A Recipe for Ideology: The Political Unconscious in The Cottage Cook 

Prolific Romantic era authoress Hannah More––novelist, poet, vocal evangelist and… cookbook author? In More’s philanthropist escapades she wrote The Cottage Cook: Mrs. Jones Cheap Dishes; the Way to do Much Good with Little Money––a Revolutionary Controversy chap-book attempting to covertly contribute to the Pamphlet War. There is no scholarship written about the pamphlet––this essay is the first to discuss the chap-book since its publication. My research applies Fredric Jameson’s The Political Unconscious to Hannah More’s The Cottage Cook to unveil the pamphlet's socio-political agenda by recontextualizing the piece within its historical period. 

The unassuming cookbook––written, marketed, and sold with the intention of appealing to “the poor”––contains very few genuine tips and recipes to aid lower classes. Applying Jameson’s literary theory unveils More’s political unconscious: the covert assertion of her own socio-political beliefs.

The short pamphlet is filled with many notable moments, from supporting the repressive state apparatus of “Informing” to suggesting the lower class buy the cow when the milk is too expensive. I break down the most pivotal moments within the text, cross-referencing them with external global politics and trading commerce, such as the French Revolution and grain shortages, the stigmas within the food and beverage marketplace, and period specific social attitudes. One example of nationalism and traditionalism is her section on tea and ale. Her suggestion to drink more locally brewed ale instead of imported tea not only defies temperance, but reeks of Said’s Orientalism, doing little for the poor buyer, but lots for the nation's beverage market. Aiding in the fine details, Althusser’s Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses explains More’s defense of repressive state apparatuses as well as idealization of interpellation. The fear sparked by the French Revolution, foreign trade, and dismantlement of systemic “truths” are just three external influences which inspire the messaging and direction of the narrative. Most importantly, I explain the importance of these undertones within the genre of self-help––how More’s protonarrative strategy places the blame for unhappiness on the individual to lessen resentments towards the upper class.

Furthermore, I employ a New Historicist lens to analyze the importance of the publisher, associations, and distributors of The Cottage Cook. The publishing world, associations, and external distribution aid in the advertisement and circulation of the political messaging the text intends to convey––the elites stay rich, and laborers poor––preserving traditionalism, nationalism, and class division.

In conclusion, I identify the political class bias within More’s pamphlet through identifying the political unconscious, ideology, and bias, while strengthening the text’s class consciousness by close-reading the narrative and contextualizing the book history of pamphlets and their circulation. There are more to these unconventional texts than meets the eye. 

“American Progress”––John Gasts’ painting depicting the 19th century expansionists' ideas of hope and exceptionalism in the dream of Manifest Destiny; but to those who look beyond the focal point, subjugated and displaced Indigenous peoples and Buffalo run off the canvas. This scene of displacement, inequality, and oppression feels all too familiar as it has and continues to recur, appearing in literature from the earliest days of colonization to the present––cycles of oppression are foundations of American culture and literature. The American mythological hero is destined to experience the same fall they fought to inflict. Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita contain opposed characters who symbolically represent traditional and progressive America––old vs new America. In their extremes, the authors reveal their oppositional characters are more alike than different; in A Streetcar Named Desire, Stanley embodies the logic of Realism where Blanche contains the melodrama of Romanticism, but during the climax, for their self-preservation, their roles reverse with Stanley becoming melodramatic and Blanche realistic. Similarly, in Lolita, mother Charlotte Haze embodies traditional American femininity of domesticity, whereas her daughter, Dolores Haze––Humbert’s Lolita––is progressive American femininity motivated by consumerism. Charlotte's childhood and Dolores’s adulthood reflect each other’s experiences: both were nymphets destined to outgrow the perverse male gaze and succumb to similar deaths of irrelevance. 

Utilizing the theory of Richard Slotkin’s Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860, explains the history of the American myth and cultural theory of regeneration through violence: the idea that the “myth hero” overtakes the villain. In A Streetcar Named Desire and Lolita, the progressive American ‘heroes,’ Stanley and Dolores, violently overtake and replace the traditional American ‘villains,’ Blanche and Charlotte. While Stanley and Dolores seem to overtake Blanche and Charlotte, the heroes do not become better versions of their predecessors; instead, they inherit the inevitable irrelevance. The narrative conclusions of A Streetcar Named Desire and Lolita illustrate a uniquely American divergence from Joseph Campbell’s original theory of “The Hero's Journey” ––The American Hero’s Journey lacks the stage of atonement. My essay combines the work of Slotkin and Cambell to propose a uniquely American theory of a myth hero and their journey utilizing historical, cultural, and literary trends throughout America’s existence. Without atonement, violence does not resolve the underlying ideological polarization, leading to not regeneration, but stagnated oppression through violence. 

