It has been very difficult, if not impossible, to change classes in human society. The hereditary elite tended not to share wealth with those born into poverty. While there are always exceptional individuals that have risen from obscurity into prominence, the majority of people continue to live and die within the same social classes as their parents or grandparents. After the Industrial Revolution and the invention of new technologies in the latter half of 18th Century, large-scale mobility was possible. The land, which had played an important role in production since antiquity, was suddenly no longer as crucial to the economy. Aristocratic landowners and the noble class lost a significant amount of economic and legal power. By the 1800s, Europe’s old social structure was in ruins. “New money” had threatened to replace or dominate traditional forms. The political climate of the time heavily influenced the way that authors described and discussed social climbing. England was governed by constitutional monarchy for the entire Industrial Revolution. As a result, there was little disruption in the lives of the wealthy landowners. In contrast, France was devastated by a violent Revolution of 1789. Then followed a decade of terror during which France’s monarchy was destroyed. Even decades after Napoleon Bonaparte’s defeat at Waterloo, France was still undergoing a period of social turmoil. French authors viewed this social upheaval as positive, and praised the ambition of individuals and their social climbing. However, they reserved most of their criticism for rigid social hierarchy and the rigidity of social mores. English writers of the period took a more negative approach to their fictional social ascents.
This essay will compare how English and French authors treated characters with upward mobility in the mid-19th-century. The English climbers are Jane Wilson and Becky Sharp. They come from Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Rosamund VIncy comes from George Eliot’s Middlemarch. The characters who are striving to climb the social ladder in France will be Eugene de Rastignac, Porthos, Alexandre Dumas, Les Trois Mousquetaires and Jean Valjean, Javert and Jean Valjean from Les Miserables. Women, who assumed the class and rank of their husbands when they married, could move up by marrying wealthy men from more prestigious families. Jane Wilson, a minor character in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall tries to achieve this goal. She’s ashamed of her farmer brother Robert and is trying to lure wealthy Frederick Lawrence. Overall, Jane’s personality is predominantly negative. Jane, much like Eliza Millward’s mother, is a vicious and malicious gossip. She loves to spread rumors. She is a vicious gossip who spreads negative stories about the protagonist, a married wife fleeing alcoholic abuse. Frederick avoids her because she has a character flaw: Jane is Frederick’s sister. Jane is unable to control her destructive, rumor mongering behavior long enough for her to find the wealthy, handsome bachelor she dreams of. Frederic’s realization that Jane was not marriage-material is due to Jane’s immature social warfare campaign.
Jane’s social class is too strong for her to overcome. Jane has no husband at all because she refuses to spend time with people she deems beneath her. This will lead to an unhappy life, especially in a country where most men own the assets and control money. Now, her legal standing matches her character’s immaturity. Jane’s misery was a predictable outcome, according to the author. Bronte may not have chosen the Romantic authors’ preferred cause-and-effect conclusion, but she still makes it clear to the reader that Jane Wilson is not rewarded for her attempts at social climb.
Becky Sharp Thackeray’s most vivid and interesting character is Vanity Fair’s antihero. Becky Sharp, who was born into poverty, forced – as the text implies – to become a child prostitute, and then orphaned, is almost without any social connections. The book is dominated by Becky’s attempts to gain financial stability, despite her almost amoral approach. She makes mistakes along the way. Rawdon Crawley is handsome and stupid, but he embodies the stereotype of a cavalryman of early 19th-century England. His aunt, who had supported him previously, is furious that he married Becky. Rawdon is a cavalryman with a meager salary, which he supplements by gambling. Becky, Rawdon and their creditors are never behind them because they constantly borrow and move out. Becky then advances Rawdon’s career by manipulating flirtations which may or not include romantic services. Her husband finally catches up with her, but it is only after the couple has bankrupted loyal Mr. Raggles who rented their house.
