The Esthetic Tastes And Values Of The Middle Class In The Middle And Later Victorian Times, Seeing From The Process Of Nightingale Becoming Famous

Nightingale was the 19th century Britain legendary character. She has held the post of the field hospital head nurse in the Crimea War, and the fact was known very well by way of the media dissemination and the exaggeration by the people. She became famous through a process of ups and downs:first from being pushed suddenly on to the historical stage, then being exaggerated and studied, again being pushed to the eddy currents of public opinion, finally becoming famous in the world. In the course of it the media played a very importance role. In disseminating Nightingale's spirit as well as shaping her image, the media was participating in the whole process of idolizing and even ossifying Nightingale image. In a sense, Nightingale was already kidnapped by the media. Her image in news and in reality has become some different, and this tendency even developed continuously.Just like Hegel said that from the beginning of the 19th century, the people in the West began to substitute newspapers for early morning pray. Because of date consistency and the neighbourhood of time and region, newspapers slowly created a unanimous sense of belonging among the readers. In a sense, newspaper reading has then created an extraordinary popular ceremony. The power of consensus brought by this unity has already been noticed by the upper class seriously. The reforming forces from the upper class such as Queen Victoria, Lord Palmerston, Herbert Minister and the middle class saw the strength of social consent in the image of Nightingale. So Nightingale became a chip of the political struggles in the ruling class. She was the manifestation of the middle class value orientation and esthetic tastes, and at the same time she was also representing social morality of the Victoria times, including national and racial trends, the rising of feminism and the content of Victorian type's morals. There were many media, including The Times, Punch, Illustrated London News, and many mainstream poets and painters, all of them took part in describing and disseminating the images and spirits of Nightingale.Nightingale, as a middle class woman in Middle Victoria times, was pushed to be famous and disseminated by relevant social classes as an example of ideal persons. What we are interested in it is the social values showed by her image. The dissertation holds that the differences between the images of Nightingale and her true life is created by the social background and the historical conditions of her times. Victorian Britain was experiencing the surges of industrial revolution and urbanization, the middle class has mounted to the platform of public opinions and tried to influence every aspect of social value orientation and esthetic sentiment. So seeing from this angle the process of Nightingale's becoming famous is the one that she was chosen, disseminated and popularized by the middle class, which got great echoes among all classes in England and all over the world as well.