Economic Status as Literary Theme

The Issue

The question of identity, stated mathematically as a = a, is as old as philosophy. Western philosophy has long held to the argument that a does in fact always equal a, a philosophical tenet described as “essentialism.” The essentialist belief holds that each individual has some unique characteristic, or “essence,” that separates him or her from all other individuals. This essence, or soul, is viewed as being eternal and unchanging. The soul of the person at five is the soul of that person at fifty: a = a.

The literary convention of character follows a similar argument. An individual literary character is typically assumed to have an essential nature, by which means a reader or audience can distinguish that character from others. The most gripping fictional characters are, nevertheless, those who change in some form or another over the course of a narrative, who undergo a transformation and become something other than what they were at the beginning. Much of the appeal of narrative has to do with the tension between these two aspects of character.

Self-image derived from economic status has been one traditional means of determining both the type and importance of a literary character. Traditionally and historically, characters of low economic status are relegated to minor, static, roles. They are slaves, servants, fools, and the like, and usually remain in the background while the serious action goes on among those higher up the economic pyramid. This representation and stereotyping have been challenged throughout the history of literature.

History

The Greek philosopher Aristotle made original and famous statements concerning the economics of identity in literature. In the Poetics (c. 334-323 b.c.e.) Aristotle describes a tragic figure for Greek drama. The tragic hero needs to be an upper-class male Greek citizen who sees himself as a leader. Notably, the tragic character cannot be a Greek female (forbidden from holding property), a member of the lower class, or a slave. Dramatists who did not adhere to Aristotle’s precepts, such as Euripides, were criticized for what Aristotle claimed to be a lack of dramatic skills. Aristotle’s insistence that the tragic figure could only be a male of high position has been taken as a description and as a prescription. Lower-class figures have more often than not been relegated to the status of comic figures since then.

Roman literature, based on a more fluid class system, presented, relatively, a more flexible approach to the question of economic identity. It was not unknown in Roman society for slaves to be granted their freedom, and for them subsequently to gain great wealth. Roman comedy, especially the works of Plautus, frequently features narratives concerning escaped and freed slaves and their rise in good fortune. Even in these works, however, the characters are little more than caricatures, stock figures whose primary role is the advancement of often outlandish and obscene plots.

The medieval period in Europe brought about a great change in the treatment and idea of self-image. Literature became much more a method of instruction, and character became a means to an end, a way of relating moral precepts and standardized theology. The popular medieval play Everyman (first extant version, 1508) shows the change in philosophy and presentation. The teachings of the Christian church hold that poverty is a virtue, and thus Aristotle’s classical precepts are turned around or ignored. The character of Everyman is a universal figure, and not intended to represent a particular class of people, such as the nobility. Furthermore, since Everyman is meant to be the average man, he has the characteristics of any man involved in redemption. As an allegorical figure, however, Everyman can hardly be said to represent an individual, changing character.

Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron (1349-1351) and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1387-1400) mark an advance in literary depictions of economics and identity. Each work involves a storytelling contest among a group of people. The Decameron features a group of wealthy young people from the Italian city of Florence who seek to escape the plague by fleeing to the country. The Canterbury Tales features a cross-section of English society.

The contribution of each of these two works has to do with the use of a new idea of character, one concerning the tension between belief in a universal ideal of behavior, such as that found in Everyman, and examination of the effects of economic status on a character’s self-image and behavior. The wealthy characters in The Decameron are castigated by Boccaccio in the introduction to the text for their selfish behavior. They abandon their city and surviving relatives in the midst of a deadly crisis. Their wealth allows them the freedom to detach themselves physically and emotionally from the suffering of their fellow citizens. The Canterbury Tales, on the other hand, presents characters from almost every English class, from bakers and millers to clerics, a knight, and Chaucer himself, who was a high-ranking commoner. Each character’s tale reflects upon economic status and aspiration.

The Novel

The novel is arguably the genre that places the greatest emphasis on wealth and self-image. The discursive form of the novel allows ample room for the description of clothing, surroundings, and furnishings, all of which serve as signs of economic status. As a genre associated with the middle and upper-middle classes from its inception, the novel in many ways reflects the concerns of its audience. The novel form also allows the writer to provide lengthy descriptions of thoughts and reactions, something that is out of the range of many literary genres.

