The Way We Live Now: Analysis of Setting
"The Way We Live Now" provides a vivid exploration of various settings in late 19th-century London, reflecting the social dynamics and economic conditions of the time. Central to the narrative is the Melmotte house in Mayfair, an ostentatious residence of Augustus Melmotte, whose dubious business dealings form the core of the story. The contrast between Melmotte's lavish home and his inconspicuous business offices on Abchurch Lane highlights the duality of wealth and deception that permeates the novel.
Other notable locations include Welbeck Street, representing a less fashionable area where Lady Carbury navigates the challenges of a struggling writer. The Bear Garden Club serves as a social hub for characters like Sir Felix Carbury, illustrating the exclusivity of London’s club culture. Meanwhile, the Longstaffe family's home on Bruton Street emphasizes the importance of social status during the London "season," further complicating their fortunes. Areas like Islington and Sackville Street introduce working-class and flawed hero perspectives, respectively, enriching the narrative with diverse social strata. Collectively, these settings not only ground the characters in a specific time and place but also reflect the broader themes of ambition, morality, and societal critique woven throughout the story.
The Way We Live Now: Analysis of Setting
First published: 1874-1875
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of work: 1873
Asterisk denotes entries on real places.
Places Discussed
Melmotte house
Melmotte house. Ostentatious London home of Augustus Melmotte, the celebrated swindler whose dealings form the central plot of the book, and his family, in Mayfair’s Grosvenor Square, a highly fashionable area east of Hyde Park and north of Piccadilly. Melmotte’s business offices, obscure and unobtrusive by contrast, are located on Abchurch Lane close to the Royal Exchange and Lombard Street in the business district of London. Melmotte also has business ties (necessarily vague and shady) with New York, Hamburg, Vienna, and Paris.
*Welbeck Street
*Welbeck Street. Less-than-fashionable London neighborhood, on the north side of Oxford Street, that is home to Lady Carbury, a hack writer who supports herself by persuading editors to publish favorable reviews of her execrably bad books. Her daughter Hetta and her wastrel son, Sir Felix, live with her, but the latter spends most of his time at his club, the Bear Garden.
Bear Garden Club
Bear Garden Club. Fashionable London club favored by Sir Felix Carbury that is the scene of much of the action of the novel, located off St. James Street, the traditional heart of London clubland.
*Longstaffe house
*Longstaffe house. Home of Adolphus (Dolly) Longstaffe’s family on London’s Bruton Street, a highly fashionable address from which to participate in the London social “season.” The London house is shut down for reasons of economy, and the family’s enforced rustication at its Suffolk seat at Caversham is a source of intense mortification for Georgiana Longstaffe, Dolly’s sister. Dolly’s own country seat, at Pickering Park in Sussex, is instrumental in the cause of Melmotte’s downfall.
*Sackville Street
*Sackville Street. London street north of Piccadilly that is described as the residence of Paul Montague, one of the book’s two heroes, although a flawed one. Montague later seems to be living on Suffolk Street, off Pall Mall.
*Islington
*Islington. Unfashionable London working-class area that is the location of the temporary lodgings of Paul’s femme fatale, Mrs. Hurtle, whose exact address is not specified. Islington is also the scene of Sir Felix’s attempted assault on Ruby Ruggles, and the location of the music hall which they had previously frequented on the City Road.
Bibliography
Barickman, Richard, Susan MacDonald, and Myra Stark. Corrupt Relations: Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Collins and the Victorian Sexual System. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. Explores the extent to which Trollope’s fiction, like that of some of his contemporaries, moves beyond the sexual stereotypes of the time to recognize the damage these stereotypes did to the lives of women and men.
Gilmour, Robin. The Idea of the Gentleman in the Victorian Novel. Winchester, Mass.: Allen & Unwin, 1981. Sets Trollope’s gentlemanly ideal in its historical context.
Harvey, Geoffrey. The Art of Anthony Trollope. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980. Thoughtful discussion of The Way We Live Now, praising Trollope’s combination of “an absolutist moral stance and a high degree of moral relativism.”
Levine, George. The Realistic Imagination: English Fiction from Frankenstein to Lady Chatterly. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. The best discussion of Trollope’s modes of representation, emphasizing the dependence of Trollope’s realism on “an almost cynical acceptance of the necessity for arbitrary and traditional rules.”
MacDonald, Susan Peck. Anthony Trollope. Boston: Twayne, 1987. Excellent introduction to the complexities of Trollope’s fiction; includes an annotated bibliography.