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영어

In nineteenth-century America, home was woman’s sphere, and woman’s job was to operate efficient domestic economy in a perfectly organized setting of family. Most importantly, an efficient operation of the home serving all family members was essential not only for an individual family, but also for the nation itself. Efficient domestic economy is conceptualized as a cornerstone for building a virtuous nation in theory. In practice, however, the differences in class and/or race were disregarded in this concept of an efficient domestic economy, but only with overcharged conflicts and discontents. It is notable that the dominant conception of woman’s efficient management of home in effect largely depended on the indispensable help of servants. This paper examines how Sedgwick deals with the so-called “servant question,” a highly debated issue in her day of America in Live and Let Live, as is pointed out in its subtitle, “domestic service illustrated.” This paper focuses on the story of Lucy Lee who becomes a mistress of her own home after going through the process of being educated to provide efficient domestic service. Lucy’s success story is possible due to the process of proper education given by eligible mistresses who consider training servants into well-performing ones as one of their most crucial duties. However, this success story of Lucy does not necessarily propose a solution to the servant question, rather discloses a problematic situation. Considering the fact that this group of servants was composed of poor people and African-American people as well as immigrants, mostly Irish, the factors of class and race are variables to be seriously noted in considering the servant question. Arguably, then, Live and Let Live reaffirms that the conception of efficient domestic economy as healthy foundation of a nation was not so much practicable reality as idealized theory.