Weekly Post

Out of all the readings I have done for this course, I found Oscar Wilde’s Salome to be the most difficult. I felt that the text, as well as the images were complicated and rooted in symbolism. I found the presentations today to be very helpful in understanding this symbolism. I saw a lot of gender representation throughout the illustrations, weather that be through non-conforming gender or a character very specifically being a man or a woman.

ENG910 - Blog Post #7

With this weeks discussion of Oscar Wilde's Salome, I noticed the ways that the illustrations accompanying the text play on the idea of the male gaze, as was discussed by many of the presentations. Especially when analyzing how Salome's character is being depicted in the illustrations, it is easy to idenfity the ways in which Beardsley's images draw on the male gaze by the visual cues that they feature.

Portsmouth

Portsmouth is the village where the Price family lives with their nine children. This is also where Fanny returns to after she leaves Mansfield Park. 

Ireland

Irish Immigrants were discrimminated against during the Victorian Era. They were thought as incompetent and criticized throughout the novel by Gaskell. There is energy, power and courage in the struggle of the Irish immigrants to provide themselves a better life. The Irish were brought in after a workers strike in the novel and provided cheap labor for the mill. The Irish have been the largest source of immigrants to Britian. They immigrated to England to escape famine in their homeland of Ireland.

Westminster Hall

Dickens sets David Copperfield in places recognizable to his audience,19th-century English people. Thus, his descriptions and the world where his fictional characters exist more real. One of the first mentions of the Westminster area is when David crosses the Westminster Bridge with Ms. Pettogy in his search for Emily. The bridge was built in 1862 and mimics the Gothic style of Westminster Hall. Westminster Hall is the oldest building in the Houses of Parliament and the most ancient Palace of Westminster which still stands tall in its original form.