The question of class in the Victorian and neo-Victorian novel : Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South and David Lodge’s Nice Work

Abstract EN

This paper examines the issue of class in two novels, one Victorian, Elizabeth Gaskell‟s North and South, and the other neo-Victorian, David Lodge‟s Nice Work, to see to what extent that issue continued to preoccupy English fiction.

The paper shows that Nice Work, a pastiche of North and South, and separated from it by over one hundred and thirty years, is concerned with exactly the same issues that were considered of extreme importance to mid-nineteenth century Britain.

Yet, the paper finds that the serious tone and the urgency of purpose which characterize North and South are replaced in Nice Work by a light tone and a post-modern playfulness both in terms of the treatment of the issues addressed, and the solutions proposed for the social and economic problems facing Thatcherite Britain.

The novel seems to mock the attempt on the part of conservative politicians to resurrect Victorian values as a possible remedy for late twentieth-century problems.

In examining the issue of class, the paper briefly reviews the Marxist and Weberian theories about class, and finds that Weber‟s theory is more nuanced and enables a better understanding of class affiliation and sympathies in the two novels.

The first part of the paper gives a review of Marxist and Weberian concepts of class.

The second part presents a basic introduction to the neo-Victorian novel; and the third part examines the two novels.