The Hungry Child

As we move into the 19th century, novels begin to take more of an interest in childhood. Whilst Jane Austen touches on the childhood of some of her protagonists (Emma Woodhouse, Catherine Morland and Fanny Price), novelists writing slightly later develop the childhood of their protagonists as a key element in their plots. Such writers include Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre (1847), and Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist (1837), David Copperfield (1850) and Great Expectations (1860).

Food is a key element in childhood. When we look back on our childhoods we often remember what we ate and we associate events and places with food. We remember the food we loved as a child, and the food we hated but were forced to eat. So it is no surprise that food is a recurring feature in many of these novels about childhood.

The absence of food – and its consequence, hunger – is also a frequent occurrence. Perhaps that is no surprise with Bronte and Dickens whose child protagonists experience abuse and poverty: from Oliver Twist’s plea for more food in the workhouse, to David Copperfield having to sell his clothing in order to buy food, the scarcity of food is only one of many ways in which the children suffer. Critics have also argued that the preoccupation with food and hunger in Victorian novels reflects both contemporary changes in food production and distribution brought about by the Industrial Revolution, and moments of terrible food scarcity, such as the potato famine of the 1840s (http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/hunger.html). A national obsession with food in the first half of the nineteenth century makes its way into the literature of the period.

Oliver Twist asks for more by George Cruikshank (1846)

What Do Hypochondriacs Eat?

From Mrs Bennet in Pride and Prejudice who complains constantly about her "nerves" and is "taken ill immediately" when she is informed of Lydia's elopement with Mr Wickham, to the never present but much discussed Mrs Churchill in Emma, whose illnesses the narrator notes “never occurred but for her own convenience”, hypochondriacs frequently appear in Jane Austen's novels.

That the illness is imagined, rather than real, is often observed not just by the narrator but also by other characters.  In Persuasion, Charles Musgrove speaks to his sister-in-law, Anne Elliott, the novel's heroine, about his wife's supposed indisposition:  "I wish you could persuade Mary not to be always fancying herself ill."  Anne finds herself in an uncomfortable position, confided in by both parties in the marriage, with her sister subsequently complaining: "I do believe if Charles were to see me dying, he would not think there was anything the matter with me.  I am sure, Anne, if you would, you might persuade him that I really am very ill - a great deal worse than I ever own."

Muffins

The English muffin – the yeasty bread-like concoction eaten usually at either breakfast or tea, as opposed to the American cupcake version that is possibly more widely consumed nowadays – dates back more than two hundred years.  The eminent cookery writer, Elizabeth David, in English Bread and Yeast Cookery (1977) includes recipes for muffins that date back to the mid-18th century, though she suggests they must be of considerably earlier origin. 

Many of us will recall the children’s nursery rhyme about the muffin man: 

Do you know the muffin man?

The muffin man, the muffin man.

Do you know the muffin man

Who lives on Drury Lane?

Game for the Gentry

In my last post I discussed, with reference to Samuel Richardson's 1740 novel, Pamela, the way food is frequently used as an indicator of social status in literature - http://pagetoplate.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/food-and-social-status.html  Jane Austen, writing in the last decade of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th, produced novels which combine romantic fiction with social satire.  Her characters mainly come from the landed gentry - landowners who do not need to work to earn an income - though there is significant stratification within this social class dependent on characters' wealth.  When food is mentioned in Austen's novels it is drenched in social significance and ideas of status. 

Food and Social Status

 

 

From the groaning tables of King Arthur's court in the fourteenth century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (http://pagetoplate.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/festivities-at-medieval-court.html) through to Mrs Portman’s pea soup in Thackeray’s short story, “A Little Dinner at Timmins” (http://pagetoplate.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/pea-soup.html) , food has been used by writers as an indicator of wealth and social status. 

Samuel Richardson's epistolary novel, Pamela, first published in 1740, is greatly concerned with social status and the possibilities of social mobility.  Pamela Andrews, the novel's 15 year-old protagonist, is a maidservant in a country house in which she has worked since the age of 12.  When the novel opens, Pamela's mistress has just died, leaving her in the service of Mr B____ (his full surname is never given), her former mistress's son.   Mr B___________ is attracted to Pamela but since she is not his social equal, instead of proposing marriage to her, he does everything in his power to seduce her.  He offers her money, hides in her closet, abducts and imprisons her and threatens her when she refuses his offer to become his mistress. 

 

Mr B____ finds Pamela Writing by Joseph Highmore (1743-4)

Despite Mr B________’s attempts, Pamela is determined to keep her virtue.  Whilst Richardson’s emphasis on Pamela’s sexual purity may seem rather old-fashioned and priggish nowadays, his giving a voice to a servant girl and making her the protagonist of his novel was a radical move.  At a time when servants would have been considered almost the property of their masters, and expected to obey their every wish, Pamela’s insistence on her right to do as she likes with her body and her refusal to succumb to his desires or accept his money marks her out as extremely brave.  As she says to Mr B____, when he reprimands her for speaking so bluntly to him and forgetting her place, “Well may I forget that I am your servant, when you forget what belongs to a master.”  She also challenges the prevailing belief that her low social status makes her an acceptable object for his depravity, “O Sir! My soul is of equal importance with the soul of a princess; though my quality is inferior to that of the meanest slave.”