Jane Austen has been dazzling readers for over two centuries, but are her novels still as relevant and influential as your English Professors lead you to believe? This essay explores post-Romantic period social, political, and ideological shifts––including the influence of the Internet and adaptations – within Pride and Prejudice and Emma; taking on both the negative and affirmative in the generations-long debate: Jane Austen’s novels are still relevant and speak to us after 200 years. 

Exploring the internet’s reading corners of Goodreads and Booktok, it becomes clear some modern readers find Romantic era contractual marriage to be “shallow” and foreign in comparison to twenty first century Western ideas of marriage for companionship. On the side of the negative, historical contextualization reveals the strides made in women’s liberation, making the economic marriage plot an unfathomable product of the past––especially for male readers, who are quick to dislike sentiments of marriage for money, further emphasizing the shift in perspective about social climbing. However, plenty of readers are still attracted to the romance and male love interests of Austen’s world. 

On the side of the affirmative, new historicization of Austen’s male love interests reveals their character as a product of an unmarried woman’s mind. Austen’s “perfect man” is a result of a woman whose life was untainted by the disappointments of marriage and 18th century patriarchy. Where women were forced to progress, men stayed romantically stagnant, unable to keep up with progress––for men gender related social progress is optional, whereas for women it is necessity. Therefore, due to the lack of male modernization with regards to romance Austen’s reshaping of masculinity within heterosexual romance is still a desired fantasy. Women online express their admiration for characters like Mr. Darcy and Mr. Knightley through “edits”, putting visuals to audio in a similar way Romantic era women would scrapbook. In fact, the internet, film, and globalization have led to Austen translations and adaptations from all over the world, allowing these timeless narratives to be shared across language and culture.

Is Jane Austen’s presence in pop culture and romantic desirability enough to solidify her relevance or are her marriage plots just too foreign to the modern reader? With the help of digital literary analysis, modernity has spoken. 

“I’ve created life!” The phrase, synonymous with the creation of Frankenstein's monster, is a perfect encapsulation of ignorant male hubris fueled by patriarchy despite, ironically, never having been uttered by Victor Frankenstein. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a creation story, but it is not limited to the creation you may expect as the novel goes beyond the dangers of playing God, it displays the incestuous reproduction of male violence under patriarchy through insecurity and dominance. Insecurity instilled by patriarchy is intergenerational, passed down from generation-to-generation, the entitlement to godhood. Whether superiority is found as a God, boss, or head of household, the desire to dominate reinforces social hierarchy, and social hierarchy reinforces the desire to dominate. Patriarchy births two types of men: to focalize them through the words of Mary Shalley’s insecure patriarch Victor Frankenstein, there are those of “honour and reputation” (31) and “wretches” (67), successes and failures, those who dominate the world and those who are dominated by the world. 

Shelley’s novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus explores the circular, inescapable, and harmful effects of patriarchy thrust upon men through the seemingly opposite, yet chillingly parallel lives of Victor and the monster, both suffering due to patriarchal expectations. Victor’s patriarchal harm is the result of his unequivocal embracement of his superiority, caused by expectation, ego, and legacy; the monster’s patriarchal suffering is the result of his embracement of gentility and emotion, which are eventually squashed by expectations, judgment, and neglect. Although the causes of Victor and the monster’s hardship seem antithetical, the circular expectations and social reinforcement of the patriarchal status-quo interconnect ego with judgment and legacy with neglect. This marriage of contradictions is present within Frankenstein in Victor and the monster’s complicated relationship as creator and constructed, father and son, and dominator and submitter; however, despite their antithetical positions and narratives, they constantly endure, reflect, and reinforce each other’s suffering because they patriarchy harms all. 

bell hooks’ The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, Gayle Rubin’s Deviations, and Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva’s Ecofeminism theories aid in the understanding of patriarchy’s suppression of male emotion and restriction of male relationships while bolstering the degradation of relationships and encouragement of ego-driven infringement, penetration, and domination upon nature. Although the patriarchy may seem to affect Victor and the monster in antithetical ways, Frankenstein ends with both desolate, alone, and socially outcast––left with only their anger and rivalry.