Becky Sharp does not lack positive qualities or principles. She does this not in order to entrap Amelia Sedley’s rich older brother. However, she also shows signs of degeneration, including drunkenness, lying, and friendships with conmen and cardsharps. Although the reader is free to interpret whether she actually murders Jos, the title Lady Crawley, which she desires so deeply, never becomes hers. Her husband passes away before he can inherit the title, and so her son becomes Lord Crawley. The little climber is not able to achieve her goal.
Thackeray gives reasons for Becky’s intrigue, and her behavior that is similar to that of a cockroach who has acquired wealth and social status. She wants the security and stability she was denied as a child. Becky might be sympathetic to a young audience today, but it is possible that the narrator made a point about how people often deserve bad treatment. Becky, although interesting and readable is never “good”.
Middlemarch came out in the second half of the nineteenth century, once the mercantiles were well-established and wealthy enough to be able to compete with other independent wealthy families. George Sand has a more generous view of the characters who are trying to climb up the social ladder than did earlier English Realists. She depicts Vincy’s family in a more positive light, warts-and-all, yet she still does not let them achieve their goals.
Fred and Rosamund Vincy both have young adult children, but they are both striving to achieve a higher status in society due to their parents’ overindulgence. Mr. Vincy spends money he cannot afford to pay for Fred’s education and Rosamund’s fripperies in an attempt to compete against the wealthy Casaubons, Brookes, and other families. He fails in his attempt. The predictable outcome of his financial folly is that he and wife will suffer. While their children’s behavior is portrayed in an optimistic light, George Sand reveals their obvious ethical failings and describes how their social climbing behavior affects others.
Fred’s portrayal is mostly positive, but he acknowledges his moral and ethic weaknesses. They will not improve until Fred accepts what class he belongs to. In university, he was educated along with other young gentlemen. His spending and fashion habits have been influenced by theirs. He only wants to be respected and ride well-trained horses. In anticipation of inheriting significant property, he makes extravagant purchases. Fred, who is not happy when his wealthy uncle decides to leave most of his wealth to someone else, must become a priest (a profession for which Fred is not well-suited) or work with Caleb Garth. Caleb Garth’s daughter, Mary, respects him after he discovers a talent for managing property. Fred is a good tradesman and enjoys doing it. This allows him to earn a decent living. At the end, he’s happy in general. The story begins with him in a better financial position, but his social standing is lower. His miserable sister has done the exact opposite.
Rosamund, like Fred Vincy, was raised with a high standard of living. Rosamund’s concept of running a family is to buy the best and hope that someone else pays the bill. Tertius, whose wealthy relatives are against his medical career, is supposed to help him financially. She’s mistaken, and the couple’s debt is a result of her excessive spending and undermining attempts at saving by her husband. The Lydgates are in debt, and throwing tantrums won’t help. Their financial situation will only improve after they borrow money from Dorothea Casaubon. Lydgate marries a spendthrift who sacrifices his dream to be a doctor, leaving Middlemarch. His income is never enough to meet Rosamund’s expectation. Rosamond does not find a wealthy doctor to satisfy all her materialistic needs until Lydgate is dead. Rosamond is not a character that is attractive, positive, or ethically redeemed in the same way as her brother Fred.
To the English Realists, a person’s attempt to climb up social ladders is seen as a moral, character or spiritual flaw. Characters rarely achieve happiness by marrying well, and those that do often do so in a selfish or conniving manner. The message is a permanent class divide is good and appropriate. People are happier when they socialize, marry and live within their own class. Many people who try to move up in the world are miserable, even if their efforts succeed.
French Realists on the other had a more tolerant view. The social instability that destroyed France’s economy and culture at the end of the 18th Century may have contributed to this. Napoleon had been beaten and France’s ambitions to become an imperial power had temporarily been curtailed. But decades of national social engineering created a climate where people, for the very first time in the history of mankind, could expect to rise to positions of temporal leadership based only on their merit. With Madame Guillotine, France’s people were freed from the oppressive aristocratic and religious social structures. To want to climb the social ladder was not only noble but also heretical. The French character changed permanently after the restoration and return of the monarchy in France and to a society that had a hereditary elite. Things condemned elsewhere became acceptable to France. French psyche was influenced by the desire to move up in social class. In France, social climbers are not viewed with suspicion as they were in England.
