ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on the figure of the ape, which is common to all three concerns, and which is central to the idea of race. The 1880s saw a ‘deep-rooted’ and ‘comprehensive’ social crisis. According to Gareth Stedman Jones, this consisted of four main elements: a severe cyclical depression; the decline of some of the older central industries; a severe shortage of working-class housing in the inner industrial perimeter; and the emergence of socialism and collectivism. The association of wealth with savagery is made often in late nineteenth-century texts. On the face of it this may appear surprising, but it should become less so when it is viewed in the context of Darwinian doubts about the precise markers of humanity. The problem of ascertaining this dividing line is compounded by the narrative uncertainty as to whether the Ape Man and his fellow Beast People are improved animals or degenerate humans.
