Victorians, Meet the Web: An Academic MST

LITTLE PROFESSOR: I could work on my article about anti-Catholic sermons, finish writing marginal notes on that MA thesis over there, or put more books into boxes.  Hmmm.  Whatever should I do?

*procrastinates, surfs Web*

LP: Help! I think I'm about to swoon gracefully to the floor!

JIM BRASS, PALMER CORTLANDT, JOE FONTANA, and JAMES WILSON: At your service, ma'am!

LP: Ah, such gentlemen.  You're just in time to help me with this essay.

ALL TV CHARACTERS: *look anxious*

WILSON: Are you sure we're the right fictional characters for this undertaking? I mean...an oncologist, two questionably literate detectives--

BRASS and FONTANA: *glower*

WILSON: --and a villain from a soap opera?   

LP: I'm positive.  After all, for the purposes of this MST, I'm the one imagining you.  Besides, I've written about all of you before.

PALMER: Speaking of which, young lady, you never finished your soap opera script.

LP: Sorry.  It performed badly in the academic demographic.  What can you do?

PALMER: True, true.  I've never made it through an episode of All My Children, myself...

EVERYONE: *crowds around the computer*

The 1890's was in time for transformation for the English society.

WILSON: I guess we're lucky that the 1890s didn't arrive late.   Even if it did arrive with an unnecessary apostrophe.

FONTANA: It should be "a" instead of "in," "for the transformation" instead of "for transformation," and "English society" instead of "the English society."  And we've only made it through the first sentence!

After Queen Victoria died the heart of the Victorian culture seemed to fade.

PALMER: In my day, we put commas after introductory elements. 

LP: There was only one  Victorian culture? "The English society," "the Victorian culture"--this writer has a thing for monoliths. 

BRASS: And did Victorian culture pine away and die when Queen Victoria went to the great castle in the sky?

FONTANA: Ooooh, you made a rhyme.

England was beginning to experience economic competition from other states and a gradual decline from its former pinnacle of power.

WILSON: I could have sworn that England was a country. 

LP: And England had global trade all to itself? Really?

Politically, the Parliament experienced some fundamental power shifts after the turn of the century.

EVERYONE: What power shifts?

LP: No, no, not the rampaging "the" again.  If I see one more unnecessary article, I'm going to collapse in a fit of hysterics.

This essay will address the climate of change in the English culture and its expressions.

LP: *collapses in a fit of hysterics*

PALMER: Now, now...have some gourmet chocolate truffles. 

FONTANA: I'm just a barely literate detective, but even I don't see how a "climate" can have "expressions."  Or would a climate express itself in precipitation?

WILSON: Big word there.  I'm impressed.

FONTANA: *trademark frightening glare*

The changes occurred in two separate and distinct time periods. 

BRASS: Doesn't "separate" imply "distinct"?

These time periods are the turn of the century from 1890's to World War II.   

PALMER: That's only one period.  And can you really write about a time span this long in an essay this short?

WILSON: Like the poltergeist, the apostrophe is baaaaack.

The second period is WWII to 1970's.

LP: Yowza! We're going to cover at least eighty years in this essay?!

BRASS: *coughs shyly* 'Scuse me, but I don't see a thesis statement anywhere.  Now that we're at the end of the introductory paragraph, shouldn't we know what the essay is going to be about?

EVERYONE: *looks pensive*

The new century brought about an end to the old and stuffy Victorian life-styles.

PALMER: Good for the new century, I say!

FONTANA: "Old and stuffy"--stereotypes, much? 

WILSON: What's with the hyphen in "lifestyles"? More to the point, can't we get somebody to ban "lifestyles" from the academic phrasebook?

BRASS: Even more to the point, I still don't know what this essay is about. 

The social stigmas of women and their behavior was challenged and change by the rise of feminism in 1910.

LP: Feminism rose in 1910? Wherever did that factoid come from? Excuse me while I hit this writer over the head with a copy of Judith Walkowitz's Prostitution and Victorian Society.

WILSON: Yeah, but that's just the intelligible part of the sentence.  I don't understand how women can be social stigmas, let alone their behavior.

FONTANA: Has anyone seen the missing "d" in "changed"? Looks like the writer dropped it somewhere.

PALMER: Wait a moment--what's that noise?

SUBJECT and VERB: *disagree violently*

Women began to protest against the system for women 's suffrage.

*knock on the door*

MODIFIER: Er...sorry...I hate to intrude, but I fear that I've been misplaced, somehow.

One instance these "violent women" ran around in the city smashing store windows to get notoriety for their cause.

