Charles Dickens preferred workers the way he preferred Victorian women: grateful for favors received, humble, patient, and passive. (Scheckner) Charles Dickens entered this world on February 7, 1812; he was born in Lindsport, Portsmouth, England. The time period in which he lived and the location in which he dwelled are both important because they had a great effect on his writing. His works were very gender-biased, full of symbolism and irony, and reflected the social structure of his time/place he lived. When looking at Dickens writings such as Great Expectations (1860) and Our Mutual Friend (1865), you see why many have made the claim that the male is supreme and the woman is simply a worker. Dickens had a certain idea about domestic ideology. In a typical Victorian middle-class household of a man and his wife, the man earned the wages, paid the bills, oversaw the household, attended to political and legal matters, and went to war if necessary. The woman was supposed to be soft, meek, quiet, modest, submissive, gentle, patient, and spiritual. The man was to be aggressive, assertive, rough although gentlemanly, tough-skinned, self-controlled, and independent. Along with being gender-biased Dickens was considered to be rather conservative and typical. Dickens wrote as if he believed a womans place was mostly in the home, cooking, cleaning and watching over children. Here are a few examples in Dickens writings of woman and their small roles. First, Mrs. Joe Gargery, from Great Expectations, is an example of what happens when a woman tries to come into her own and boss a man. Even though Mrs. Joe stays home by the hearth, when she gets too assertive she becomes very unattractive and may even deserve a strong smack on the headwhich she gets from Orlick. Second, Dickens is unsympathetic with women who socially rebel and who have public causes. Such women become either terrible or ludicrous (Mrs. Jellyby in Bleak House, ...
