An emblematic figure of the 'bourgeois century,' the parvenu represents the Other on which a society depends. This drama of exclusion is symptomatic of nineteenth-century society: ambivalent about social mobility, oscillating between a new sense of opportunity for all and a backward-looking retrenchment to rigid social structures.

PART I: THEORY OF THE PARVENU The Paradox of the Parvenu The Uses if Parody The Jew: the Parvenu of Parvenus Between Pariah and Parvenu PART II: SARTORIAL STORIES: AT THE FRINGES OF THE SOCIAL SPHERE On Ostentation: The Sartorial Metaphor The Parvenu's Livery Emilie de Fontaine's Sartorial Crusade PART III: THE POETICS OF IDENTITY The 'Mourning of Origins' PART IV: THE FICTION OF ACCOMPLISHMENT On Kinship The Family Parasite Ideal and Real Bride: The Newcomer's Family Fantasy The End of Exogamy PART V: TOPOGRAPHY OF CONTEST Topography and Mobility The 'Imaginary Museum' PART VI: A STRANGE BESTIARY: ALTERITY AND THE QUESTION OF HUMANITY The Question of Humanity Half-Peacock, Half Vulture: The Portrait of the Parvenu and the Financier as Animal The Metaphor Literalized: Toussenel's Bestiary The Human Question, Again