LP: "One instance" of what? Of "violent women"? Of protest? Of suffrage? What? What?!

PALMER: Calm down, dear.  Have some more truffles.

FONTANA: Just when are we, anyway? This writer's understanding of chronological order is definitely bizarre.

BRASS: Understanding of chronological order?

WILSON: And I'm guessing that the punctuation ran away to join the circus.

Books such as the Odd Women, featured a fictional representation of "professional women".

LP: Now we really know that the writer doesn't understand chronology.  S/he is supposedly talking about the twentieth century, but The Odd Women appeared in 1893.

WILSON: "'Professional women,'" in quotation marks? Because women can't be professional? And unless this writer hails from the other side of the pond, that period should be inside the quotation marks. 

PALMER: LP, I don't mean to upset you, but shouldn't there be more than one fictional representation?

LP: *grits teeth* I was trying to maintain my sanity by ignoring that, OK? Just give me some more truffles.

They were classified in two categories, both an attack on the social institution of  marriage.

PALMER: The women were an attack on the social institution of marriage, or the categories?

LP: Hey, late-Victorian women spent a lot of time rampaging through London, whacking marriage over the head with two-by-fours. 

The first of these new women were out only for fun.

LP: Golly, shouldn't the writer have introduced the New Womanbefore talking about The Odd Women?

WILSON: Woo-hoo! Women on the town, looking for a good time! Hot mamas!

FONTANA, BRASS, and PALMER: *sigh longingly*

LP: *rolls eyes*

The second was the concept of an asexual being who did not need a man.

EVERYONE: The second what?

PALMER: Wait--the women themselves were concepts?

These women owned their own flats and had various jobs usually secretarial in nature..

WILSON: Lose a comma, gain an extra period.

The book expressed an uncomfortable period of transformation.

FONTANA: Well, that sounds...painful, somehow.

BRASS: I forgot that we were still talking about The Odd Women.

Working women were not completely accepted by English society at this time.

EVERYONE: Which time?

The book portrayed different lives and how they coped with their situations.1

PRONOUN: Mommy! Mommy! I can't find my antecedent! *cries*

PALMER: *gives PRONOUN a hug*

LP: Is that "1" supposed to indicate a footnote? I don't see any footnotes; they must not have tranferred when the student uploaded the essay to the website.

WILSON: Does that mean that a student who plagiarized this essay would actually be plagiarizing twice?

BRASS: Plagiarism squared? Cool.

FONTANA: I'm sure that no student would ever, ever pretend that they wrote this essay.  After all, the website clearly announces that "[t]his free essay is for research purposes ONLY."

EVERYONE: *is silent for a moment, then ROTFL*

The male character was also in a state of change.

PALMER: Are we talking about history, or about literature? And there has to be a better transition word than "also."

This change brought about the term "new men".

BRASS: I'll take "cite your sources" for $800, Alex.

WILSON: From now on, I'm going to drink a shot of whiskey every time this writer makes a punctuation error.

These new men were classified by a "sexual anarchy".

LP: Calling Elaine Showalter...Elaine Showalter to the blog post, please.

FONTANA: "Sexual anarchy" can classify people? All by itself?

WILSON: *drinks a shot of whiskey*

This movement was predominantly a middle class, liberal expression.

EVERYONE: Expression of what?

BRASS: What is it with this writer and the word "expression"? Seriously.

PALMER: Damn those liberals! If you take your eyes off 'em for a second, they start getting up to who-knows-what in the middle of the street.

WILSON: *drinks a shot of whiskey*

Many were young male artisans who were homosexual .

LP: Wait, wait, wait.  How many "young male artisans" were members of the middle class?

FONTANA: Is this artisan homosexuality sort of like artisan bread?

WILSON: *hiccups* The period is in the right place, at least, so I'm going to ignore that extra space.

The word homosexuality was created by an amendment  to criminal law which had declared all acts of sodomy as illegal.

WILSON: *woozily*  Huh? What? The Labouchere Amendment (1885) had nothing to do with the word "homosexuality"; as far as we know, Karl-Maria Kertbeny came up with the term in 1869.

FONTANA: Time is out of joint.  Again.

Previous to this amendment the act of homosexuality was punishable by hanging.

PALMER: There's only one act of homosexuality? You'd think gay men would get bored.

WILSON: *drinks a shot of whiskey, begins staggering around the room*

Doctors and scientist had seen homosexuality as a disease, thus the need developed for a "cure".

BRASS: Only one scientist, eh?

