GROWING UP BRAHMIN: The Cultural and Social Experiences of Boston Brahmins Through the Perspectives of the Fictional George Apley and his Mortal Descendants

GROWING UP BRAHMIN: The Cultural and Social Experiences of Boston Brahmins Through the Perspectives of the Fictional George Apley and his Mortal Descendants

This final project uses John Marquand’s novel The Late George Apley as a source of characterization of Brahmin life around the turn of the 20th century. I also explore the presentation of the modern Boston elite class in contemporary media, and determine the membership and interests of this group. In this analysis, I present not a continuous history of the Brahmins, but instead drop in during George Apley’s era and then again at the turn of the 21st century and the decade immediately following. Apley’s attitude and world is defined by insularity, exclusivity, and a unique sense of devotion to maintaining the city of Boston as its oldest families intended it. Intergenerational cooperation and understanding, a serious commitment to philanthropy, and the power of social and cultural capital in the institutions and circles of the elite characterize today’s modern class. While Marquand’s work seems to claim that the Brahmin is in decline in the 1930s and is conscious of its weakening status, Boston demographics and popular media in the most recent decades suggest that the elite class, while bearing a younger and more progressive face than that of Marquand’s world, is still firmly entrenched and even regaining influence in Boston society.

Chelsea Mullen