Victorian Gesture/Etiquette

[sockpuppetyeah]

Hello

Comments

[jayb111]

I don't have anything specific to offer, but I will say that it depends very much on who your characters are and what period in the 19th century you're talking about. There was a great difference between the 'respectable' upper working and middle classes, who increasingly lived their lives in private in their new terraced houses and villas, and the lower working classes, who lived out much of their lives in public. Generally speaking, those who considered themselves respectable became more disapproving of street life and street entertainment as the century went on

[sockpuppetyeah]

WELL, it's not really my character - I'm just looking up a lot of facts on him and the area he lived in. I'm writing about Sherlock Holmes, so I hope that helps! :)

This is around The Sign of Four, so it's at around the end of 1888. So with Sherlock, things didn't matter so much in terms of class and being respected - he could don an outfit and pretend to be either if he should so choose to, so I'm just trying to work out general social etiquette he would know and the ones he wouldn't.

[ooxc]

It was at one time a well-worn cinematic or written indication of familiarity to light a cigarette in one's own mouth for someone else to smoke, but I've never heard of anyone offering or taking a cigarette by mouth from a packet
I don't know when men stopped smoking in "smoking rooms"/studies, but I'm fairly sure that it was "fast" or lower class for town women to smoke in public, if at all, until the 1920s.
In the country, of course, it wasn't unusual, long before that, for women to smoke pipes.

[sockpuppetyeah]

I heard from a very good source that it was an intimate action (and it doesn't necessarily need to be between a man and a woman). Either way, it's something the character I'm writing for wouldn't really know, as he's terribly anti-social as well as being a recluse. But there are also the basic social norms in which he would know, so I'm trying to discern which is which.

[inner_v0ice]

I neither smoke nor flirt, but wouldn't taking a cigarette by mouth from a packet be kind of an intimate and suggestive action today, let alone in the 1880s? (Just wondering.)

[sockpuppetyeah]

It all depends on the person, really, and how it was taken. If the person taking the cigarette was staring straight at the person offering, then sure, that's flirting. But maybe the person offering the cigarette feels weird around picking out the cigarette themselves? You know, like offering a packet of crisps/chips - people would prefer to pick their own out instead of someone choosing for them.

[sollersuk]

19th century England, at any rate middle class and upwards, was not keen on gestures; they were seen as the sort of thing that "excitable foreigners" did. Even shrugging the shoulders was perceived as typically French, and well into the 20th century children were taught never to point at anybody or anything.

[sockpuppetyeah]

That's really interesting! Thanks. :)

[lolmac]

Second this. Amongst the (very emotionally repressed) 'respectable' classes, body language was extremely minimal and gestural expression wasn't a significant part of the culture.

Re-read any of the classic Holmes stories where he's analysing someone. He parses their clothing, anything they hold, the fine details of their possessions. He catches the contradictions between what they say and how they look. Much of the analysis is based on a clearly stratified society with very hard delineations and expectations. But you find very, very few mentions of gesture, or even body language, in those analyses.

[sockpuppetyeah]

Haha, I actually am reading Sherlock Holmes right now. So even when two people are alone, there are no gestures?

Well, I still find this all very interesting!

[sockpuppetyeah]

It does! Thank you. The period I'm looking at is the late 19th century - late 1880's. I'll check out Project Gutenberg. :) Thanks again!

[coloredink]

OH HEY I just finished researching a short story that takes place in 1887, lolololol

I would recommend reading as much literature from that time period as you can get your hands on and paying attention to the things people did and didn't do. Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Robert Lewis Stevenson, and H.G. Wells are all good examples that can be found on Project Gutenberg. And Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of course. :) Don't be afraid of scaring the reference desk librarians are your local library with requests for writing from the late Victorian era.

There's also a lot of good nonfiction from around that time, too; I found Charles Booth's The Life and Labour of People in London absolutely indispensable. If the idea of checking out/buying seven volumes of nonfiction strikes fear in your heart, there's a heavily abridged/edited version. His poverty maps are available online.