Hey, everyone. I've thought about it, and I'm going to defect to the other group. As you know, it's nothing personal; we need to split up anyway, and I'd be happier looking at another aspect of the subject matter.
See you in the lecture next week.
Chris
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Murder and Mayhem in Victorian London: Creating Jack the Ripper
Please feel free to change the title, it just seems to sum up the general life of the poor in Victorian London.
The quote I was talking about to get us started on the division of society is:
Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets. The rich and the poor.
Benjamin Disraeli
1845 in Sybil.
This ties into the time of Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels etc who were writing on the division of class into the bourgeoisie and proletariat. The consensus of writers such as this was that the proletariat were exploited by the bourgeoisie for profit etc.
Anyway, this leads onto the creation of a working class which is different from previous definitions. It is the Mass. A mass of humanity, all crammed into a small space and in poor conditions in the hope of finding work of some sort, but chiefly finding grinding poverty, insanitary conditions and poorly paid work. Of course this wasn't just happening in London but in many of the towns in the industrialised areas, Manchester, Liverpool etc.
There is a lot of fiction out there that deals with this, including Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy and W.m Thakeray. All of these give us an indication of what life was like in Victorian times. They may seem a arduous to read nowadays, but they remain classics, I think, because they act as a social statement, or document about the time they were written. Many writers used their skill to depict the social injustices they saw around them. Often showing the plight of women and the poor.
What is interesting about all this is: there wasn't just two nations or two societies, but layers within them. There seems to have been a great deal of 'underneath' to the Victorians.
To explore them fully would take a long time but a quick starting point is Channel 4's travellers guide to the Victorians.
There is also a timeline for the ripper killings on the jack the ripper casebook.
There is also a brief history of Victorian life.
We need to look at how the conditions were created for Jack to operate. How the poor were created if you like and the differences in the 'two nations'. We could focus on the differences faced by women if that is simpler. It would be possible to take some information about prominant Victorian gentlewomen, a couple of subversive women (George Elliot for example) and what we know about Jacks Victims as contrasting material.
Also some mortality figures might be handy. I'll have alook and see what I can find on those.
By the way we have a PDF copy of Jack London's book People of the Abyss if anyone else want to read it.
If anyone else has ideas and want to add stuff this is only a brief outline.
See you soon
Polly
The quote I was talking about to get us started on the division of society is:
Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets. The rich and the poor.
Benjamin Disraeli
1845 in Sybil.
This ties into the time of Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels etc who were writing on the division of class into the bourgeoisie and proletariat. The consensus of writers such as this was that the proletariat were exploited by the bourgeoisie for profit etc.
Anyway, this leads onto the creation of a working class which is different from previous definitions. It is the Mass. A mass of humanity, all crammed into a small space and in poor conditions in the hope of finding work of some sort, but chiefly finding grinding poverty, insanitary conditions and poorly paid work. Of course this wasn't just happening in London but in many of the towns in the industrialised areas, Manchester, Liverpool etc.
There is a lot of fiction out there that deals with this, including Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy and W.m Thakeray. All of these give us an indication of what life was like in Victorian times. They may seem a arduous to read nowadays, but they remain classics, I think, because they act as a social statement, or document about the time they were written. Many writers used their skill to depict the social injustices they saw around them. Often showing the plight of women and the poor.
What is interesting about all this is: there wasn't just two nations or two societies, but layers within them. There seems to have been a great deal of 'underneath' to the Victorians.
To explore them fully would take a long time but a quick starting point is Channel 4's travellers guide to the Victorians.
There is also a timeline for the ripper killings on the jack the ripper casebook.
There is also a brief history of Victorian life.
We need to look at how the conditions were created for Jack to operate. How the poor were created if you like and the differences in the 'two nations'. We could focus on the differences faced by women if that is simpler. It would be possible to take some information about prominant Victorian gentlewomen, a couple of subversive women (George Elliot for example) and what we know about Jacks Victims as contrasting material.
Also some mortality figures might be handy. I'll have alook and see what I can find on those.
By the way we have a PDF copy of Jack London's book People of the Abyss if anyone else want to read it.
If anyone else has ideas and want to add stuff this is only a brief outline.
See you soon
Polly
Sunday, 11 November 2007
Re: Jack the ripper walk
Its probably bizarre to say I really enjoyed Thursdays walk around London, but I'm sure all those who came along understand what I mean. Our guide was probably one of the most engaging of her profession and managed to convey the history of Jack and his victims so well that any illusions of cheery Babs Windsor types roaming the streets of Victorian London were completely dispelled.
I didn't feel spooked, or creeped or horrified, just dreadfully sad. I don't have the language to descibe why, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think what I am trying to say is I have a jumble of feelings that range from anger, about a society that could be so uncaring and so hypocritical to tearful, about a society etc, etc.
As too why we are so fascinated by the whole thing...well there are a number of things that might have conspired to maintain the fascination, just by dint of the ability to store the information.
