Question

Explain the following :
(a) Social changes in Britain which led to an increase in women readers.
(b) What actions of Robinson Crusoe make us see him as a typical coloniser ?

Answer 1

Answer:

(a) Social changes in Britain which led to an increase in women readers were as mentioned below :

1. The middle classes became more prosperous in the eighteenth century. Women, therefore, got more leisure to read as well as write novels.
2. The subject-matter of many novels was women, their emotions and identities, their experiences and problems. Many novels were about domestic life- a theme about which women were allowed to speak with authority. The novels of Jane Austen give us a glimpse of the world of women in general rural society in Britain. These subjects increased their interests and led to increase in women readers.
3. Women drew upon their experience, wrote about family life and earned public recognition.
4. However when women began writing novels many people feared that they would neglect their traditional role as wives and mothers and homes would be in disorder.
5. By the nineteenth century, images of women reading silently, in the privacy of the room, became common in European paintings.

(b) The following actions of Robinson Crusoe make us see him as a typical colonizer:

1. He is an adventurer and slave trader.
2. He treats coloured people not as human beings equal to him, but as inferior creatures.
3. He rescues a ‘native’ and makes him his slave.
4. He does not ask for his name (native) but arrogantly gives him the name Friday. But at the time, Crusoe’s behaviour was right because colonialism was seen as natural. Colonised people were seen as primitive and barbaric. Colonial rule was considered necessary to civilise them as white man’s burden.

Answer 2

Answer :

(a) Social changes in Britain which led to an increase in women readers were as mentioned below :

The middle classes became more prosperous in the eighteenth century. Women, therefore, got more leisure to read as well as write novels.

The subject-matter of many novels was women, their emotions and identities, their experiences and problems. Many novels were about domestic life- a theme about which women were allowed to speak with authority. The novels of Jane Austen give us a glimpse of the world of women in general rural society in Britain. These subjects increased their interests and led to increase in women readers.

Women drew upon their experience, wrote about family life and earned public recognition.

However when women began writing novels many people feared that they would neglect their traditional role as wives and mothers and homes would be in disorder.

By the nineteenth century, images of women reading silently, in the privacy of the room, became common in European paintings.

(b) The following actions of Robinson Crusoe make us see him as a typical colonizer:

He is an adventurer and slave trader.

He treats coloured people not as human beings equal to him, but as inferior creatures.

He rescues a ‘native’ and makes him his slave.

He does not ask for his name (native) but arrogantly gives him the name Friday. But at the time, Crusoe’s behaviour was right because colonialism was seen as natural. Colonised people were seen as primitive and barbaric. Colonial rule was considered necessary to civilise them as white man’s burden.