Appearance and reality.
The thematic core I have to talk about is "appearance and reality".
This topic brings together many subjects that we have studied, particularly in English.
I have looked at the program from September onwards and I found many authors
who have dealt with this concept.
In fact, since the beginning of this year we have been dealing with this theme of
reality behind appearances, even in two stories read in the book "Culture Clash".
We read "Lispeth", by Rudyard Kipling.
In this story we saw how the Pakistani girl Lispeth falls in love with an English man
and thinks she knows him well enough to marry him. After a few months, however,
she realizes that what she thought for sure was all appearance and in fact the English
man was married.
Also in the story of Katherine Mansfield, "How Pearl Button was Kidnapped" we can
see how the girl was taken to an island where she can spend wonderful moments and
be very happy, but despite this, the women who took her there were actually
kidnappers. This theme, however, is not only about literature, but also about society
itself.
We have studied the Victorian age, reigned by a constitutional monarchy.
A period of progress, colonial expansion, important political and social reforms.
But behind this lies the true reality of society.
The Victorian were great moralisers: they supported personal duty, hard work,
respectability and chastity.
However, the respectability is a mixture of morality and hypocrisy: the negative side
of society was hidden under outward respectability.
You have to look respectable in what concerns your class, as the way you dress, your
conduct, being a good Christian etc...
Poverty was seen as a crime and it had to be faced with hard work.
For example, a new Poor Law was introduced in 1834 according to which poor people
had to be carried into some institutions (parishes) called Workhouses, where they
had to work for free.
The government made sure that people feared the workhouses in order to encourage
them to work.
