'London at dinner': Narrating conventions and the Victorian novel

This dissertation contributes to our knowledge of the codification of Victorian social practices. Through a narratological lens, my analysis focuses upon the specific realm of proper dining. I juxtapose the narrative techniques of mid-to-late nineteenth-century novels and social instruction handbooks in order to develop an argument about how Victorian writers narrate conventions. I argue that the notion that certain social practices are standard is largely a function of specific narrative devices that figure conventions as routine, customary, and established. On the one hand, Victorian novels thus contribute to the routinization of social conventions; on the other hand, novels also question the very processes involved in developing and perpetuating paradigms for social behavior.; After an introductory consideration of the techniques of nineteenth-century restaurant guides, etiquette books, cookery books, and household manuals, I examine a range of mid-to-late nineteenth century novels that pose questions about the codification of conventions. In my readings, The Book of Snobs and Cranford employ repetition to narrate the process by which idiosyncratic habits become shared models. David Copperfield and The Way We Live Now use nonnarration to invoke and problematize the universality of conventions. Lady Audley's Secret and Armadale marshal eating rituals as part of the organization of plot. And, finally, Mrs. Dalloway and A Room of One's Own offer meta-narratives of conventions. Although novelists may be self-conscious about the implications of universal models, I suggest that narrative devices can replicate the very processes that novelists suggest are involved in codifying and routinizing social behavior.; This dissertation offers a narratological approach to issues traditionally associated with the novel of manners. I suggest that a concern with social conventions operates not only at the level of themes but also, and more complex, at the level of narrative devices in a variety of subgenres of the Victorian novel, including the bildungsroman and the sensation novel. By arguing that conventions, particularly those related to eating, play a significant role in Victorian novels' narrative methods, I ultimately demonstrate that aspects of this subgenre are even more prevalent than previously recognized.