Lacking Brutish Conviction: Vandover's Tumble from the Leisure Class

Abstract

Thorstein Veblen began writing Theory of Leisure Class in 1895, year Frank Norris completed drafting his novice work Vandover and Brute, published posthumously in 1914. Both volumes reflect upon an American economy characterized by industrialization, mass immigration, and selective affluence, and both mock behavior of financially secure within that economy. Vandover and Brute, in fact, reads like an application of Veblen's economic theses naturalist fiction. In this light, Vandover's fall from leisure-class privilege working-class drudgery results not from a surrender innate brutishness, as most scholars and protagonist himself suggest; rather, it confirms a final disavowal or abandonment of character's predatory nature due his vexing inability channel nascent barbarism toward a sustainable leisure-class profession. A steep descent into poverty and madness ultimately expunges Vandover from Veblen's category of predatory barbarian (those of leisure class who strut their peacock feathers in an act of symbolic pantomime for purpose of invidious comparison) and places him squarely among peaceful savages of working class who manage feed, clothe, and shelter themselves by means of useful labor, which Vandover is reduced engaging in at novel's end. Veblen explains that main purpose of his hugely influential study is to discuss place and value of leisure class as an economic factor in modern life. (1) Because hedonism--the pursuit of utilitarian pleasure (and default motivation assumed by most economists)--strikes Veblen as a tautology, it is for him an inadequate explanation of human behavior. (2) As wealth increases, humans no longer desire practical comforts, Veblen claims. Instead, their motivation for consumption is financial or pecuniary emulation of others. Consequently, members of an affluent society express themselves through competitive acts of conspicuous waste. They acquire consumer goods or devote time leisurely pursuits, none of which serves a utilitarian purpose. All are gratuitously and ostentatiously wasteful. Though drafting of Vandover and Brute predates 1899 publication of Veblen's book, Norris's novel seems specifically echo Veblen's satiric proscriptions about productive labor, an undertaking Veblen claims able-bodied men of leisure class are compelled shun as an unworthy enterprise. Abstention from labor is not only a[n] honorific or meritorious act, Veblen insists, it presently comes be a requisite of decency (41). In place of productive labor, upper-class males pursue leisurely but dignified employment as businessmen, lawyers, financiers, clergymen, military officers, sportsmen, or learned gentlemen. Throughout much of Norris's novel, title character seems headed toward a life of decorous uselessness as a painter, but he ultimately fails establish a solid identity as an artist and sinks instead into mere dissipation, leisure's disreputable cousin. The only class which could at all dispute with hereditary leisure class honour of an habitual bellicose frame of mind is that of lower-class delinquents, Veblen writes in a section on warlike interests that are shared by leisure class and hooligan subset of working class. groups share other interests and habits as well, including two in which Vandover frequently indulges: drinking and gambling. But there are differences. For man of leisure, unlike for hooligan, consumption of expensive intoxicating beverages is viewed as noble and honorific--as a mark of the superior status of those who are able afford indulgence (Veblen, 70). But he must consume intoxicants in a seemly manner. His life of leisure must be conducted in due form, Veblen instructs (75). This is not say that man of leisure must avoid drunkenness, or even public drunkenness. …