The rhetoric of work in Victorian England: A discourse analysis

Date

2016

Authors

Hamm, Elizabeth

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Abstract

This research examines the discourse of the rhetoric of work in Victorian England by primarily examining the primary documents of newspapers, autobiography, poetry, and the Blue Book deliberations of Parliament. My purpose is to show how the underrepresented and “silenced” groups of the working man, the child, and the woman in Victorian England became part of the struggle surrounding the discourse of work. However, minority groups were not able to enter into the discourse surrounding work alone. In order to understand the primary documents from a rhetorical perspective, the theorist Michel Foucault’s ideas will be studied and utilized. Foucault claims that power is an interconnected web, and it is through the efforts of all classes that the plight of the “forgotten” was able to be remembered and given a voice in their own society.

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Keywords

Language, literature, and linguistics, Discourse, Foucault, Michel, Rhetoric, Victorian, Women, Work

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