Social Norms in Society  

     When reading Hard Times by Charles Dickens you will notice all of the social norms and importance of class during that time period. Today no one really cares, or even asks you, about your class in society or how much wealth you have. 

     An example of social norms for the time is the relationship between Mr. Bounderby and Louisa. She is supposed to be in her twenties and at that time the marriageable age was sixteen and up, so she could be considered somewhat of a spinster. But since she was in a higher class it was a little more acceptable to get married later than the norm. She thought hard about whether to marry Mr. Bounderby or not, as she had no other suitors and he had all the qualifications that her parents would want. They would have wanted an eligible bachelor to have wealth, high class, and a stable career. That is why it was typical for the man to be in his fifties and marry a young wife, which would be thought of as a trophy wife today. 

    

     Another social norm demonstrated in the book was the concept of divorce being totally out of the question. Today you can get a divorce with no questions asked while both the man and the woman can go on living with their lives and even marry again if they choose to. Back in the day if a divorce ever happened then the women could potentially be left with nothing. Back then the men totally supported their wives. In the case of divorce he could take the source of income and the children if he wanted. If their family wouldn't take them back they would have no where else to go. A man could go on to find another wife if he wanted but women would never get remarried. They would literally be left with nothing in life. So they all tended to stay married, even if they were unhappy in the relationship. 

     

     Class was a very serious part of who you were back then. If you were high class you would never be seen with someone who was from the lower class. In a way the lower class could be seen as scum to the higher class. Also a lower class man could never in any case be considered to marry a girl from a higher class. This is because the parents would have some say in the person who their daughter would marry and they would go for the man with more money. Families of lower class would attempt to get their daughters to marry into wealth so they could rise in class. 

     As you can see it was another time where their view on society is very different from ours is today. Though in the end they were doing what themselves and society viewed as normal. Personally I would much prefer living in the 21st century.

-MAL

Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: A Byronic Hero

Though Sweeney Todd is a fictional character, he is the prime example of the Byronic hero, and for many, many reasons.

Todd, from the beginning of the movie, is a noticeably traumatized by his wrongful imprisonment, loss of his wife to suicide (or so he thinks), and inaccessible daughter; all three tragedies that emotionally torture him have one common thread- Judge Turpin- who falsely accuses him to get to his wife, whom he rapes, and then takes his daughter as his own and eventually wants to wed her. This is too much for Todd to handle and he is bound of self-satisfying revenge, taking justice into his own hands and plotting to kill the judge. But he has one extremely violent outburst and murders someone who blackmails him, a man that would have ruined his revenge scheme. With an epiphany, he realizes he'll probably never see his daughter again, therefore having nothing to lose, and that since all men deserve to die, his own core belief, he would be doing the world a favor. And with plenty of manipulation, he is successful in killing the men who come into his shop for a shave and sends them down to the ovens to become meat pies for the restaurant below, showing his reckless, cunning, and ruthless side. By the end, he is depressed to find out that his wife had been alive all along, living as a crazy (due to attempted suicide by arsenic poisoning), homeless woman on the streets of London. Not only that, but it was by his own self-destructive hands that ended her life, due to a wrong-place-wrong-time situation.

One trait that Todd doesn't share with a Byronic hero is self-awareness. He doesn't realize that by choosing his version of justice over legality he is embodying Judge Turpin, the very man he hates. Turpin did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted and took his power for granted in evil, immoral ways. Todd is taking his power, as a barber to unsuspecting, trusting victims, for granted as well and is seemingly ignorant of this connection between he and the one man he wishes to kill the most. There is a slight possibility that if Todd has recognized this connection to Turpin, he would've stopped his murder spree. Though, from what I can only imagine, Todd would most likely dive into a deeper depression and take his own life.

So, as you can see by his story, (and by the bold words,) Sweeney Todd had a majority of the characteristics of the Byronic hero.