Open Access"“For the look of the thing”: middle-class consumerism in the Mayhew Brothers’ Living for Appearances and the Greatest Plague of Life"
Author(s) -
Maria Dimitrova,
AUTHOR_ID
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
lûboslovie/lûboslovie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2603-5111
pISSN - 1314-6033
DOI - 10.46687/wjxt6860
Subject(s) - consumerism , plague (disease) , commodification , nexus (standard) , adventure , context (archaeology) , middle class , sociology , servant , commodity , consumption (sociology) , aesthetics , history , gender studies , social science , art , economy , political science , art history , law , economics , ancient history , market economy , programming language , archaeology , computer science , embedded system
The paper discusses the problem of consumerism in the Mayhew brothers’ Living for Appearances and The Greatest Plague of Life: Or, The Adventures of a Lady in Search of a Good Servant. The two novels offer a satirical comment on the emergence, in the mid-19th century, of a distinctive commodity and consumer culture in England – a development intimately related to the growth and the new visibility of the middle classes. The paper places the novels within their appropriate cultural-historical context and discusses the ways in which they address contemporary anxieties about the new consumerism. Most importantly, it focuses on the nexus between consumption and social aspiration; on commodification; on the imitation and adulteration of commodities and social identities; on the specularization of the self; and, with respect to The Greatest Plague of Life, on the problem of the specifically female gender of consumerism.