In the current climate, it is essential to differentiate between social climb and conspicuous excess consumption. Social climbing is a way to change your social status permanently by joining a clique of elite associates. To achieve this, people adopt habits, mannerisms, and preferences that are appropriate for their desired position in life. This can sometimes mean spending more money than you have. Eugene de Rastignac’s family is severely ripped off in Honore de Balzac’s Pere Goriot to purchase clothing appropriate for the social life of nobility. This was done to secure a wealthy woman who could arrange lucrative work appointments. Becky Sharp is able to throw expensive parties because she has been given credit by vendors and tradespeople who believe that she is Marquis de Steyne’s mistress. Becky Sharp throws expensive parties on credit from tradespeople and vendors, who give her credit only because they think she is the mistress of the Marquis de Steyne. Eugene Becky and their friends spend money for a reason. Madame Bovary’s goal is not to become accepted as part of the upper crust of provincial society, but to indulge her fantasies. Mathilde in Guy de Maupassant’s La Parure thinks she has not been born to her proper station. Her financial troubles are, however, only distantly linked to her desire to be beautiful and wealthy at the Ball. Mathilde made a big mistake because of pride. Pride is what causes her to ruin herself and husband by replacing a diamond necklace. She isn’t doing this because of her social ambitions, but rather to avoid telling her friend and involving her in the replacement plan. She would have suffered only a temporary financial crisis if her necklace had been lost.
Honore de Balzac’s body of works, sometimes called his “human comic novels”, contains many references to Eugene de Rastignac. However, he introduces Rastignac for the first in Pere Goriot. De Balzac is a Realist and has no difficulty showing Rastignac’s willingness for him to sacrifice people in order to reach his goals. As a Realist writer, de Balzac has no problem showing Rastignac’s willingness sacrifice others to achieve his own goals. Rastignac does have standards. Vautrin’s murder plan is not accepted by Rastignac, despite the fact that he could make a fortune. He attends Goriot’s death and helps pay the funeral along with an even poorer student.
Rastignac may be willing to take advantage of others in order to make money, but only if it will help him achieve his goals. Jane Wilson is not the one who manipulates people or spreads gossip. Becky Sharp, on the other hand, does this. He is not selfish, shortsighted, or lazy as the Vincys are, and he can also change his mind, unlike Rosamund. Rastignac has a good personality and is intelligent. Characteristically, Rastignac is more developed than most English social climbers.
Alexandre Dumas’ (Pere) work is considered Romantic, not Realist. His d’Artagnan novels are historical stories that he uses in order to criticize various aspects of Old Regime society before the French Revolution. Les Trois Mousquetaires was set in 1620s France during the Huguenot Revolt. In a world that is becoming more ambiguous and dishonorable, the musketeer character’s ideals of service and honor to a competent and just monarchy are supported. Porthos is a charming character who appears in Les Trois Mousquetaires as well as its two sequels. Porthos, a large, loyal, and strong musketeer, is not overly bright but he has champagne tastes. Athos is nobly-born, but Aramis is well-educated. The finer things are his taste. He first hopes to get married to a wealthy woman. Porthos’ wealth has grown significantly by the time of the sequel Twenty Years After. He wants to become a baron. By the end, he has achieved his goal. Porthos does not pretend to act like anyone else, including Rastignac. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone except for his involvement with Athos and Aramis in their escapades.
