Blog Two: Educational and Vestiary Class Markers

For this post considering evidence concerning the class positions of Felix Holt and Esther Lyon, I should like to appeal primarily to educational and vestiary markers. I shall consider first Felix who clearly self-identifies as lower class, questioning "Why should I want to get into the middle class because I have some learning" (64). Felix provides further evidence for his classification as working class when he asserts that he would refuse "employment that obliges me to prop up my chin with a high cravat, and wear straps, and pass the livelong day with a set of fellows who spend their spare money on shirt-pins" (63). Mrs. Holt provides further evidence for this classification of Felix when she bemoans the fact that Felix "made himself a journeyman to Mr. Prowd the watchmaker - after all this learning - and he says he'll go with patches on his knees, and he shall like himself better" (57). However, Mrs. Holt's assertions reveal the problematic, at least to her, fact that Felix is crossing class boundaries with his choice of occupation. Additionally, as the heir to a quack medicine business and recipient of a Glaswegian education, Felix should fall squarely in the lower ranks of the middle class. As his rank is considered, the evidence placing him in the lower classes is primarily associated with his choice in clothing and occupation, aspects contradicting his educational qualifications for the middle class. 

The class position of Esther is less problematic than that of Felix. We first receive intimations of Esther's middle-class status with Mr. Lyon's description of her as "so delicately framed that the smell of tallow is loathsome to her," a trouble remedied by the wax candles purchased by the her earnings as a teacher (60). In addition to aligning her with the middle class and its delicate sensibilities, this passage clearly removes Esther from the the lower classes, for an individual of the lower ranks would not be able to afford the luxury of being offended by the scent of burning animal fat. Esther is further linked to the middle class by her practice of giving French lessons; the upper class female needs no employment, and the lower class female has not the education for such employment. Additionally, Felix, mentally cataloguing Esther, notes that she has "a very delicate scent, [. . . ] small feet, a long neck and a high crown of shining brown plaits with curls that floated backward - things, in short, that suggested a fine lady to him" (67). Esther clearly reveals her middle-class position when she delineates the practices of the fine lady for Felix, for the working class has not the leisure and the upper class has not the inclination to be so careful to inhabit the appropriate role of ladylike behavior (71). For Esther, the evidence of education, clothing, and speech patterns is in accordance with the middle class.

The class positions of these two characters is important to the novel for at least four reasons. First, the differences in class positions, though one is chosen rather than inherited, adds to the tension of the romantic choice facing Esther. Second, though one could argue that this is merely a subset of the first reason, the difference between Esther's and Felix's class positions makes Esther's decision to lower herself to Felix's position seem more pure-hearted. Third, Felix's decision to live as lower class while supporting Radical aims functions as an argument for the applicability of Radicalism to the lives of the working class; radicalism is not merely the province of the middle class. Fourth, Felix's decision to cross class boundaries reveals a strong mental constitution on his part, ostensibly enough to support his position as a hero within the novel.