The Aristocracy of Objects: Shops, Heirlooms and Circulation Narratives in Waugh, Fitzgerald and Lovecraft

B. de Bruyn*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This paper explores the tension between social elites and consumer culture in the 1930s by analyzing the representation of shops, objects and (non)capitalist modes of circulation in stories by Evelyn Waugh, F. Scott Fitzgerald and H.P. Lovecraft. Although these authors wrote different forms of literature about distinct types of aristocrats, they highlight a similar struggle between consumer goods and various non-commercial objects, like non-portable heirlooms, alluring commodities and alien alloys.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)85-104
Number of pages20
JournalNeohelicon
Volume42
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2015

Keywords

  • 'HANDFUL-OF-DUST'
  • Aristocracy in literature
  • Consumer culture
  • Fitzgerald
  • Lovecraft
  • Modernism
  • Object studies
  • THINGS
  • Waugh

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