ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the way in which social power relations in late nineteenth century urban America were in part produced and maintained through the currency of an underlying structure of assumptions worked out textually through the narrative manipulation of story-telling conventions and figurative language. It presents ways in which textual strategies of structure and language connect a set of assumptions about 'nature' with expectations about social order and city life. The chapter considers how the Atlantic Monthly's reliance on apparently natural narrative conventions and patterns of figurative language functions in constructing a particular view of appropriate urban social order as moral and reasonable. In the Atlantic of the years 1880-84, the smooth functioning of modern city life is understood to depend upon a general recognition of clear boundaries of social differentiation and frequent use of cross-class channels of social connection and interaction.
