Daily Life. In Fact, it

¶ … daily life. In fact, it could be said that the purpose of literature, and even all art -- insofar as art and literature have a purpose -- is to reflect back to society the values and beliefs it is projecting. That is, humanity in general and society specifically can often see itself more clearly when it is reflected back and narrowed down by art than it can from the immersed perspective that necessarily exists in the world of life. For this reason, the themes that are recognized in literature and art can also be said to be the themes of life, and an understanding of the way various societies work can be gleaned from an analysis of literary works. This is not to say that all literary texts will tell us about the society that produced it at face value. But it does mean that every author leaves clues, whether they mean to or not, about the society of which they are a part and about which they are writing (and the two are often not the same thing).

One of the ways that this is clearly illustrated is through the literary portrayal of class. Most works of literature reveal some truths about class distinctions in various societies whether or not that is the focus or intent of the text. Often class is not the focus, yet the truth is that almost every known society and civilization had class distinctions to one degree or another, and these form a basic part of an individual's identity. Therefore, class cannot be escaped, either in the real world or in literature. There are some literary works that make the issue of class completely overt and consciously brought to the forefront, however, and these are especially interesting in revealing how class operates in society and how it affects the individuals within it. Though class itself is generally agreed today to be an external application, it has very real effects on the inner morality, beliefs, and ultimately decisions that people and characters make.

Victorian England had a very strict society, with many rigid moral codes and a very stratified and strictly defined system of class divisions. This is very clearly evidenced in one of the most famous plays of this time, the Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. This play is often called a comedy of manners, which really means that it lampoons the way manners -- which are a product of class -- allow or even force people to make foolish decisions. In the Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde shows many different ways in which class has an affect on society, especially in the area of romance and marriage (which do not always go hand in hand).

Much of the play's conflict centers on Jack's desire to marry Gwendolyn, but her mother Lady Bracknell will not let this happen without first confirming his class. At the same time, Lady Bracknell's nephew Algernon wishes to marry Jack's ward, Cecily. Jack will not let this happen unless he can marry Gwendolyn, so Jack's class is very important to everyone. In one of the most comic moments of the play, Jack first reveals how he was found as an infant in a handbag. Lady Bracknell is horrified, and when Algernon attempt to intercede in his usual flippant manner, Lady Bracknell reprimands him: "Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that" (Wilde, 147). Though this line is also highly comic, even out of context, it also reflects the very serious sentiments about class in the play.

This play really only deals with the upper class of Victorian England (and their servants). What's strange is that often in the lower classes, there is more freedom in areas of romance. The upper class, which is freer in terms of financial opportunity, is less free in spirit.

George Bernard Shaw, another English playwright of the Victorian Era and later, shows much of this aspect of class in his play Pygmalion, which is loosely based on the Greek myth in which the title character falls in love with a sculpture he has made. In Shaw's play, Professor Harold Higgins accepts a bet to transform Eliza Doolittle from a very low-class girl with a heavy cockney accent into a lady of high class with a polished way of speaking. The class issue is central to the conflict of the play, but it also crops up in many other ways as well.

Professor Higgins is a master dialectician, and immediately classifies everyone he meets based on the way they talk. For instance, when he first meets Eliza's father and hears him speak more than two words, the first thing out of Professor Higgin's mouth is "Brought up in Hounslow. Mother Welsh, I should think" (Shaw, 24). This shows the very strong influence that language and class have on the way people are perceived and treated in this play. Professor Higgins can never see Eliza or her father as full human beings; his view of them is always filtered through his perception of class, and this is what dooms his feelings for Eliza to failure.

Pygmalion clearly shows how class divisions lead to prejudices, and how these in turn affect not only individuals but whole sections of society. At the end of the play, Eliza also feels as though she has lost some portion of her life -- she no longer belongs in the low-class world in which she grew up, but neither is she able ot live in the upper class world. Class created and destroyed her identity.

