Reading the Restaurant: Social Class, Identity, and the Culture of Consumption in the Nineteenth Century French Novel

<p>The restaurant, like so many of the institutions of French modern society, developed at a very particular moment in history. In this project, I tell the story of the maturation of the restaurant and study its unique role in the social history of Paris during the nineteenth century. By examining the restaurant as a site of modernity, I illuminate its important role in precipitating class distinctions, locating the emerging consumer culture, highlighting gender differentiation, challenging prevailing views of domesticity, and revealing a debate over public and private space.</p> <p>Through a close reading of the realist novel as a discourse on daily life, I intertwine cultural history and literary theory to look at some of the critical questions about the nineteenth century restaurant. I examine a sampling of novels in which the restaurant is integral to the author’s narrative project. I demonstrate how Balzac uses the restaurant in <em>Père Goriot</em> as a signifier of one’s social status and how Maupassant uses the restaurant in <em>Bel-Ami</em> to differentiate gender roles. In my analysis of Flaubert’s <em>Madame Bovary</em> and<em> L’Éducation Sentimentale</em> and of Henry Céard’s <em>Une Belle Journée</em> I write about the restaurant’s unique role as both a public and private space in French society by highlighting its ability to sumultaneously satisfy many “appetites.” I read Balzac’s <em>Le Cousin Pons</em>, Dujardin’s <em>Les Lauriers sont coupés</em>, and Huysmans’ <em>À Vaul’eau</em> through the lens of an anxious bourgeoisie trying to navigate the emerging restaurant culture of Paris. In my final chapter, I address the social issues that rose to the surface as a result of the emergence of a nineteenth century consumer society focused around the restaurant through an analysis of Baudelaire’s poem <em>“Les Yeux des pauvres”</em> and Zola’s <em>Le Ventre de Paris</em>.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

French

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2014

Author dc:creator

• Rienti, Joseph J.B.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mary Ann Caws

• French and Francophone Literature

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1421

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-2445