Poverty descriptions in old books that doesn't seem poor in today's property market

Submitted by p_romer t3_ye4m7l in books

Hi Everyone,

Lately, I have thought about the descriptions of rooms and apartments in older books that are meant to portray the person who inhabits them as poor.

... and found it interesting that they don't really translate to today's property market.

Even one of literature's poorest souls, like Rodion Raskolnikov, wouldn't be seen as that poor in today's property market in some cities based on his room. When Bukowski's alter-ego bum Henry Chinaski is not actually homeless, he also seems to live in relatively decent conditions. I also had to make some effort to feel sorry for Nick Hornby's protagonist in High Fidelity – alright, I get your heart is broken, but you have YOUR OWN apartment in one of London's most fashionable neighbourhoods.

Have any of you had similar thoughts, and are there some funny examples that come to mind?

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CrazyCatLady108 t1_itvyki2 wrote

>like Rodion Raskolnikov, wouldn't be seen as that poor in today's property market in some cities based on his room

you mean the one he rents and also the one he is not paying for and thus is in danger of being evicted. or how he cannot afford food. or how he owns a single set of clothes.

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bhbhbhhh t1_itx2jkk wrote

Nevertheless, it sounds like he was much better off than the really poor inhabitants of the city, the ones who could never imagine having a bed to themselves.

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p_romer OP t1_itw2jq9 wrote

Yeah, sure, we could also point out that he sleeps on a couch and not a real bed.... and that his room is as much a mental prison as a psychical one, but I still think it's interesting and underlines literature can be used for comparative studies of perceived poverty.

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CrazyCatLady108 t1_itw33da wrote

>but I still think it's interesting and underlines literature can be used for comparative studies of perceived poverty.

no argument there.

the point is you said he doesn't seem very poor by today's standards, but he is. he is essentially homeless, as the only reason he has not been kicked out is because the landlady cannot force him out.

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p_romer OP t1_itw409d wrote

I also wrote "based on his room" but, sure, I get your point. I Just remember these room descriptions vividly and I have seen ads for expensive rooms on various sites, where Dostojevskij's words could kinda fit.

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CrazyCatLady108 t1_itw5mp0 wrote

> I also wrote "based on his room" but

not his room, he rents. and i think it was originally a storage closet, as it is barely big enough to fit his couch. the descriptions lean heavy on it being coffin like with the slanted ceiling and cramped space. i would compare it more to those 'bed' rooms in China, where you get a bed worth of living space and that's it, than the tiny apartments in NYC, the ones that have a bed and toilet in the same room.

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p_romer OP t1_itw7ohe wrote

The sort of rooms I thought about in today's world would be some of these 600-900 dollar single rooms in cities like London or New York.

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VivelaVendetta t1_itvz00f wrote

I was reading a book yesterday where one of the characters was paying for her her apartment with a part time receptionist job.

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p_romer OP t1_itw33iq wrote

That is comedy material - which book is that!?

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VivelaVendetta t1_itw3bh5 wrote

Nothing I would recommend. I have some free time so I've been reading mindless drivel to pass the time.

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Fuzzykittenboots t1_itvzm94 wrote

I haven’t read those but when reading a historical novel it’s always worth to keep in mind that places change. What is today a fashionable neighbourhood can very well have been an absolute dump no one would set a foot in voluntarily just a few centuries ago.

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transmogrified t1_itwll9r wrote

Even just a few decades ago. The neighbourhood I lived in in New York was my partner's rent controlled lower east side apartment that he'd be living in since the early 90's. He said when he moved in, there were regularly addicts nodding out in the stairwell, the elevator never worked, and the neighbourhood was not somewhere he would allow me to walk alone. It's two blocks from the projects. Apparently lots of casual, violent crime.

When I moved in in the mid 2010's the block was a brunch destination and the apartment across the street was full of bougie yuppies and college kids.

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Proud-Entertainment4 t1_itwi02v wrote

Some older children's books were confusing that way. The family in Little Women thinks they are poor, but they have a part time servant. Now I understand that in those days she was the equivalent of a few appliances, like a dishwasher and blender. Also, they lived in a small house with a cute yard, while the poor people I knew lived in roach infested apartments. TBF the author shows real poverty, too, in the large family of destitute immigrants the little women get to be charitable to, while nobly enduring their lack of a carriage. I find the differences interesting.

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hypolimnas t1_itybepl wrote

I think it's a class thing. The class difference in old books seemed to be more about background and education, and less about money. So you would have middle class people who didn't have enough money to be middle class and thought of themselves as poor.

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kevnmartin t1_itwsk1r wrote

Live in servant. Hannah lived with them.

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Proud-Entertainment4 t1_itwv1l0 wrote

Oh, right. Long time since I read it.

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saga_of_a_star_world t1_itxtslo wrote

When the girls exclaim about their Christmas dinner--coffee! popovers!--Hannah remarks how she remembers when they had coffee every day.

And then there's Meg, getting a job watching children, while Jo sells her stories to help the family out.

It's there--just as there is a difference between the position of the Hummels and the Marches, there's a distance between the Marches and Laurie.

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Jack-Campin t1_itw1n80 wrote

Alcohol prices too. You wouldn't be chugging down Victorian quantities of beer and gin at modern British bar prices without a hedge-fund manager's salary.

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p_romer OP t1_itw2vfh wrote

Yeah, that is true! I haven't thought about that.

