Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ws8qp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T08:48:46.580Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

SERVANTS AND HANDS: REPRESENTING THE WORKING CLASSES IN VICTORIAN FACTORY NOVELS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2000

Dorice Williams Elliott
Affiliation:
The University of Kansas

Abstract

EARLY IN Frances Trollope’s 1839 novel The Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong, the Factory Boy, the title character is introduced into the kitchen of Sir Matthew Dowling’s home. The assembled servants, rigidly organized into their own hierarchy of status and position, react with horror and derision at the very idea of a factory boy joining the household on any terms. The only way in which they can explain such a preposterous idea is to speculate that the boy is Sir Matthew’s illegitimate son; only by inventing a hidden genealogy can they imagine a place for a factory worker in the genteel British home (Figure 2).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)