Porthos’s desire of social advancement was not regarded as a violation of the natural social structure. Athos the aristocrat, as well his fellow soldiers, all support Porthos in his quest for money and power. This view differs from the English aristocrats portrayed on Vanity Fair. The aristocrats shun Becky unless it’s in their interests. The English Realists never introduce democratic motives into their characters. Dorothea Brooke goes to Lydgate’s house with Rosamund for a business-related errand, but she never thinks to socialize with Mary Garth or Rosamund. Dorothea doesn’t interact with the tenants who live in her uncles houses, even though she designs them. Her family and friends were shocked to learn that her name was linked romantically with Ladislaw, as part of a testamentary codicil. It is not considered intelligent or wise that she married Ladislaw who was a wealthy but liberal man, and gave up the entire inheritance of her husband to do so. Ladislaw himself finds Dorothea’s attraction inappropriate. Porthos is not accused of being inappropriate for courting and marrying Dorothea despite the fact that they are a very different age and class.
Dumas wrote Romantic fiction, not Realist. The lack of opposition for Porthos to achieve his financial and social goals was therefore not plausible. Dumas did not treat Porthos solely from a Romantic point of view. Victor Hugo chronicles Jean Valjean’s various ups and downs in Les Miserables.
Valjean is a former thief who has escaped from prison. He first commits a new crime by stealing a child, then a priest. Valjean changes his mind after being shown mercy. Valjean becomes honest, rises from obscurity as a powerful and wealthy man in the town. Valjean’s success is not permitted to continue. After saving a man who was about to be crushed under a wagon, Valjean is captured and recognized. He tries to live a quiet life as a citizen in order to hide from the world when he tries to escape again, this time, in order for him and Cosette. But by the end, he is found out. Valjean is indeed a noble character who lives a selfless life. He is one of the most noble literary characters. However, he does not get to keep his wealth or his position as mayor. The Romantic viewpoint is also responsible for this exaggeration. Valjean’s drive to live a life of honesty and avoid the stigma that comes with being a convict drives him. But the world is against Valjean.
Jean Valjean’s journey is far more heroic than that of Becky Sharp. She too has a humble beginning and is trying to make it out. The reader is forced to empathize, while those who would persecute, mistreat, or abuse him are shown as malicious, ignorant, and irrational. Readers are able to criticize the entire system of oppression that holds him and his fellow characters back. The English novelists have a positive view of social structures and conventions. This is a reversal of that. Though he has fears and human weaknesses, he is still a good man, even if circumstances make him lie about who he really is. He spares several lives in the book, such as the overzealous Javert who was saved by the priest Valjean robbed many years ago. He is surrounded in death by people who respect and love him for who he’s become. They know his past, but don’t hold it against him. He has definitely advanced in this world.
The French authors criticize social inequality, while the English authors do the same. Anne Bronte’s depiction of alcoholism is brutal and disgusting. George Sand goes into the financial difficulties caused by bad decisions made by characters in Bronte’s books. William Makepeace Thackeray mocks English society for its pretentiousness. Honore de Balzac has no qualms about depicting the morally and physically corrupted aristocracy as ugly. Alexandre Dumas’ Musketeers can be both political allies and enemies, sometimes working for corrupt politicians, statemen, or would-be leaders, but sometimes they are also their enemies. Victor Hugo’s work, despite being criticized by some Realist critics at the time, was so popular that it led to social and political improvement in France. The English writers, unlike their French counterparts, accept class stratification in society as a given and rarely criticize it. French authors, possibly influenced by Revolution, tend to criticize inequality in society while portraying upwardly-mobile and proactive people as positive.
Cites
Original: Conclude
Paraphrased: Summarize
De Balzac, Honore. Pere Goriot is a novel by French writer Honore de Balzac. It follows the story of an elderly father, who sacrifices his own comfort to provide for his two ungrateful daughters. 1835.
Bronte, Anne. The Tenant at Wildfell Hall 1848.
Dumas, Alexandre. Les Trois Mousquetaires. 1844.
Eliot, George. Middlemarch. 1871-72.
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary is a novel by Gustave Flaubert which tells the story of a woman’s struggles with life, love, and societal expectations. 1848.
Hugo, Victor. Les Miserables, 1862.
De Maupassant, Guy. La Parure. 1884.
William Makepeace, Thackeray Vanity Fair is a magazine that focuses on culture and fashion. 1847-48.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
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