The Concept of Self-Help in Victorian Literature
George Gissing's New Grub Street demonstrates the Utilitarian values that characterized Victorian social and cultural life, while Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles demonstrates the Evangelical values also dominant during the period. The concept of self-help factors into both novels because Utilitarianism and Evangelicalism stressed the concept as the route to earthly and heavenly rewards, respectively. The tone of the two books differs significantly, most notably in the sense that Gissing uses the commercialization of literature to question the effect of Utilitarian values on daily human life and Hardy uses Tess's life to question Evangelical religious tenets. However, the novels also demonstrate the similarity between the two philosophies. The position of the main characters at the end of the novels is a logical result of their lives and philosophies throughout the novels. This conclusion is an outgrowth of the philosophies that dominated the period.
Generally, social and cultural life in the Victorian era was molded by two distinct yet not necessarily opposing philosophies: Utilitarianism and Evangelicalism (Altick 114). Altick observes that working from sometimes antithetical premises, these two philosophies joined to create and rationalize what came to be known as middle-class values (Altick 165). The concept of self-help served as this unifying middle-class value. Utilitarianism stressed education as the means for the lower-classes to help themselves into better social and financial position. Evangelicalism, on the other hand, stressed self-help through moral actions as the road to improving one's chances on Judgment Day.
Evangelicalism was concerned less with doctrine and the forms of worship than with the way men should live, and much less with life for its own sake than as preparation for eternity (Altick 165). Altick argues that Evangelicalism tran...