LP: This sentence's historical claim is at least in the immediate ballpark of something vaguely resembling what is approximately an accurate generalization.

WILSON: *drinks three shots of whiskey, falls flat on the floor*

Sexuality became all inclusive.

EVERYONE: Inclusive of what?

WILSON: *drinks a shot of whiskey, starts whimpering*

LP: For Wilson's sake, I think we'd better spend the rest of this post talking about the essay's juicier bits.

PALMER: *sulkily* He'd have been much better off eating a chocolate truffle every time the writer made a punctuation error.

FONTANA: Yeah, but his waistline probably wouldn't be.

There was a large aesthetic movement which was also inherent in this  "new" culture.

PALMER: Not another "also."

BRASS: I've always been fond of pretty movements.  Haven't you? 

[...] This meant that art could be a personal expression rather than a group think project.

BRASS: Art wasn't "personal" before? The Romantics would have a thing or two to say about this.

FONTANA: The writer is expressing again.

LP: "Group think"? Remember, children: the spell checker is not your friend. 

BRASS: You know, I'm still completely clueless about this essay's argument.  Maybe it will make sense when we get to the conclusion?

These attributes coined the term the "Decadent Movement".

PALMER: Those attributes had agency? Gotta get me some of those.

WILSON: *drinks a shot of whiskey, crawls off to the bathroom*

[...] England, at the turn of the century, was no longer the international hegemon it was a decade previous.

EVERYONE: "Hegemon"? OooOOOOoooh.

LP: Has the writer completely lost his/her grasp of English history, or is it just me?

FONTANA: With apologies to Sherman Edwards: "When were you strong? Previous-LY."

This caused the English look introspectly at itself.

PRONOUN: *further sobs of agony*

PALMER: *feeds it a chocolate truffle*

BRASS: Wow, this sentence just imploded, didn't it? "Introspectly," two different problems with the pronouns, and a missing preposition.

The political change occurred inside of the Parliament.

FONTANA: Only one political change? Things must have been peaceful, then.

LP: *cries in anguish*

PALMER:  *anxiously* Sweetie, I'm running out of chocolate truffles! Please control yourself.

[...] If the referendum was not passed the House  of Lords would be flooded with liberal Middle class citizens.

PALMER: Dratted liberals again!

WILSON: *drinks two shots of whiskey, lapses into unconsciousness*

[...] World War I left a tremendous impression of reality on the English.

BRASS: Because the English were all living in a hazy romantic dream before WWI, right?

FONTANA: With pretty birds, and bright rainbows, and cute puppies, and stuff.

LP: I wonder how heavy that "impression of reality" was.  Were the English all walking around with "reality" stamped on their foreheads?

[...] England would never be a hegemon in the international community again.

EVERYONE: Look, the "hegemon" is back!

PALMER: Didn't the writer say that the English lost their hegemony at the turn of the century? I wasn't aware that WWI ended in 1900.

FONTANA: I'm getting chronological whiplash here.

[...] When the upper class saw the state that these children [those evacuated during the Blitz] where in the showed pity  and concern.

BRASS: "Were," not "where," and "they," not "the."

LP: Isn't it nice that the upper class was able to take pity on those poor children?

PALMER: Hey!

WILSON: *recovers consciousness long enough to drink a shot of whiskey*

[...] Thus, it can be seen that the period of 1890's to the end of World War II marked the end of Victorianism.

BRASS: "Thus"? What "thus"? The essay hasn't proved anything!

FONTANA: *checks the introduction* I thought the essay was supposed to make it all the way to the 1970s. 

LP: It would have helped if the author had ever bothered to define "Victorianism," don't you think?

WILSON: *reaches for a shot of whiskey, collapses*

The event of the two wars brought the external reality of Britain's role in the international community home.

LP: "Britain" and "England" are not the same thing.  And what would be the difference between the "external" and "internal" realities in question?

BRASS: I'm guessing that an "international community home" is like a "rest home."  Only for countries, not the elderly. 

MODIFIER: *sniffles unhappily*

PALMER: *cuddles MODIFIER*

Both English dominance and hegemonic imperialism were curbed and set into perspective during this time period.

EVERYONE: "Hegemonic"!

LP: Back to "English" again.

BRASS: I don't think I ever grasped the connection between "Victorianism" and "hegemonic imperialism."  Am I alone here?

EVERYONE: Nope.

WILSON: Glug, glug.

LP: Um, guys? Please scrape Wilson off the floor before you go... 

"The Rebellion Against Victorianism." Anti Essays. 28 May 2007. <http://www.antiessays.com/free-essays/901.html>