The Shoemaker’s Holiday takes place in a very bustling and cosmopolitan London. As Professor Deutermann stated, the population of the City roughly quadrupled during the era that the play was written. The surge in population was no doubt a major boon for culture and commerce within the city yet I feel it also minimized the importance of the individual. Guilds, partnerships, and the like became the new smallest functional unit of society at least within the bourgeois classes. Collaboration replaced the individualism of life in small towns and villages. The individual became insignificant in the midst of multitudes of people, ceased to be pragmatically productive as a result, and quickly faded into irrelevance, if not saved by others. In short, Jane is a victim of the alienation that comes with the urban landscape. Scene 4 in Act the Third tells how Jane has, after leaving the shoemaking shop, vanished into London: “Marge: And So, indeed, we heard not of her, but I hear/she lives in London; but let that pass. “
Similarly, the urban landscape promoted a sense of worldly alienation. Events outside of the city are largely disregarded as happenings on the fringe. In a world inexperienced for the most part with metropolises and lacking any sort of communicative technology, I can only think it natural that the city would become one’s world. The city brought together various people, diplomats, and merchants from all over and was in a sense a microcosmic world that did indeed take precedence over the world at large for city dwellers such as Simon Eyre, his band, and even the King who seemingly disregards the war until the final two lines of the play. In this respect, one would think Ralph is very much the outsider, having survived the war in France though returning home crippled. However, Ralph, despite his wounds, is very quickly reabsorbed into typical bourgeois life by the City and its occurrences, further, the characters closest to Ralph make only slight inquiries about Ralph’s wounds, almost developing a stigma towards them due to their origins “outside of their world”, so to speak.
The City and its society is all important in the play, and though comedic at times, it illustrates the roll of cities in the time to come and their attractiveness - living in a city provided the means to rise in society, just like Eyre's ascension (however fanciful it was), and loosened the rigidity of a socially stratified society. Ironically, London provided the means to get ahead while simultaneously providing the means to get left behind by both society and the world at large.
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ReplyDeleteAs Leon has described, the City becomes a double-edged sword for the lower classes, offering greater social mobility but also greater chance of utter failure. I wonder what these accelerated changes mean for the upper classes, who still run the risk of utter failure but do not really gain from the greater social mobility component. Furthermore, upper-class status can rely heavily on the element of the elite, the few, the famous, meaning that a progressive decrease in individuality might not bode well for them.
ReplyDeleteIn the Shoemaker's Holiday, the Earl of Lincoln and Oatley seem to represent this old guard of the wealthy who strive to keep their family line rich and pure. But, at least in regards to the marriage outcomes, they fail. What commentary do we see about the effects of the increasing hubbub of the city on the upper class? To what extent is their individuality or power threatened or adversely affected, and how does this contribute to the changing times?
As far as the upper class is concerned with the population boom, I think the King is successful in pronouncing Dekker's conclusion: "Dost thou not know that love respects no blood,/ cares not for difference of birth or state?" (V. v. 105-106). So I agree that in the final marriage, Lincoln and Oatley are unsuccessful in bringing about their desired ends. However, I think it is worth noting that they only yield after the King pronounces a pardon on the couple, and ends the play with dealing with the population issue. First, he announces that a new building will be constructed, and that the Shoemakers may make use of it twice a week (V. v. 159); he also announces that he will send a new supply of troops to France (V. v. 141). The King requires more market space for his citizens, and, it would seem, fewer citizens in his city.
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