On Anthony Trollope's Moral Values In The Prime Minister

Anthony Trollope is a great realistic writer in the Victorian England. In his entire prolific writing life, he creates forty-six novels, among which, the political series occupy a very important position. This paper aims at analyzing The Prime Minster, the most conspicuous work in the series, utilizing the ethical literary criticism in order to explore the ethical judgment of the author.This paper is divided into five parts. Introduction presents briefly Anthony Trollope, The Prime Minister and the critical reviews on the novel at home and abroad. Following this, the ethical literary criticism and its application are to be clarified. Chapter One deals with the Victorian moral values. As a sub-branch of ideology of a particular society, moral values are definitely under the strong impact of politics and economy. Therefore, the social context of the Victorian age is the basis of the analysis. And then, the two classes under exploration and their corresponding moral values are to be cleared and defined.Chapter Two and Chapter Three elaborate the moral values and the cases of deviations of the aristocratic and the middle class characters respectively, which is no doubt the main body of the paper. The aristocrats represent the concept of gentleman, and they follow the patriarchal system, right of inheritance and hierarchy. They stress the principles, honor and family name. The middle class members are governed by the idea of hard working, self-help, thrift and honesty. They also stick to the gentleman concept and emphasize inner virtues attached to the notion of gentleman. Trollope depicts the deviation of both classes, the aristocrats behaving in the same manner as middle class and middle class vainly coping the superficial characters of the gentleman culture.The last part is conclusion, in which the view of this thesis is to be restated. As a writer from the middle class, Trollope advocates the moral values of this class by way of making aristocrats behaving in the same way of middle class, as well as by erasing the emphasis of good birth in the gentleman concept.