Fashion (Masterplots II: Drama, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Anna Cora Ogden
- First Published: 1850
- Type of Plot: Farce; satire
- Time of Work: The early 1840’s
- Setting: New York City
- Principal Characters: Adam Trueman, Count Jolimaitre, Colonel Howard, Anthony Tiffany, Snobson, Elizabeth Tiffany, Prudence, Millinette, Gertrude, Seraphina Tiffany, T. Tennyson Twinkle, Augustus Fogg
- Genres: Satire, Drama, Farce
- Subjects: New York, Love or romance, Marriage, Manners or customs, Social life, Fashion, Gossip, Pretensions
- Locales: New York, NY
The Play
Act 1 introduces the Tiffany household and demonstrates Elizabeth Tiffany’s slavish adherence to fashion. Humor lies in her use of French terms that she cannot pronounce and her attempts to transform her slave Zeke into Adolph, a continental butler. In conversation, Prudence, Elizabeth’s sister, reveals their humble origins, but Elizabeth sees herself as “fashionable.” She is a patron of T. Tennyson Twinkle, who maintains that a poet’s “velocity of composition” is the best measure of excellence. Another “fashionable” visitor is Augustus Fogg, a...
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