The novel became the dominant literary mode in the United States after the Civil War. Whereas English novels often celebrate the possession of wealth, good taste, and manners, many American realist writers were skeptical about the effects of riches in a blatantly commercial economy. Perhaps the best-known of these antimoney novels is Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Huck Finn refuses to be bound down with social concerns such as money or to allow his character to be defined by wealth. The price of such a choice is his inability to be assimilated into the economy of manners, rules, and cash. Huck would rather be floating down the Mississippi on a raft with his companion, the escaped slave Jim. At the novel’s happy conclusion, Huck is planning to light out for the territories, away from civilization, one more time.

A subtle study of the effect of economic status on character is Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady (1881). At the beginning of the novel the heroine, Isabel Archer, lives a comfortable middle-class life in upstate New York. A wealthy uncle dies and leaves her an enormous fortune, and overnight Isabel changes from a girl to a highly eligible lady. She rejects two wealthy suitors and instead marries a poor but titled Italian, operating on the assumption that poverty is necessarily ennobling. The choice turns out to be a mistake, as she soon discovers, and Isabel is left with the unhappy realization that her money gave her only the freedom to make foolish choices.

Later American writers have continued in this tradition of the theme of excess wealth’s leading to unhappiness. Perhaps the most famous example of this is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925), one of the most popular novels of the early twentieth century. Set among the wealthy and newly wealthy of New York’s Long Island, the novel is a tale of characters isolated and alienated by their drive for wealth and social status. Likewise, Janie, the protagonist of Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), finds wealth to be an isolating phenomenon. Janie finds herself married to the mayor of an all-black Florida town. He builds a big white house in order to show off his status to the populace. Only after Janie is married a second time—to a footloose character named Tea Cake—and lives among the migrant laborers of South Florida does she find fulfillment.

Although Janie finds escape from the confines of wealth, other fictional characters are not so fortunate. Naturalist writers often feature settings in which characters are ground down by overwhelming economic and social deprivation. This style of writing became popular in the United States in the 1930’s and 1940’s, partly as a reaction to the economic conditions of the Great Depression. Bigger Thomas, the ghetto-dweller who serves as the focus of Richard Wright’s Native Son (1940), is surrounded by barriers seen and unseen. An African American growing up in a segregated Chicago, Bigger’s poverty leads to economic servitude, reinforced by the fact that Bigger can only find work as a servant to wealthy white people. When Bigger accidentally kills the daughter of his employer, the resulting manhunt is a classic of naturalist fiction. Bigger’s mistakes lead not only to his own capture but also to a fury unleashed toward all members of the urban underclass.

American works in the realist tradition continue in the dramatization of the isolating effects of money. Only writers in alternative genres, such as science fiction, have managed to imagine worlds in which economics does not constitute a primary defining factor for identity. Ursula K. Le Guin perhaps best illustrates such a world in The Dispossessed (1974). The Dispossessed is set on an anarchistic planet where property has been outlawed and identity is determined based on talent and personal predilection alone. Notably, the planet exists under constant threat from without, primarily from its capitalist sister planet, which bears a curious resemblance to Earth.

Bibliography

Aristotle. Poetics. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1949. Essentially fragmentary notes from Aristotle’s lectures, this text nevertheless establishes the foundation for much later literary criticism.

Jameson, Fredric. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1981. The most thorough current discussion of economic influence in narrative, with special emphasis placed on the novel.

Lauter, Paul, ed. Reconstructing American Literature. Old Westbury, N.Y.: The Feminist Press, 1983. Helped to reintroduce many neglected American writers, often highlighting the importance of economic status in narrative and canonization.

Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. A landmark work of literary history. Williams was one of the first English-speaking literary critics to emphasize the importance of wealth in the history of genre and characterization.

Williams, Raymond. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. Features etymological and explanatory essays on the vocabulary of sociology and literary criticism. Extensive selection of terms dealing with the effects of economics on identity.