Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

One of the major conflicts of the novel is whether English magic is respectable or inherently opposed to respectability. The concern about respectability is rooted in the English class system of the 1800s. In the novel and in the historic period that inspires Clarke’s work, people are categorized into an upper class, a middle class, or a lower class.

The upper class comprises the aristocracy and the landed gentry. Most of the ministers in government are members of the aristocracy. Figures like Liverpool, Portishead, and Pole are lords who hold all the economic and political power in England. The landed gentry comprises owners of country estates who derive their income from that land in the form of rent or control over agricultural commodities. When Drawlight describes Strange to Norrell as “Jonathan Strange of Shropshire. Two thousand pounds a year” (241), he is marking Strange by the location and the income of his estate. Strange is thus a peer of Norrell’s, one of the reasons why Strange is willing to see him in London. Most of the characters in the novel belong to the upper class, which accounts for the outsized impact their use of magic and power has on England.