Sanditon Itself
What is Sanditon? To the reader it may be just a town; a village. Merely a place. To Mr. Parker, Sanditon is a metaphorical wonderland. Sanditon is:
“a wife and four children…his mine, his lottery, his speculation and hobby-horse; his occupation, his hope and his futurity.”
The Butter Battle Controversy
One of the pleasures (or at least interests) of reading classic literature from another time is the opportunity to observe the ways in which things which the modern reader considers hardly worth writing about can become worthy of a dip in the metaphorical toolbox. For instance, this particular admonition in favor of something apparently controversial at the time. Spreading butter on toast:
“So far from dry Toast being wholesome, I think it a very bad thing for the Stomach…It irritates and acts like a nutmeg grater.”
More Than a Town
Indeed, throughout the novel, Sanditon is situated throughout the novel—and by more than just Mr. Parker—as something more than setting. As setting, it is seen through the eyes of those who have come to view it through a metaphorical lens that betrays its literal quality:
“Here is old Sanditon proving a point I have often made to my brother. Here the sea is not only invisible—even its sound and smell are shut off in all but the worst of weathers.”
Brinshore
Sanditon is not the only town worthy of metaphorical mention in Sanditon. Brinshore, alas, cannot quite seem to hold its own with the village that inspires such poetic devotion among its most poetic devotees. Indeed, it is said of Brinshore’s soil that:
“it is so cold and ungrateful that it can hardly be made to yield a cabbage.”
The Devil Comes to Sanditon
The times…they are a-changing over the course of the novel. Those who hold Sanditon’s particular charms in high regard fear what progress shall do it. And the devil of the future turns out to be something surprising: the gaslight. This infernal invention gets almost the last word as the book closes upon its metaphorical description:
“a vulgar outrage.”