One classic though often forgotten example of class's ability to create identity is Mark Twain's the Prince and the Pauper. Though the books does not rank amongst Twain's masterpieces, it is the clearest example of the difference class can make in creating an individual. In fact, it is one of the most clear-cut examples of class distinction possible in literature or in life. The Prince of the title is Prince Edward, the son of Henry VIII of England, and of the highest class possible in England and possibly in the world at that time. The pauper, Tom Canty, is just as low in class as Edwards is high, and when the two switch places for a time each is jolted by the un-guessed at situations and difficulties that exist in the other's life.

The book is not simply a fanciful story of switched and mistaken identities, however. Both of the boys at the center of the story come to some very profound realizations about the role of class in society. At one point, the prince -- who has become king because of his father's death but who is still caught in the world outside the Court as a pauper -- reflects on a rat who scurries away from him: "Poor fool, why so fearful? I am as forlorn as thou. 'Twould be a shame in me to hurt the helpless, who am myself so helpless" (Twain, 156). At this point in the novel, Edward is beginning to understand how hard life is for people of a different class than he, and it is also leading him to a better compassion and understanding of his fellow human beings.

The pauper in many ways has it better in his new role, but he also learns that there are demands and expectations of the higher class that he finds uncomfortable and intrusive. The constant presence of attendants and the schedule he is expected to keep are unlike the life he led in the streets. Both boys learn that class dictates most -- if not all -- of the details of our daily lives, including what and when we eat, how we speak and who we speak to, and even where we sleep.

Class also dictates who we sleep with, perhaps more than anything else, and this has also been a very common theme in literature. A well-known American example of class affecting romantic and sexual availability is F. Scott Fitzgerald's the Great Gatsby. In this novel written and set in the 1920s, Nick Carraway narrates his tale of how he was introduced to society in an upscale suburb of New York despite not really being a full member of that class. The title character of the novel, Jay Gatsby, has an even more important encounter with class -- he is in love with Daisy Buchanan, and thinks that the fortune he has earned makes him a member of her class and therefore able to woo her. But though Gatsby has overcome his working-class past and now throws ostentatious parties, he still compares unfavorably in terms of class to "Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor" (Fitzgerald, 142).

Though money and class are very closely intertwined, this novel shows that the two are not synonymous. Gatsby earned his money in nefarious ways, and though Tom Buchanan is portrayed as a much more brutish man and in many ways unworthy of Daisy's love (and to all appearances, less in command of it), he is still the one Daisy stays with because he is of the same class. In this novel, class has more to do with breeding and background than it does with simple wealth. Class is a complex concept, and this has made it very difficult to negotiate shifts and changes in one's class status. The Great Gatsby illustrates that class is capable of producing deep-seated prejudices that cannot simply be altered by external factors like money.

Another very famous novel that affirms these class divisions and the barriers to class mobility is Jane Austen's Emma. The main character thinks of herself as a very good matchmaker, and one of the many conflicts in the novel involves Emma trying to match her friend Harriet up with Mr. Collins, and dissuading her from her romantic feelings for the farmer Mr. Martin. Emma foolishly believes, simply because she likes Harriet as a friend, that Harriet will be accepted into the upper reaches of the eighteenth century British class system despite her dubious birth. This is another instance of class being determined by birth and birth alone, and of class dictating romantic relationships. In many ways, Emma's attitude towards Harriet is somewhat ironic, as much of the novel deals with Emma's snobbish behavior and high level of judgment based on class. In a way though, it is this supreme deviation to the ideals of the class system that blinds her to the truth of Harriet's doubtful situation.

Emma's snobbishness conflicted with her desire to keep her newfound friend, Harriet, with the result that she decided Harriet was of the same class as she herself was, as she basically explains to Harriet: "Dear Harriet, I give myself joy of this. It would have grieved me to lose your acquaintance, which must have been the consequence of your marrying Mr. Martin...I could not have visited Mrs. Robert Martin, of Abbey-Mill Farm" (Austen, 48). She does not think of this as snobby, of course, but it reveals her attitude towards both class and Harriet quite clearly.