Question

how did print impact the lives of women in the 19th century in europe

Answer 1

(i) Women education : Writers started writing about the lives and feelings of women, and this increased the number of women readers. Women got interested in education, and many women schools and colleges were set up. Many journals started emphasising the importance of women education.
(ii) Women writers : In East Bengal, in the early nineteenth century, Rashsundari Debi, a young married girl wrote her autobiography, Amar Jiban (means ‘my life’) which was published in 1876.
From the 1860s, many Bengali women writers like Kailashbashini Debi wrote books highlighting the experiences of women, about how women were imprisoned at home, kept in ignorance, forced to do hard domestic labour, and treated unjustly by the menfolk, they served. In the 1880s, in the present-day Maharashtra, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote with passionate anger about the miserable lives of the upper-caste Hindu women, especially the widows. The poor status of women was also expressed by the Tamil writers.

Answer 2

Answer: Impact on Women :

(i) Women became important readers and writers. Penny magazines, especially meant for women, contained guidelines on proper behaviour and housekeeping.

 (ii) Novel began to be written in the 19th century and some of the best novelists were women like Jane Austen, Bronte sisters, George Eliot, etc.

(iii) Their writing created a new image of women with will, strength of personality, determination and power to think.

 Impact on Children :

(i) Primary education became compulsory from the late 19th century.

(ii) School textbooks, rural folk tales in edited versions, fairy tales and new stories were published for children.

(iii) Grimm brothers of Germany spent years to collect traditional folk tales from peasants and France and set up a children's press in 1857. 

OR

Main theme of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens encompasses a tale of a poor orphan who lived in a world of petty criminals and beggars. He was finally adopted by a wealthy man and lived happily. This novel includes many genres. It is a novel that talk about serious issues. It is a mystery story and some chapters can even seem to belong to horror fiction.

The novel emphasizes on the social injustices and the political oppressions that the poor people were subjected to in the England of 19 century.

Oliver Twist was the vehement protest against the poor law of 1834. The main function of this law was the punishment to the poor for being poor and ensure that they never could rise out of their poverty.

This novel is a ruthless satire. It effectively pierces the middle class veil of complacency and snoberry and reveals the hypocrises that plague society.