Not having a
ready knowledge of nobility titles, I needed to consult the OED to better understand the importance
of Felix Carbury’s title of baronet: “a
titled order, the lowest that is hereditary….
A baronet is a commoner, the principle of the order being ‘to give rank,
precedence, and title without privilege.’”
So Felix, through his father, inherits a title that, essentially,
requires his fellow commoners to call him “Sir” and not much else. Or, as Trollope writes, “Perhaps if there is
one thing in England more difficult than another to be understood by men born
and bred out of England, it is the system under which titles and property
descend together, or in various lines” (195; ch. 23). This “title without privilege” artificially
increases Felix’s social class position—thereby confusing Melmotte in regard to
Felix’s lack of property or income.
Bordieu discusses
this inequality of title and privilege: “the time-lag…between changes in jobs, linked
to changes in the productive apparatus, and changes in titles, which creates
the space for symbolic strategies aimed at exploiting the discrepancies between
the nominal and the real” (481). While
Borideu suggests the “potters who call themselves ‘art craftsmen’, or
technicians who claim to be engineers,” I also would consider Felix’s baronetcy
in light of this time-lag to better, if not sympathize, then at least approach
sympathy in understanding him.
Remembering Felix as only the first inheritor of the title, we can (from
some distance) view him as a liminal actor in what might have been a transition
not to nobility but to at least a certain entitled social position. However, Felix cannot escape his
parentage: a “penniless girl of
eighteen” and “a man of forty-four who had the spending of a large income” (12;
ch. 2). Thinking about the tastes
instilled in Felix as a child (his mother had “spoilt him as a boy” (16; ch.2))
can better situate his inability to succeed within the realm of his noble, if
corrupt, cohort.
Felix asks his mother for £20 (from the Project Gutenburg version of the original text)
I'm glad you looked up baronet, because in Trollope it's crucial to understand the subtleties of the English hierarchy. Felix's title is indeed a limited form of social capital (and no source of actual capital), which, as you point out, helps to point out Melmotte's outsider status at the beginning of his social climbing. Note that as he rises he sets his sights on higher and higher titles as an index to both his increasing reputation and his more accurate view of the structure of the aristocracy.
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