Date of Award
5-2018
Culminating Project Type
Thesis
Degree Name
English: English Studies: M.A.
Department
English
College
College of Liberal Arts
First Advisor
Sharon Cogdill
Second Advisor
Judith Dorn
Third Advisor
Monica Pelaez
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Keywords and Subject Headings
George Gissing, New Grub Street, Poverty, Writing labor, Karl Marx
Abstract
This paper explores George Gissing’s New Grub Street (1891) and the four main characters: Alfred Yule, Edwin Reardon, Harold Biffen, and Jasper Milvain to bring light on the reality of writers’ labor in the publishing industry in 19th century Britain. The characters’ impoverished lives are analyzed to see what money symbolizes, and how it affects their relationships, career prospects and goals, success in class, and their engagement in society. The theoretical framework of Karl Marx’s Capital is used to analyze the meaning of labor and money in the literary world of each of the four characters. Gissing carefully places the characters in poverty and compares their career paths to illustrate their methods of success and survival. Abundance of capital brings them luxury of time and class while the lack of it becomes “roots of all social ill” (Gissing 32).
Recommended Citation
Kim, Hye Hyon, "“Root of All Social Ill”: A Marxist Analysis of Poverty and the Labor of Writing in George Gissing’s New Grub Street" (2018). Culminating Projects in English. 129.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/engl_etds/129
