Taste in North and South Reconsidered: A Case for Attention to Downward and Lateral Mobility in the Victorian Novel

Abstract

This article argues for attention to downward and lateral vectors of class mobility in the Victorian novel by pointing out how such attention can allow us to rethink conventional readings of the genre’s ideological normativity. A reconsideration of the role of taste in Gaskell’s North and South reveals that the novel represents taste not an inherent sign of Margaret and John Thornton’s superiority, but rather as a practiced and conscious cultivation of social capital in the face of threats to their economic security. Scenes in the novel in which Margaret and Thornton exhibit their taste are correlated with moments in which the economic instability of their positions is emphasized. I argue that this means the novel represents taste as linked to their experience of downward mobility. The novel also takes care to exhibit the different social milieus in Victorian England and their contrasting systems of social distinction. These contrasts, in combination with Margaret and Thornton’s desires for global travel and influence, represent travel as a form of lateral class mobility which can be successfully achieved using taste as a form of transportable social capital. In its representation of taste as practiced, rather than naturalized, in response to the various vectors of mobility, the novel complicates our vision of the Victorian novel as symbolizing the rise of the middle class. Ultimately, setting aside our expectations about upward class mobility by Victorian protagonists allows us to see new ways novels critique middle-class ideology.