Producing social mobility. Class and Travel in the Romanian Novel 1901-1932

• Main Author: Ovio Olaru
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca 2020-12-01
• Series: Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory
• Subjects: romanian novel; nineteenth century fiction; distant reading; quantitative analysis; class; travel
• Online Access: https://www.metacriticjournal.com/article/170/producing-social-mobility-class-and-travel-in-the-romanian-novel-1901-1932

The present article addresses the Romanian novelistic production between 1901 and 1932 in the attempt of identifying a series of patterns regarding the protagonists’ social mobility. Starting with the most mentioned destinations throughout the novels, I analyse how and why the different social classes travel and try to determine the landmarks between which they dispute their physical presence, on the one hand, and their aspirations, on the other. On this basis, the second part of the article conducts a quantitative analysis of the major means of transport in the period – the train, the tramway, the coach/carriage, the automobile, the aeroplane, the ship, and the waggon – and attempts to pinpoint what they convey about the social mobility of the characters that use them.