Abstract:
This thesis explores Victorian middle-class ideology through the lens of W. S. Gilbert’s
Savoy Operas, focusing on three general categories: intelligence and aptitude, morality
and gentlemanliness, and domesticity and steadfast love. Gilbert’s Savoy Operas portray
these three areas in such a way as to promote middle-class superiority over the upper and
working classes, effectively flattering the middle classes and strengthening their
perceptions of being the bulwark of society. Additionally, Gilbert’s middle-class
characters display qualities of the emerging professional ideal, which promoted a system
of reward based on personal merit, and directly challenged the upper classes and the
privilege and power that they possessed solely through birth.
