abandoned around the posh residence of his benefactor in a small amount of time. This indicates that the slums of the city were in relative proximity to the posh area where Mr. Brownlow lived. Similarly, Nancy’s meetings with Rose and Mr. Brownlow indicate that she had little problem in moving from one part of the metropolis of London to the other. One would expect that in a metropolis it would take time and the use of transport means such as a carriage or a tram to move from one part of the city to the other but nothing in the novel indicates this. Instead, when Noah spies on Nancy by following her it becomes obvious that both characters are on foot and that it is relatively easy for Noah to follow Nancy through streets that connect the slums to the more posh areas (Dickens, 2002). In a similar manner when Pip goes to the Satis House to play with Estella it takes him little time and he does not need to use public transport given that he is a small boy who would tire out if he walked for miles. This again serves to indicate the proximity of the slums and the more posh areas of London (Dickens, 2011). Moreover, this observation tends to reinforce the idea that residential segregation was not only available but was also rather strongly enforced. Perhaps another notable aspect of residential segregation emerges in Great Expectations given the evolution of Pip’s life. The novel begins in the same neighbourhoods and posh areas that the novel ends in although Pip grows up from a small boy into a large man. As mentioned before, London was in a state of constant change and it is hard to reason how Pip’s growth consisting of nearly two decades failed to produce any notable change. The poor neighbourhood where Pip resided remained the same as did the posh area where the Satis House was situated (Dickens, 2011) leading one to assume that there were no geographical changes in London during these two decades or so. However, this belief is unsupported on other fronts (Carey, 1974) (Butt, 1955) who support the contention that change was in the air. This change does not indicate that residential segregation somehow ended but serve to illustrate that the boundaries of residential segregation kept shifting over time. In this respect, it must be noted that works of fiction such as those produced by Dickens are not completely trustable in discerning geographical facts. Though these novels may serve to illustrate the more broader socio-economic framework at play but they may not be able to account for smaller details. Hence, the assumption in Great Expectations that London’s residential segregation does not change at all during two decades is not well founded. The images of residential segregation were also strongly reinforced by Dickens through his novel Dombey and Son which depicts the onslaught of the railways. The residential districts that lay in the path of the railway lines were demolished and their residents were forced to leave. Historical texts lead to the belief that this new railway line was being laid through Camden Town (a poor neighbourhood) to connect London and Birmingham between 1833 and 1837. It is a widely recognised fact that this social upheaval led to a redistribution of social classes so that residential neighbourhoods had to redefine themselves again (Dyos & Wolff, 1973). Certain critics have also contended that the emergence of this railway line begun a certain “social chain reaction” so that the poor people who were displaced by the railways begun to displace the artisans who in turn displaced the lower middle class and the middle class from their exclusive suburbs. These suburbs have been labelled as “retreats” for the middle class indicating that they were residentially segregated from other shabbier living areas (Dyos, 1982). This progression of social classes and the ensuing residential segregation at the start and end of this process is clearly highlighted in Dickens’s novel Dombey and Son which shows various characters such as Edith Granger moving from one residential district to another (Dickens, 2011). Conclusively it can be stated that works of fiction such as those produced by Dickens allow modern geographers to look into the past with reasonable accuracy. However, it must be kept in mind that not all details related in novels are totally true and they must be investigated in the wider context of things to discern their credibility. Furthermore, Dickens’s work from the Victorian era reveals the extent of residential segregation in London. The more affluent suburbs were inhabited by the middle, upper classes while the artisans and the lower classes inhabited segregated residential establishments near the city’s business districts. These posh and poor neighbourhoods lay in close proximity to each other such that it was possible to walk from one residential district to another with relative ease. Moreover, over time some poorer neighbourhoods such as Camden Town were removed to make way for railway lines leading to further residential segregation as inhabitants were forced to leave. 1. Works Cited Banks, J. A., 1967. Population change and the Victorian City. Victorian Studies, Volume 11, pp. 277-289. Butt, J., 1955. Bleak House in Context of 1851. Nineteenth Century Fiction, Volume 10, pp. 1-21. Butt, J., 1959. The Topicality of Little Dorrit. University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 60, pp. 1-10. Carey, J., 1974. Here Comes Dickens: The Imagination of a Novelist. New York: Schocken Books Inc.. Collins, P., 1987. Visions of the Modern City. London: The John Hopkins University Press. Dickens, C., 2002. Oliver Twist. Dover: Dover Publications. Dickens, C., 2009. Little Dorrit. London: Random House. Dickens, C., 2011. Dombey and Son. New York: Digireads.com. Dickens, C., 2011. Great Expectations. London: CreateSpace. Dyos, H. J., 1982. Exploring the Urban Past. In: D. Cannadine & D. Reeder, eds. Essays in Urban History. London: Cambridge University Press. Dyos, H. J. & Wolff, M., 1973. The Victorian City: Images and Realities. Boston: Routledge. Schwarzbach, F. S., 1979. Dickens and the City. London: The Athlone Press. Schwarz, L. D., 1992. London in the Age of Industrialisation: Entrepreneurs, Labour Force and Living Conditions, 1700-1850. New York: Cambridge University Press. Swift, S., 2007. What the Dickens?. [Online] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/apr/18/classics.travelnews [Accessed 19 March 2012]. The New York Times, 2007. Victorian squalor and hi-tech gadgetry: Dickens World to open in England. [Online] Available at: www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/23/news/23web-dickens.php [Accessed 19 March 2012]. Woudenberg, M. F. P. V., 1996. A STUDY OF THE EMERGING URBAN CAPITALIST PSYCHOLOGY OF MID-VICTORIAN LONDON IN THE NOVELS OF CHARLES DICKENS, s.l.: McMaster University. Read More