Jesse Woodrum

English 429

14 December 2011

Putting the u in Labour

            Wahrman’s analysis of political language in these decades is intense and acute.  He identifies two conflicting conceptions of the macroeconomic picture—the descendants of which we can still recognize in contemporary economic theories.  The first theory, in the words of John Somers Cocks, is that “the rich furnish the means of industrious livelihood to the poor…the poor, in their turn, by their labour, are the instruments that increase the opulence of the rich, which necessarily flow back upon them.”  (Wahrman pp 83)  A pseudonymous pamphlet identified as the work of doctor and political activist James Parkinson sharply characterizes the second theory: “The whole business of the poor, is to administer to the idleness, folly, and luxury of the rich, and that of the rich in return is to find the best method of confirming the slavery and increasing the burthens of the poor.”  (Wahrman pp 83)

            Though the line of wealth separating the rich from the poor was and is both mobile and permeable, there is no definition of rich which does not include Vathek author William Beckford.  In his introduction to the novel Roger Lonsdale quotes Byron who describes Beckford as “England’s wealthiest son.”  (Beckford pp vii)  However, his depiction of the elite is a hyper-realized version of the wealthy as predatory.  Vathek’s supernatural appetite for everything from food to knowledge and power leads to his consumptive sacrifice of his on subjects. 

On pages 23-27 (the novel is without chapter separations or any other separations) the despot stages a beauty contest among the children of his subjects in order to actually sacrifice the youth to a demonical genie.  The sacrifice of fifty children is gruesome itself but the contest itself is perhaps a more interesting parallel of economic interaction.  “The fifty competitors were soon stripped, and presented to the admiration of the spectators the suppleness and grace of their delicate limbs.  Their eyes sparkled with a joy which those of their fond parents reflected.” (Beckford pp. 25-26)  The scene is one of exploitation for entertainment which parallels the theory of exploitation of labor.  It is more telling than the actual sacrifice because in this exploitation the parents (the subjugated) are gleefully complicit. 

Beckford’s summary moralizing on vice and excess seems to come with a wink and the reader has the sense that the author is torn between repugnance and fascination with the idea of extraordinary wealth and power.  Published within a decade of the Revolution, this novel seems to somehow hold both conflicting economic theories in the same hand.  Interestingly, Burney’s Evelina, which predates the composition of Vathek by only 4 years, also has a scene of exploitation for entertainment.  Two old peasant women are paid to compete in a footrace to resolve a dispute among two gentlemen so that they don’t have to engage in any dangerous sport themselves. (Burney pp 447-449)  The titular character ultimately interjects but the novel makes no gesture toward any radical theory of proletariat exploitation.  Vathek in its imaginative excess, cannot help but raise fundamental questions about power and privilege. 

Wahrman may call Beckford’s work proto-political, in order to make his claim that public debate becomes politicized in the years after the impact of the Revolution.  Whether or not he is correct about the dates, the important point is that politics has in fact invaded all most all aspects of discourse at large.  There is some kind of class commentary in Vathek which resonates with modern readers because we are so attuned to it.  And that most of the novelists leading up to this period are completely unaware of the implications of their works within an overarching and ongoing class struggle is good evidence that there was no real conception of the struggle at the time. 

Today the idea of a class struggle is so pervasive it has become invisible.  It is part of our contemporary zeitgeist.  Every work is written—if not with an over political statement—with the knowledge that it will be read for one; and Wahrman’s very smart recognition of the ascendency of  political language is very good evidence for anyone who wishes to make the claim that the middle class in fact emerged in the otherwise-nameless period of European history, the 18^th century.  Though the historical change in economic reality is relatively slow and continuous, the middle-class consciousness springs from a deliberate effort in a historically short burst of energy. 

One thing Wahrman could have done to increase the strength of his thesis (and which would have been interesting in its own right) would have been to include a parallel example of a thought construct which can be identified as deliberately created, and which corresponds to a part of social reality.  He does discuss the emerging language of natural rights via Paine and Wolstoncraft, (pp 75-77) but the issue is so tied up with the middle class as to be more of an ancillary than a parallel.  He could have used the rhetoric about abolition as an example.  Or he could have mentioned the rise of nationhood as our dominant model of political unity.  Another example, even briefly discussed, could have helped him to show that inventing constructs is what people do and that we use these constructs to make policy and to psychologically situate ourselves among other people in the world. 

            Though academic and largely impersonal, Wahrman’s tone is in line with our contemporary egalitarian view toward class; and readers get the sense—as he traces the narrative of political language—that he is rooting for the ideological and political recognition of the middle class.  Nonetheless, he demonstrates that the middle class is not a real thing, but a part of a mindset—a fiction, if still a very convenient one.  It leaves readers wondering what other facts of reality we live with that are really just constructs.  Imagining the Middle Class can alter the way people read the world even as it points out an important historical moment—a very important moment because we live every day with the legacy of an all-pervasive class consciousness. 

Works Cited

Wahrman, Dror. Imagining the Middle Class: The Political Representation of Class in Britain, c. 1780-1840. New York, NY; University of Cambridge Press Syndicate, 1995. Print

Burney, Frances. Evelina. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press Ltd, 2000. Print.

Beckford, William. Vathek. New York, NY; Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.