Preliminary Study Of Middle Class House In Victorian Britain

The Victorian era (1837-1901) is an important period for Britain, in which the politics, economics and society through an important development and reform. And also, the Middle Class as a unique group through a formal formation and rapid growth in this period. The Middle Class house not only can show their fairly strong economic strength and the pursuit of decent life, but also deeply reflects the pursuit of ideal for families and the holding class identity of middle class. This paper tries to analyze middle class with their house. The paper can be divided into five major parts:The foreword briefly introduces the main reasons and the significance for the choice of this topic, the present situation of the academic research in and abroad.The first chapter mainly introduces the change of location of middle class house and reasons of the change. The change reflect a choice of the unique group between the ideal and the reality. The ideal is to make home life separate from work. And the reality are convenient communication, their fairly strong economic strength, and deplorable housing conditions in the inner city.The second chapter mainly introduces the types, architecture styles and layout of middle class house. The types mainly are semi-detached and villa; the architecture style mainly is Gothic Style; and the layout show many unique rooms. With them, middle class not only can live a decent life, but also can make their ideal for families come true.The third chapter mainly studies the internal factors of middle class house from three aspects. The first aspect is internal decoration and furnishing; the second aspect is the housing ownership and why the great majority of middle class choose to rent house and not buy their own houses; and the third aspect is housing functions, with which middle class can make their ideal for families come true.The fourth chapter mainly studies the economic strength, the unique class identity, and the ideal for families of middle class with a contest of middle class house and the other two class house. Compared with the upper class house, on the one hand, middle class house keeps up with the former in location, scale, facilities, the architecture style, layout, and furnishing; on the other hand, it can help middle class make their ideal for families come true. Compared with the lower class house, middle class house occupies the dominant position in external factors and internal factors, with which middle class can widen the gap with the lower class in economic strength, life style and class identity.The conclusion gives a summary to the four preceding chapters, and extracts a more deeper connotation:on the one hand, middle class have the ability to according to their ideal for families and class identity to choose and arrange their house; on the other hand, middle class house not only can help them live a decent life, but also can make their ideal for families come true, and with which can distinguish the middle class from the other two classes.