The Manchester Massacre of 1819 and Chartist March of 1842: The emergence(y) of working class identity, representation, and history
Abstract
This dissertation embraces the developing trend that aims to broaden the field of literary studies by applying literary analysis to historical narratives, illustrating the relation between different discursive acts--literature and history. By discussing the multiple acts of resistance on both material and discursive levels, my project demonstrates the ideological conflict concerning working-class agency among the working class, middle class, and aristocracy that corresponded with a shift to a capitalist mode of production in England during the first half of the nineteenth century. Chapter one describes my methodology of linking the historical and literary narratives. Chapter two investigates the Manchester Massacre as an event that, in some ways, legitimated working-class concerns in England. This chapter also charts the discursive impact immediately following the massacre, illustrating the various ideological attempts to justify or condemn the State's actions. Chapter three explores Shelley's "Mask of Anarchy," the poet's response to the government's actions at Peterloo. The poem enacts a paternalistic response to working-class concerns in which Shelley embraces and creates a nostalgic version of harmonious class relations. Chapter four shifts the discussion from Peterloo to the Chartist movement. This chapter examines Chartism as a moment of working-class resistance to the power of the middle class following the Reform Bill of 1832. I argue that the Chartists challenged the exclusionary political system in place by offering a working-class alternative to middle-class ideology. In chapter five I examine Disraeli's (de)construction of a history in Sybil that explains England's political and economic crisis of the 1840s by attributing the country's decline to the rise of the middle class. The epilogue gestures towards the value of projects such as mine within the discipline of literary studies.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Friedman, Purdue University.
Subject Area
British and Irish literature|European history
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