Andrew's Wiki
Way We Live

Folks

• Carburys: Lady Carbury (loving but silly aspiring novelist), mother to Sir Felix (dissipated, cowardly bachelor who tries to marry rich Marie) and Hetta (lover of ineffectual but cute Paul Montague, rejects rich cousin Squire Roger Carbury)

• Melmottes: Mr. Augustus Melmotte (rich fraud who entertains the Emperor of China and wins Parliament for Westminster; kills himself), wife Mrs. Melmotte/ (quiet and troubled), and daughter Marie Melmotte (increasingly confident and knowing, runs off to America with a fortune and Mr. Fisker)

• Americans: Mrs. Hurtle (scorned but persistent lover of Paul Montague, accused of murdering various men); Mr. Fisker (smooth-talkin’ risk taker from Californy)

• Mr. Broune and Mr. Alf (powerful editors of daily newspapers, first one marries Lady Carbury)

• Rustics: Ruby Ruggles, recalcitrant daughter of farmer John Ruggles, eventually marries respectable grain merchant John Crumb after flying off to London to be with Sir Felix

• Longestaffes: father Adolphos, ruinous son Dolly Longestaffe (who starts the Beargarden club with Sir Felix and others), safely married Sophia Longestaffe and loose cannon Georgiana Longestaffe (who asserts her right to a London season, nearly marries a Jew, goes off with a clergyman)

• Lawyers: Older man’s firm of Mssrs. Slow & Bideawhile versus Mr. Squercum, who saves younger Dolly from ruin

Themes

• “The Way We Live Now:” Modernity is Shocking
  • Religion doesn’t matter; money matters
  • Lawyers run it all
  • American spirit is infectious, rowdy, and dominates effete Englishmen
  • Morals are out the window (super-conservative)
    • Trollope punishes the hyper-modern characters
      • Marie and Mrs. Hurtle can’t get who they want (women must find material comfort; that is all they can wish for)
      • Augustus made to poison himself
      • Georgianana gets stuck with a clergyman (poor), can’t marry the Jew
  • Women are getting chatty and ornery, hard to contain
• Finance capital
  • Everything floats freely
    • Money is just credit
      • Was coin, then just paper, now just words
    • Value of tickets for Emperor of China dinner fluctuate like stock
    • Proper names are just labels
      • Forgeries by Augustus Melmotte
  • Railroad isn’t going to be created at all
    • Stock will be sold (so it’s only tradeable value, nothing at bottom)
• Writing as a material profession (Lady Carbury)
• Beargarden (the young men’s club)

Comparisons

• Similar to Vanity Fair in the flirtation with but eventual denunciation of the climb up the social ladder

Quotes

• “We belong to a newer and worse sort of world” (58, Hetta to Roger while saying no to his proposal)
• “Even a mother should not throw away her worship like that” (56, on the new
  sort of child modernity brings, on Sir Felix, said by Roger)