There exists a continental divide in literature – British authors are much less likely to take “revolutionary” stances. For example, both Charlotte Brontë and Oscar Wilde were more than willing to criticize the Victorian ruling class in their works, but never rebelled against the underlying class structure in the same way as their contemporaries on the continent.

Something important to note – the idea of class has changed since the early 1900’s and before, when these works were written. While class is usually defined solely in terms of material wealth (i.e. How much money) in the modern era, especially in the US, it was traditionally defined based on rank and status, the condition of one’s birth. The concepts of “upper” and “lower” class, as they exist now, had not yet developed.

Two of Oscar Wilde’s most notable works, The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest, focus on satirizing the Victorian elite. However, neither work gives much importance to working class characters, such as Sibyl Vane, who was barely mentioned in the original version of Dorian Gray. Interactions between different social classes is limited too, except for the toxic relationships formed between Dorian Gray and those around him that always ends in tragedy – Sibyl Vane commits suicide, Basil Hallward is murdered, as is James Vane, and Adrian Singleton is left addicted to opium. Without any positive interactions between the classes, the novel implies that interclass relationships are harmful, and should be avoided whenever possible. In other words, the complete separation of the classes. While likely not intentional, Wilde’s work reinforces the idea of a strict class structure being necessary, and so he rarely goes beyond making the aristocracy laugh at itself where class critique is due.

               If Wilde is clear in his lack of interest in class analysis, Charlotte Brontë hides it much better. Jane Eyre is primarily a feminist work, and so it is surprisingly mild when it comes to class critique. The novel does give greater focus to characters of a seemingly lower caste, as Jane is materially poor ,and is willing to paint the aristocracy as cruel and arrogant and allows for positive interclass interaction. Yet Brontë is all too willing to use Christian morality to excuse the cruelty of the nobility, which should not be too surprising – the British empire was reliant on cruelty, and Brontë never criticizes its existence despite having ample opportunity to with St. John’s missionary trip or Bertha Mason’s life. Similarly, Jane repeatedly denies herself joy due to the feeling she has not earned it for her supposed lack of noble roots. The novel’s end flips this, as a rich Jane is brought up due to her family connections, as all nobles are, and is only then allowed her happy ending, marrying her fellow noble Mr. Rochester. Brontë seems more interested in congratulating the working peasantry for their resilience than daring to change England to better their lives.

               In contrast to Great Britain, France and Eastern Europe were far more willing to call for changes to the class system. Marcel Proust, author of A la recherche du temps perdu (In the Search of Lost Time), writes about the shifting  class structure as characters like Charles Swann interact with both the narrator’s family, which must work to maintain its wealth, and Parisian aristocrats. In either case he is fully comfortable with both social groups, and the narrator’s family’s insistence on class separation is repeatedly painted as increasingly dated as the world around them begins to morph. Balzac, another French author, similar wrote on the endings of the oldest aristocracy and the beginnings of the bourgeoisie – though it should be remembered that Balzac was famously a snob who imitated these novles. Poland too saw progressives in the form of Kazimier Pułaski, a fighter in the Bar Confederation that attempted to rid Poland of tzarist meddling, and Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish military engineer who fought for both the Polish serfs and American revolutionaries. Kościuszko even criticized the system of slavery in the US, was well liked at West Point for treating all men there with respect, even the freed slaves that had been oppressed by past generals. Both Poland and France had dramatic experiences with class and oppression before, with the French Revolution in France and continuous Russian and Prussian interference and the partial end of serfdom (which was announced by Kościuszko), and so writers from these countries were obviously more willing to attack class systems than Britain. But even tzarist Russia had writers like Chekhov who described the fall of Russian class boundaries in ways that British authors would not.

Britain was especially willing to allow the continued suffering of the down and trodden, and even defend the system that allowed it. Perhaps this was because of Britain’s large colonial empire that relied on system cruelty, or because of Britain’s role as the home of the Industrial Revolution, which relied on the workers as a cheap and replaceable source of labor. Or perhaps the British simply don’t care about the poor. Whatever the reason, its reverberance is felt in their literature.