Issues of Power and Class in Literature

Notions of power and class can be presented in different ways in literary texts. Some texts seem to pride themselves on the use of such ideas and ideologies, while others somehow subtly absorb the impressions and build them into the work. Nevertheless, conceptions of power and class can still play a huge part in the detailed understanding of a piece of work. Not only this, but they can also portray an author's own feelings and thoughts on things such as the class system and stratification of society. Two highly acclaimed literary texts which address the class and power ideologies are Geoffrey Chaucer's The Miller's Tale from The Canterbury Tales collection, and Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent.

Before we begin to discuss how issues of power and class are central in the understanding of The Miller's Tale and Castle Rackrent, we must first try and define exactly what we mean when we talk of the two terms. We should also be able to acknowledge how power and the class system has worked and been applied throughout history to gain a better understanding of the intertextuality that has given inspiration to such writers as Edgeworth and Chaucer.

Both words and their subsequent meanings, as has been suggested previously, reflect notions of the hierarchy and stratification, or the division, of groups of people within the social sphere. Therefore, both expressions can be discussed simultaneously due to their reliance on one another. This is not to suggest that `power' is identical to `class', but simply that the very fact classes in the social system exist is, some suggest, purely related to power.

The debate over the class system and specification has, indeed, stretched throughout time, with the earliest documented though...

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...says, `A clerk hadde literly biset his whyle,/But if he koude a carpenter bigyle' we get the impression that the class system, in both reality and in the text, is doomed to failure should Nicholas not capture John's wife. His higher position in society dictates this: John is a lowly carpenter while Nicholas is a parish clerk and keen astrologer. Similarly this debate within the text can reflect the struggle for power in England during the late 14th Century.

In conclusion, it is very clear that questions of class and power are central to the understanding of both The Miller's Tale and Castle Rackrent. Each narrator seems to be skilfully crafted from each author's own experiences: Chaucer as an employee for the king, and Edgeworth as looking over her father's tenants. This leads both texts to strategically question notions of power and class stratification.