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The social novel, also known as the social problem (or social protest) novel, is a "work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of a novel".〔"social problem novel" in ''Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition''. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 04 Nov. 2012. ().〕 More specific examples of social problems that are addressed in such works, include poverty, conditions in factories and mines, the plight of child labor, violence against women, rising criminality, and epidemics because of over-crowding, and poor sanitation in cities.〔"Childers, JW (2001)"〕 Terms like thesis novel, propaganda novel, industrial novel, working-class novel and problem novel are also used to describe this type of novel;〔Harmon and Holman, ''A Handbook to Literature'' 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall,1996), pp. 412,487, 518-9; M. H. Abrams, ''A Glossary of Literary Terms'', 7th ed. (Fort Worth, TX, : Harcourt Brace,1999), p.193〕 a recent development in this genre is the young adult problem novel. It is also referred to as the sociological novel. The social protest novel is a form of social novel which places an emphasis on the idea of social change, while the Proletarian novel is political form of the social protest novel which may emphasizes revolution.〔"Proletarian" in "novel." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 25 Apr. 2013. Although this subgenre of the novel is usually seen as having its origins in the 19th century, there were precursors in the 18th century, like ''Amelia'' by Henry Fielding (1751), ''Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams'' (1794) by William Godwin, ''The Adventures of Hugh Trevor'' (1794-1797) by Thomas Holcroft, and ''Nature and Art'' (1796) by Elizabeth Inchbald.〔Mona Scheuermann, ''Social Protest in the Eighteenth-Century English Novel''. (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State State University Press, 1985).〕 However, whereas Inchbald laid responsibility for social problems with the depravity and corruption of individuals, Godwin, in ''Caleb Williams'', saw society's corruption as insurmountable. In England during the 1830s and 1840s the social novel "arose out of the social and political upheavals which followed the Reform Act of 1832".〔''Bloomsbury Guide to English Literature'', ed.Marion Wynne-Davies. (New Yotk: Prentice Hall,1990), p. 101.〕 This was in many ways a reaction to rapid industrialization, and the social, political and economic issues associated with it, and was a means of commenting on abuses of government and industry and the suffering of the poor, who were not profiting from England's economic prosperity. These works were directed at the middle class to help create sympathy and promote change. It is also referred to as the “condition of England novel”. The phrase, the “Condition of England Question”, was used by Thomas Carlyle in “Chartism” (1839), and "Condition-of-England novels sought to engage directly with the contemporary social and political issues with a focus on the representation of class, gender, and labour relations, as well as on social unrest and the growing antagonism between the rich and the poor in England".〔(Victorian Web )〕 The Chartist movement was a working-class political reformist movement that sought universal male suffrage and other parliamentary reforms. Chartism failed as a parliamentary movement, however, five of the "Six Points" of Chartism would become a reality within a century of the group's formation. A significant early example of this genre is ''Sybil, or The Two Nations'', a novel by Benjamin Disraeli. Published in the same year, 1845, as Friedrich Engels's ''The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844'', ''Sybil'' traces the plight of the working classes of England. Disraeli was interested in dealing with the horrific conditions in which the majority of England's working classes lived. The book is a roman à thèse, a novel with a thesis, which aimed to create a furor over the squalor that was plaguing England's working class cities. Disraeli's interest in this subject stemmed from his interest in Chartist movement. Another early example of the social novel is Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke (1849), a work that set out to expose the social injustice suffered by workers in the clothing trade as well as the trials and tribulations of agricultural labourers. It also gives an insight into the Chartist campaign with which Kingsley was involved in the 1840s. Elizabeth Gaskell's first industrial novel Mary Barton (1848) deals with relations between employers and workers, but its narrative adopted the view of the working poor and describes the "misery and hateful passions caused by the love of pursuing wealth as well as the egoism, thoughtlessness and insensitivity of manufacturers."〔Alison Chapman, ed. Elizabeth Gaskell, ''Mary Barton'' and ''North and South''. Duxford: Icon Books, 1999.〕 In ''North and South'' (1854–55), her second industrial, or social novel, Elizabeth Gaskell returns to the precarious situation of workers and their relations with industrialists, focusing more on the thinking and perspective of the employers.〔Alison Chapman〕 ''Shirley'' (1849) Charlotte Brontë's second published novel after ''Jane Eyre'' is also a social novel. Set in Yorkshire in the period 1811–12, during the industrial depression resulting from the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, the action in ''Shirley'' takes place against a backdrop of the Luddite uprisings in the Yorkshire textile industry. Social problems are also an important concern in the novels of Charles Dickens, including in particular poverty and the unhealthy living conditions associated with it, the exploitation of ordinary people by money lenders, the corruption and incompetence of the legal system, as well as of the administration of the Poor Law. Dickens was a fierce critic of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. In a New York address, he expressed his belief that, "Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen".〔.〕 Dickens's second novel, ''Oliver Twist'' (1839), shocked readers with its images of poverty and crime: it destroyed middle class polemics about criminals, making any pretence to ignorance about what poverty entailed impossible.〔.〕〔.〕 Charles Dickens's Hard Times (1854) is set in a small Midlands industrial town. It particularly criticizes the effect of Utilitarianism on the lives of the working classes in cities. John Ruskin declared ''Hard Times'' to be his favourite Dickens' work due to its exploration of important social questions. Walter Allen characterised ''Hard Times'' as being an unsurpassed "critique of industrial society", though later superseded by works of D. H. Lawrence. Karl Marx asserted that Dickens "issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together".〔.〕 On the other hand, George Orwell, in his essay on Dickens, wrote, "There is no clear sign that he wants the existing order to be overthrown, or that he believes it would make very much difference if it were overthrown. For in reality his target is not so much society as ‘human nature’."〔(【引用サイトリンク】first=George )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Social novel」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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