During the 18th century, the British literary landscape saw the rise of a peculiar and highly popular subgenre of the novel known as the "it-narrative" or the "object narrative." These were fictional autobiographies told from the first-person perspective of inanimate objects or animals. Among the most popular iterations of this genre were stories narrated by circulating coins, articles of clothing, and everyday items.
These narratives offered a unique, panoramic view of 18th-century society, serving as vehicles for satire, social commentary, and philosophical exploration.
Here is a detailed explanation of the origins, mechanics, and significance of the 18th-century "it-narrative."
1. Context: Why the 18th Century?
The emergence of the it-narrative was deeply tied to the cultural, economic, and philosophical shifts of the 1700s: * The Consumer Revolution: The 18th century witnessed a massive boom in manufacturing, global trade, and consumerism. For the first time, a wide variety of goods became accessible to the middle class. Society became increasingly obsessed with things. * The Rise of Global Capitalism: The circulation of money, the establishment of the Bank of England, and the introduction of paper credit transformed how wealth was understood. Wealth was no longer just land; it was mobile. * Philosophical Empiricism: Philosophers like John Locke argued that human identity and knowledge were forged through sensory experience and interaction with the material world. It-narratives played with this idea, granting consciousness and sensory perception to matter itself. * The Picaresque Tradition: Literary predecessors like Don Quixote or Moll Flanders featured rogue heroes traveling through various social strata. The it-narrative adopted this episodic, traveling structure, replacing the human rogue with an object.
2. The Mechanics of the Object Narrator
The brilliance of the inanimate narrator lies in its extreme mobility. A human narrator is restricted by their class, gender, geography, and social decorum. A coin or a coat, however, has no such boundaries.
- The "Fly-on-the-Wall" Perspective: Objects are invisible observers. Humans do not hide their true natures from a pocket watch or a coin. Therefore, the object is privy to secret conversations, private hypocrisy, greed, and vanity.
- Social Crossing: A single object can travel from the pocket of a King, to a wealthy merchant, to a highwayman, to a prostitute, and finally to a starving beggar—all in a single day. This allowed authors to paint a sprawling, cross-sectional portrait of British society.
3. The Coin Narratives: Money Talks
The most famous and prolific type of it-narrative was the coin narrative. Because money is designed specifically to circulate, it was the perfect literary device to expose the driving force of human behavior: greed.
- Chrysal; or, The Adventures of a Guinea (1760) by Charles Johnstone: This is the most famous example of the genre. "Chrysal" is the spirit of gold residing within a guinea coin. As the coin changes hands, Chrysal exposes the deep corruption, political scandals, and moral bankruptcy of the era. The coin travels globally, from the gold mines of Peru to the political backrooms of London, highlighting the brutal imperial machinery required to produce wealth.
- The Golden Spy (1709) by Charles Gildon: An early example where coins of different nations tell the stories of the political and romantic intrigues they have witnessed.
In these stories, money is portrayed neutrally—it is neither inherently good nor evil. Instead, it acts as a moral litmus test for the humans who possess it.
4. Other Inanimate Objects
While coins were the ultimate circulators, other objects were used to satirize different aspects of society: * The Adventures of a Black Coat (1760): A coat moves through various owners, highlighting the 18th-century obsession with fashion, outward appearance, and the desperate attempts of the middle class to "keep up appearances." * The Adventures of a Bank-Note (1770) by Thomas Bridges: Reflected the anxiety and novelty of paper money. Unlike a gold coin, a piece of paper has no intrinsic value; its value is entirely based on public trust and credit. * Other objects: Novels were written from the perspective of hackney coaches, pincushions, pocket-watches, and even a corkscrew.
5. Themes and Social Commentary
- Commodity Fetishism: Long before Karl Marx coined the term, it-narratives explored how humans project life, desire, and power onto inanimate objects, while simultaneously treating other human beings (like servants, slaves, or the poor) as disposable things.
- The Abolitionist Movement: Later in the century, the genre was used for political activism. For example, stories told from the perspective of a pin or a sugar bowl were used to remind consumers of the horrific slave labor required to produce everyday luxury goods.
- Satire of Human Vanity: By elevating an object to the role of the narrator, authors subtly degraded human beings. The object usually proves to be more rational, observant, and moral than the humans who claim to "own" it.
6. Decline and Legacy
By the early 19th century, the adult it-narrative began to decline in popularity, largely replaced by the psychological depth of the Victorian realist novel. However, the genre did not die; it migrated.
The perspective of the non-human was absorbed into children's literature, evolving into famous animal autobiographies like Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty (1877), or stories of toys coming to life, such as Hans Christian Andersen’s The Steadfast Tin Soldier.
Today, the 18th-century it-narrative is studied as a fascinating reflection of a society waking up to the realities of global capitalism, mass consumerism, and the uncanny power that objects hold over human lives.