"there's a sort of worth in the man beyond his class" (CH.23)

“there’s a sort of worth to the man beyond his class”

In asking the question of class of both Felix and Edith, I find myself drawing lines in the proverbial class status sand. If trying to give a hard and fast answer to what class Felix Holt is according to evidence from the book, I would quickly conclude that he is of the working class. The reader is given to understand that his father was in the trade of quack doctoring in selling his miracle and prayed over (and therefore not dishonest) tonics that helped cure people high and low (Ch.3). The sales from this tonic helped send Felix away for an education. However, it is clear that it was not the education that his family had quite intended. In Ch.4, we learn that Felix gave up his apprenticeship, which we can assume was to an apothecary of sorts, and used the money to pursue an education in Glasgow. While his mother’s hope was that this education would lead him to hopefully become a doctor since he would “have more schooling than his father,” he chose to work with his hands and pick up an honest trade in watchmaking and repairing in addition to using his education to teach children of his own class (Ch.22).

In Edith’s case, the mystery of class is more confused and the web harder to pull apart. Being raised by her clerical step-father, Rufus Lyon, the reader would assume that Edith is the same class. When it comes to the class of pastors and their families, I find it safe to say they are middle-class because, although they have no land, they are educated, do not work in a ‘laboring’ trade, and are looked up to by the working masses. In Mr. Lyon’s case though, he is a Dissenting preacher, and therefore not appointed by the Church of England. In that case, his class might be questionable. Still based on education and place in the community, a bet on the middle-class seems safe. Edith, herself, is well educated since she was sent off to a, importantly Protestant (wouldn’t want any French radicalism to accidentally sink in), boarding school in France. However, it appears that both Edith’s mother and father were from better established families. Edith’s deceased father, Maurice Christian Bycliff, had a claim at Harold’s title that he may, from the maniacal work of Jermyn, have been cheated out of. This of course means that Edith would have been the child of landed gentry. In this case, no longer would would she then be considered middle-class, but upper-class.

However, I do find that these lines of class are purposefully drawn in the sand by brilliant Eliot. Class is set up to be questioned all throughout. While Felix is set up in detail to be a man of the working class, his political ideas, his speech, his behavior (controlled drinking) and his education (although decidedly not his manner of dress) marks him out as middle-class. In addition, he is looked up to by working class men, Edith, and conceived as an equal by Mr. Lyon. The winds must be moving his line. In Edith’s case, while she is set in the middle-class by being raised by her father, her movements, the lines of her neck, her dress, and her gold accessories set her to be part of at least a better off middle-class if not gentry.

What I find interesting in all of these is that class is, whether known or unknown to the party itself, hidden, almost costumed. Mannerisms and behavior are portrayed as the best indicator of status. In thinking of Henry Scaddon (a.k.a Maurice Christian) and Jermyn, their places of class are supposedly well marked by their work. Scaddon is a kind of servant to the Debarrys; Jermyn is a ‘successful’ lawyer to a landed family. While Scaddon actually comes from a higher class and Jermyn is marked off as middle-class by his trade in being a lawyer, they are also marked out by their deceit, their scummyness (It’s now a word, and they made it so). In this way, the mannerisms and behaviors mark out class beyond status to note the sheep in wolves clothing and the worth of a man (or woman!) beyond his (or her!) class.