ABSTRACT
During the nineteenth century, longstanding beliefs about man’s place in the universe and social structures became challenged. The position of women in marriage and society as well as female sexuality were debated and even contested in literature across Europe. Furthermore, the plight of the working classes, who often lived in squalor in the expanding cities, became a subject of critique in especially novels and drama published in various countries. Through the literary modes of realism and naturalism, writers addressed women’s confinement in marriage and men’s struggle with societal expectations, as well as explored their characters’ failed or successful attempts to break free from constraints, through adultery, education and the pursuit of professional careers. New women and new men were recurring characters and presented alternatives to existing gender norms. In this chapter, specific attention will be paid to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina as an example of a text which negotiates issues such as modern education, inequality between the sexes and sexual freedom. The final part of the chapter examines the role of class in nineteenth-century literature. Discussing works by the Goncourt brothers, Somerset Maugham and Zola, the chapter demonstrates that nineteenth-century literature often became a medium to plea for societal reform and emancipation.