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kevnmartin t1_itvz4os wrote

I often wonder about the blind man in the movie version of Frankenstein. He lives in a snug cabin, with plenty of firewood. He has bread and cheese and soup to eat. He has tobacco to smoke and wine to drink. He seems pretty comfortable to me. Someone had to be bringing him those things yet he claims to be completely alone.

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p_romer OP t1_itw5hud wrote

Today that would be categorised as glamping or minimal living in some trendy lifestyle magazine.

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jefrye t1_itxc7hp wrote

....no, their lifestyle would be seen as one of poverty. They live a life of manual labor in a tiny house with no internet, television, or phone service. The blind father basically is able to do nothing but sit around the house all day.

People love to romanticize the past. In reality, most people living in a developed country in modern times (even those who are low-income) live with luxuries that are far beyond what could have even been imagined by the wealthiest people a few centuries ago.

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iridiumsphere t1_itx2bng wrote

My own thoughts.... I have no sources to cite.

I think an important thing to remember about Raskolnikov is that this book is written about the fallen aristrocracy. These people are not descendants of serfs. They are descendants of the nobility. Their poverty isn't as shocking as the fact that THEY are poor. Part of the context of the book is that it's written after a lot of turmoil which gave former serfs more rights, and reduced the hereditary power of the aristocracy. Not incidentally, that actually increased the power of the centralized autocracy....
Remember what a big deal is made out of the poor, suffering, well educated characters? They are meant for better things, and it was felt that the readers (well educated, literate, people) would empathize more with poor people who were 'like them.'

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vineviper t1_ityxtof wrote

Yes they are the poor of the upper class. Just like governesses who are seen as fallen bc they have to work to support themselves. When you read about the conditions of the working poor it become a different story. People who are only able to rent a bed during the day and work nightshifts. Families of 5-10 living in single rooms without running water etc.

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[deleted] t1_itwl7e2 wrote

[deleted]

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p_romer OP t1_itwn418 wrote

>In Jane Austen's Persuasion

The economist Thomas Piketty actually used her literature as inspiration for some of his theories about inequality to conclude we see similar patterns take shape today as in the 1800-hundreds.

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Neverending-Backlog t1_itz2mvl wrote

The Simpsons come to mind, when it first came out Homer was supposed to be an average working class schmuck supporting his family like virtually everyone else back then. But if you look at it critically now, Homer is able to support his stay-at-home wife, three kids, two pets, have two cars and a large house on a single income, Homer is living the american pipe dream. As far as I understand the american conditions, this isn't possible anymore.

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quantcompandthings t1_itwicv2 wrote

in Louisa may Alcott's Little Women, the March family rations food and wears hand me downs and is suppose to be very poor, but they also live right next to the rich Laurences and could afford to hire a servant. it's like property and domestic labor had so little value in those days that the Marches never thought of downsizing to a smaller place in a less posh neighborhood :P

In Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, Jenny Wren lived in her own house (along with the non-parenting parent) one room of which she was also renting out to Lizzie. So I guess she was making bank stitching up dolls because at the same time you had Engels writing about the london working poor living eight to a one room hovel or some such thing and that is with a working male.

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thisizmypornburner t1_itxcc9o wrote

You forget that you’re reading about two different classes of people.

They are poor for being kind of aristocracy in the United States.

The homeless and the tenant farmers and the slaves and all of that would be the ones living the kind of poverty that you’re thinking of.

In today’s age the homeless in the attic’s and the people who will sleep on the streets or a different class of person, Then say a poor person who works as a waitress and has one child but somehow barely ekes out in existence in a studio apartment

It’s two classes of people also poverty mean something different for each of them

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quantcompandthings t1_itxf27c wrote

"They are poor for being kind of aristocracy in the United States."

Meg and Jo were working as governess and companion at the ripe ages of 15 and 16. That's not what aristocrats do, even the poor ones.

Poor US aristocracy is Lily Bart in House of Mirth.

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thisizmypornburner t1_itxft3y wrote

Lol yes they do, poor aristocracy ends up caring for children all the time

Literally fucking Diana Spencer who became princess of Wales was nannying

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SinisterCuttleFish t1_itynbfi wrote

Diana Spencer was not poor, she came from a very wealthy aristocratic background.

She worked part time in a friend's childcare, she was not a full time nanny.

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thisizmypornburner t1_ityo012 wrote

Lol 😆

She rode the subway, she lived ‘poor’ for aristocracy

Ergo your comment was stupid. As I said there’s two sets of classes within each class. The ‘poor’ for that class and the ‘rich’

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bofh000 t1_itwjjz8 wrote

I don’t remember exactly how Radkolnikov’s place was described - I seem to remember dark and cold, but maybe it’s because of what his mental state is. I also seem to remember that he doesn’t own the place, but rents it.

In any case: he IS poor by the standards of his social class - which would translate to the middling sort, or maybe even gentry. He as well as his mother and sister are actually impoverished, not simply poor. I think given enough time, they’d all end up in one of the slums where the truly poor people live in the book.

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meepmurp- t1_itvxtpb wrote

haha yeah... although those poor characters must be living around people in much better conditions?

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Indifferent_Jackdaw t1_ityvmws wrote

I tried to read PD James but in the 2nd book I think she is a struggling Private Detective trying to keep her partners old business going but she employs 2 people and is able to buy a small flat in central London for 7,000 pounds.

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Weebstuffs t1_itzrcdo wrote

Read The Road To Wigan Pier and tell me that today's property market is worse for the average person in the global north lol.

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