ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the four novels of Gail Carriger's young adult (YA) Finishing School series aim to reverse this oversight by consciously rewriting gendered, class-based, and racial hierarchies of the Victorian period for a contemporary young adult audience. The sooties are well aware of their own social position "down south" in the social hierarchy, or as Soap later puts it, "We sooties aren't exactly upmarket chappy chaps". While Carriger represents the British population as increasingly multicultural and revises the level of social power available to both women and citizens of color like Pilpo, she also acknowledges the realities of Victorian power structures. Despite his citizenship, Soap is limited socially and financially by his status as a lower-class man of color, a fact that Sophronia does not fully recognize in her position as an Uptop. It is with shock that Sophronia realizes that the ship's sooties are not "fed as well as students".
