Michael Crichton's The Great Train Robbery

Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, once declared “the important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them.” A devout Christian and traditionalist, Victoria of House Hanover set the precedent for the comportment of a proper civilian of British society. Known as the Victorian Era, Queen Victoria’s nearly century long reign encapsulated one of the most complex social movements in history. Michael Crichton’s The Great Train Robbery is a fictional account of the most shocking crime of the Victorian Era. Edward Pierce, the criminal mastermind behind the robbery, never revealed his exact motive for committing “the crime of the century.” Trapped in an era of stifling moral standards and harsh class distinctions, Pierce committed The Great Train Robbery in defiance of the oppressive social conventions propagated by The Crown. Although 19th century Britain was a world economic power, ruled over history’s most extensive empire, and had the best quality of life, millions of people lived lives of squalor in overcrowded, dangerous slums. Some higher-class Victorians blamed these deplorable conditions for the ongoing crime epidemic in Britain while others simply attributed intellectual and social inferiority to

Because Victorian society upheld moral righteousness and social order to an unachievable standard, many people, particularly men, were driven to engage shameful activities, often in secret, to relieve their intrusive desires. Mr. Henry Fowler, for example, inquired for a cure for his venereal disease, which “was thought to be the consequence of sexual overactivity,” (87). Mr. Fowler most likely contracted his disease by visiting prostitutes of questionable report to satisfy his repressed desires. Edward Pierce also broke from his image as a gentleman to satisfy his personal