Essay On Contradictions In Westminster Palace

Contradictions shown in Westminster Palace
The carvings and sculptures on the front of Westminster Palace consist of many beautiful aspects of life, such as birds, flowers, and trees. These beauty-related carvings are contrasted by the gargoyles adorning the top of the walls (Foley 185-186). Gargoyles are ugly, vicious looking creatures viewed as a representation of evil among the church and society. The stone carvings on the facade of Westminster Palace are indicative of the contradictions present between values, morals and actions of the Victorian upper class citizens.
In Victorian society, the beliefs of the people were generally strict. They had a low tolerance for crime, good social ethics, and believed in sexual repression. Any criminal who was publicly found guilty of a crime was punished harshly and looked down upon (Chesterton 3). Upper class citizens prided themselves on looking and acting like royalty. The upper classes held parties often, dressed in only the best, and spent most of their time with other members of the same class (Wagner 5-8). Though they shared these beliefs publicly, crime, poverty, and prostitution were rampant for the majority of the era (Gorman 325-326). The upper class focused on impressing other upper class members; so much that the lower classes lived in terrible conditions. They forced children to work, and men often showed little sexual restraint in their private lives. This is represented by one of the main carvings on the Westminster Palace. The Palace is decorated in and out with carvings of countless people and animals. After the building burnt down in 1834, a competition was held for a design of a new palace. Charles Barry would win (Foley, Mark). He was a well known architect in the t...

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...n was outwardly viewed as a lowly things to do, it was a large part of Victorian age culture among successful men.
Charles Barry included many carvings in his design of Westminster Palace. These carvings all represent how Victorians often had contradictions between their outwardly shown values, and actual actions that took place in private life. Things such as poverty, child labor, and prostitution are represented in carvings through the building. Poverty is shown with small carvings of many people, while child labor is represented by children holding royal items, and prostitution represented through the several Lion carvings on the Palace. This was an artful, and acceptable way for Charles Barry to show some hardships of the time, which would not be so if upper class Victorians would not have contradictions between the values they preach and the actions they take.