From a cultural studies point of view, I can see this as a crime that portrayed the male hegemony that existed (and arguably still does). These women were out 'peddling their wares' because they had no one to support them or the men couldn't support them. They were on the streets because they were women, (i'm not ignoring the male prostitutes by the way, but that poses different questions to do with Victorian morality and legislation).
Thinking of ideas for the talk, perhaps we could look into sex, gender and (im)morality in Victorian Britain, or do we want something more grimy.
See you soon
Polly
I didn't feel spooked, or creeped or horrified, just dreadfully sad. I don't have the language to descibe why, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think what I am trying to say is I have a jumble of feelings that range from anger, about a society that could be so uncaring and so hypocritical to tearful, about a society etc, etc.
As too why we are so fascinated by the whole thing...well there are a number of things that might have conspired to maintain the fascination, just by dint of the ability to store the information.
- the press had greater freedon, and although this was achieved in 1853 - 61, there was a wealth of new newspapers around, that all needed a good story. To see the amount of journalistic interviews try: http://www.casebook.org
- Photography was becoming easier. Although it had been around since 1826, it was still a long and clumsy process. 1881 saw the production of 'easy to use cameras' (not the point and shoot sort though). This possibly ties in with the use of, and remaining records of the Ripper victims mortuary photos and the crime scene photo's.
- There was an increasing interest in forensic detection. the use of fingerprinting was being researched, although it wasn't to come into use until later. But science in general was advancing along with the increased technology.
- There was a great move towards social reform.
From a cultural studies point of view, I can see this as a crime that portrayed the male hegemony that existed (and arguably still does). These women were out 'peddling their wares' because they had no one to support them or the men couldn't support them. They were on the streets because they were women, (i'm not ignoring the male prostitutes by the way, but that poses different questions to do with Victorian morality and legislation).
Thinking of ideas for the talk, perhaps we could look into sex, gender and (im)morality in Victorian Britain, or do we want something more grimy.
See you soon
Polly
Jack the Ripper walk
Without sounding like a gruesome hungry sadist I would just like to express my thanks to Mark for organising the enjoyable and interesting trip to London for the Jack the Ripper walk.
Though the journey was long, I hope you can agree that it was made worthwhile by the excellent guide, Lesley. She was enthusiastic, entertaining and extremely detailed in her factual representation of Jack the Ripper’s London.
The walk was very interesting and informative and some of the places we visited were fairly creepy too. We can only imagine what the streets and pokey alleyways were like without all the lighting of today's society. I imagine Victorian England was a very dark, wet, smelly and frightening place and standing in the Ten Bells at the end of the night with a half pint of lager nearly 119 years to the night that Mary Kelly (9 November 1888) could possibly have been picked up and killed in that area was maybe a tad gruesome too.
Lesley's descriptions of the times enabled me – albeit distastefully - to imagine the dire conditions of the Victorian era that all too often spawned people who would ultimately end up victims of such an opportunistic killer as Jack the Ripper. (I will refrain from referring to him as singularly ‘Jack’ as Lesley pointed out that there many previous Jack’s prior to Jack the Ripper – including Spring-heeled Jack. I would liken this to the American’s using the name John for the majority of anonymous people ie. John Doe and will discuss this later in my blog entry on newspaper research)
I have read a few articles, stories and seen a couple of films and documentaries over the years that have depicted Jack The Ripper and tried to identify him, but I felt that I learned more about the victims on Lesley’s tour and the environment in which they inhabited.
I was truly shocked by the fact that these women more than likely were middle-aged (apart from Mary Kelly) disease infested alcoholics with little hair and no teeth. Not what I would have imagined they type of women that men would freely engage in sexual contact with. However, their desperate need to earn a morsel of bread or help pay for a bed at night made them easy prey for a killer such as Jack the Ripper.
After reading some of the book ‘Jack the Ripper: Anatomy of a Myth' (William Beadle, Dagenham, Essex: Wat Tyler Books, 1995), I realised that I knew very little of the background of the Eastend of London at the time of the killings and in fact this opened my eyes to the possibility that Jack the Ripper was in fact more than likely nobody of great importance – much like the serial killers of today – they live within their society, do normal jobs, may have a slight eccentricity in their personality but all-in-all are just another member of the society in which they live.
I feel that some of the Ripperologists and the way the case has been built up over the many years has led to a ‘romanticised’ version of one of the most horrific killers in the last century. By this I mean that it would be much more ‘interesting’ if Jack the Ripper was a high profile member of the royal family, or a prominent member of high society - like a doctor or surgeon; however, what we cannot escape from is the fact that no matter how many people work on ‘the case’ we will never know who he (she) was and this is what will always make Jack the Ripper an ever-lasting mystery.
The following website provides good background information about the Jack the Ripper case:
http://www.casebook.org
More about Spring-heeled Jack can be found on the following website:
http://www.eastlondonhistory.com/springheeled%20jack.htm
Claire Carter
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