where they attempt to sustain themselves. However,
the local authorities confiscate their land because,
by an unfortunate mishap, they have neglected to
pay property taxes. They resist the foreign concepts
of a highly organized class system. The local com-
munity subjugates them and eventually pushes them
off the land they once inhabited. In the end, we see
their way of life vanishing as a newer system takes
its place.
Partly as a result of these expanded and multi-
tudinous considerations of societal inequality, some
theorists question the efficacy of assessing social
class as the primary source of stratification. The
postmodernist movement encourages us to see
aspects of culture as fragmented and uneasy to cat-
egorize or discern. Accordingly, some contemporary
sociologists argue that social class is an “outmoded
concept” and that we must consider the increasingly
“fragmented” quality of social stratification (Devine
1). For these scholars, traditional class stratifica-
tion concepts are changing and possibly no longer
applicable to a postindustrialist society where the
majority of people are preoccupied with lifestyle and
amenity concerns. However, these theorists are cur-
rently on the margins of contemporary sociological
study. They focus on a demographic that does not
represent the myriad nations and communities char-
acterized by highly varied stratification.
Social class remains a prevalent reality for those
living within its characteristic open system. Class
greatly affects the way individuals, families, and
communities prioritize particular ways of living.
And where one falls within this stratified hierarchy
is closely and irrevocably related to one’s intimate
and outward identity.
See also Achebe, Chinua: anthiLLs oF the
savannah; Amis, Kingsley: Lucky JiM; Austen,
Jane: eMMa; Bellow, Saul: adventures oF auGie
March, the; Cao Xueqin: dreaM oF the red
chaMber; Cather, Willa: My Ántonia; Dick-
ens, Charles: Great expectations; taLe oF
two cities, a; Dreiser, Theodore: sister car-
rie; Fitzgerald, F. Scott: Great Gatsby, the;
Hardy, Thomas: tess oF the d’urberviLLes;
James, Henry: daisy MiLLer; Lewis, Sinclair:
Main street; Naylor, Gloria: woMen oF brew-
ster pLace, the; Proust, Marcel: reMeMbrance
oF thinGs past; Shakespeare, William: henry v;
Merchant oF venice, the; MidsuMMer niGht’s
dreaM, a; Shaw, George Bernard: pyGMa-
Lion; Smith, Betty: tree Grows in brook-
Lyn, a; Swift, Jonathan: Modest proposaL, a;
Updike, John: rabbit run; Wharton, Edith:
aGe oF innocence, the; Woolf, Virginia: Mrs
daLLoway.
FURTHER READING
Abbot, Pamela, and Roger Sapsford. Women and Social
Class. London: Tavistock Publications, 1987.
Devine, Fiona. Social Class in America and Britain.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997.
Schaefer, Richard T. Sociology. New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1983.
Shocket, Eric. Vanishing Moments: Class and American
Literature. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan,
2006.
Warner, W. Lloyd. Social Class in America: A Manual of
Procedure for the Measurement of Social Status. New
York: Harper & Row, 1960.
Liam Conway Nessonspirituality
The term spirituality has been used in a great variety
of ways, both religious and secular. When associated
with religion, the term is practically inextricable
from “God” and the myriad concepts connected
with a belief in a higher power that guides, directs,
and rewards human beings for leading a life in
accordance with religious principles. From a secular
perspective, the term is aligned with the workings
of the mind, the senses, and the perceived material
and, in some cases, immaterial world. For instance,
the American transcendentalists used spirituality as
a special mark of those superior intellects able to
perceive a reality beyond the material world, a world
of the “spirit” which is not necessarily dependent on
the physical senses to interpret. Evangelical Chris-
tianity reserves the term to describe tender religious
emotions, while, in contrast, the French have appro-
priated it as the name for the finer perceptions of
life, which implies a firm link with the material
evidence of reality around us. Various derivatives of
the term include spiritual, spiritualism, spiritualist,
spiritism, and the spirit, all words implying slightlyspirituality 103