"Caviar" critique

Class structure plays a large role in T.C. Boyle’s short story “Caviar.” Social class is mentioned in the first sentence when Nathaniel addresses the reader, “I ought to tell you right off I didn’t go to college. I was on the wrong rung of the socioeconomic ladder.” Beginning a short story with such a disclaimer immediately helps the reader to form an opinion of the narrator, whose behavior quickly illustrates his lower class temperaments. For example, he indulges his wife’s superstitious tendencies when they cannot get pregnant, not hesitating to have sex with her when one night he finds her “perched naked on the edge of the footstool, wound round three times with a string of garlic.”

            Thus, it is unsurprising when his lustful appetite begins to crave for Wendy. Yet it is in this pairing that the concept of social class becomes warped. Wendy, the surrogate mother whom Nathaniel and his wife Marie hire, is a first year medical student who needs money to pay for her education. As a college student, she is already poised higher in the socioeconomic sphere since Nathaniel and Marie have no degrees. However, she is dependent on them for their money, even living with them for the first few months of her pregnancy. This arrangement begins to blur the lines of their social classes, a distortion that only heightens when Wendy happily agrees to sleep with Nathaniel. Here, her behavior begins to mirror that of Nathaniel’s low class tendencies.

            The class tension comes to a head at the end of the story when Nathaniel discovers that Wendy has been sleeping with Dr. Ziss the whole time. Nathaniel demands to know why he cannot have a relationship with her, and when she responds, “Because we move in different circles,” Nathaniel corrects her by shouting, “You mean because I’m not some fancy-ass doctor, because I didn’t go to college.” Her agreement spurs Nathaniel to beat Dr. Ziss, which leads to his arrest and loss of his wife and child. However, Wendy’s loose behavior contradicts her words—despite her education and higher socioeconomic standing, she proves to have no more class than Nathaniel. Thus, the story argues that higher class standing does not go hand-in-hand with refinement.