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Exposing The Monsters Behind Victorian Domestic Abuse, Jennifer Komorowski

2014 Undergraduate Awards

Domestic violence was a social issue prominently debated during the Victorian period. Literature published during this time period, which included Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, addresses the problem of domestic violence and exposes the problems women faced in the home, problems that were previously thought to be private matters. Throughout the nineteenth century, the laws regarding both domestic violence and the rights of women drastically changed to provide more protection and grant greater rights to both women and children. Both of Browning and Brontës works expose the hidden monsters that could exist behind the closed doors …