A Novel Approach

I should be clear that this post may have most interest for those who enjoy literature. Come to think of it, lovers of history might also find it tolerable. Others will likely be unimpressed. Just thought I would warn you. From here on its everyone for herself.

The book is Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope. I confess I should have read it years ago. Since it wasn't specifically assigned in one of those Lit courses at Hesston College or Goshen College I just let it slide by. Such inattention was my loss. I suppose another reason I neglected Trollope as an author is that one of his contemporaries was Dickens whose novels you would have to say are more compelling in that Dickens writes about a level of society that is more earthy and the social issues he exposes are more stirring.

Trollope is called a democratic realist. The rapid scientific developments of the day has shifted attention toward the individual as a rational, responsible person with awareness of possibilities and potential. The author therefore writes with the knowledge that his audience is expanding and a growing interest and curiosity. Growing out of the puritan and reforming spirit of the eara he writes not only to entertain but to expose.

Both Trollope and Dickens were mid-Victorian. Even the name of that era can be off-putting in that, from this distance, it reeks of pretentiousness and straight laced pomposity. And, to be sure all that is there in abundance. But beneath the surface of the pretense and form there is the human spirit experiencing all the glory and pathos of life that is real and hopeful.

In Barchester Towers, which is a cathedral city in England the 1850s, Trollope explores the lives of Anglican clergy, their wives, friends and competitors as they deal with the death of the bishop. That very normal event sets in play a whole range of emotions, strategy and reactions that builds to a wonderful resolution.


But as the plot or plots unfold, I recognized three themes taken from the Victorian age that were of particular interest to me, the role of the clergy in the Church of England, gender relationships and the pervasiveness of class in many areas of life.



The Church of England and the Clergy

The devastating earlier religious wars were over although competing movements still were abroad. There were reform movements that challenged the church leaders to keep the populace faithful and the powers that be happy. There was an underlying concern that the vicars and deacons be orthodox and educated in the right schools. However with the positions in the church also went money, power and prestige. So angling for choice appointments and impressing the right people were games played with energy and skill.

With higher positions went the advantages that resulted in lavish lifestyles without commencerate responsibility so that democratic reform was not always met with enthusiasm. A vicar who found himself in line for a new appointment might informed that with the new position went a mandate to begin a Sunday school and other increased responsibilities might think twice about the need to adjust his priorities.

Gender Relationships

The very specific ways of relating between the sexes that were part of the very fabric of society were under pressure by the democratic reforms. But while there might be hints of a leveling of the old rules, the forms and formality that prevailed earlier still were firm. Nevertheless, even while adhering to the formalities ways were found to gain one's purpose. It must be said that the manuvering and subtle ways of gaining one's ends increases the complexity of plots.

Interestingly, Trollope, as well as other Victorian authors were very aware of the reader and in order to be sure to be understood and catch on the subtility of the action sometimes took time out to address the reader directly. The author describes the qualities of the character as well as his intention so that the reader misses nothing of the implications of the particular action. It can become tedious with us who are impatient to move the plot along and get to the heavy stuff. In this novel these asides to the reader seem especially necessary when it comes to the interaction of men and women when the formalities of society keep them from communicating freely.

Where such stiff rules prevail there are always those who find ways to overcome their disadvantage and win their ends. Thus Trollope places almost at the center of his plot just such a scheming woman who proves to be one of the most powerful people in the novel. But like a number of his characters the reader both loaths and cheers these people who are at the same time both manipulative and heroic. In any case the travails of men and women trying to overcome barriers and find fulfillment are at the center of this movel.

Class

Always there is class. Even among the clergy there are those who are at the top and those who are forced to take what is left. In one case there is the poor vicar who is in a small parish with a very small stipend who struggles to make ends meet in supporting a wife and fourteen children.

Outside the clergy the distictions are more marked. In events that are arranged to accomodate the whole population, they are to be entertained in different areas. It is a horrible mistake if one finds themselves in the wrong place. A host or hostess goes through great agony if there is uncertainty as to where one belongs. For example, a gentleman farmer may be judged to be a person of means and yet at the same time have a low occupation. The wife especially will be considered out of place in either.

One also must dress to fit the category to which he is assigned or in the place she appears. Thus poor people with shabby clothing or a very limited wardrobe don't have a chance to be acceptable almost anywhere. There vocabulary also sets them apart as being more crude and uneducated.

In these ways and others Trollope exposes the times in which he lives. But what he has done is to vividly describe the human condition in a period of time that proves to be commentary on every age and every era. The rules have changed and the setting is different but the same ambitions, desires and habits are present in each. In typically victorian fashion Trollope has the good people win and they prsumably live happily ever after but the trials they face and the barriers they surmount are the same. The same question hangs over the final page of Barchester Towers as over a novel by Grisham, what will be the guiding goal of life, wealth, power, and poularily or selfless service?