Characters at Work: Late-Victorian Characters, the Middle Class, and the Fantasy of Vocation

Abstract

The Victorian period (1837-1901) and its literature were preoccupied with work and portrayals of work. In the earlier decades of the period, portrayals of work showed realist characters working in industrial jobs that emphasized abuses in workhouses and other unsavory business practices. In the later decades of the Victorian era (~1860-1901), after the Great Exhibition of 1851, the middle class was growing, and with it, new ways to think about work, particularly work and its relationship to identity. Work became associated with the person doing it to the point that it is elevated to a religious status of being vocational. Characters at Work: Late-Victorian Characters, the Middle Class, and the Fantasy of Vocation analyzes characters from late-Victorian genre fiction for their approaches to work. Authors of these characters present work in such a way that suggests work is a vocation, but this dissertation argues that the idea that work is vocational is a fantasy that serves employers. Each chapter of this dissertation examines different types of characters — detectives, adventurers, children, and pirates — and explores what vocation means to each group: choice, duty, a salve for lack of choice, and an ability to use choice and duty to pursue selfish goals rather than more universal interest. This dissertation examines genre fiction as opposed to realist novels to challenge a mid-century industrial focus on work while also challenge assumptions that such popular characters as Sherlock Holmes, Wendy Darling, Allan Quatermain, and Captain Hook have nothing to say about work. Almost all of these characters are middle or upper-middle class, and this class focus reflects the intended readership of these novels: groups who had enough leisure time to read for entertainment, including on their commutes to and from work. By presenting work as vocational through such popular characters, authors try to show readers that work can be something enjoyed with a noble purpose, even if the profession in question is not chosen by the worker. This dissertation concludes that the Victorian approaches to work and vocation still persist in the prevalence of Victorian characters in modern media.