Part 1 Consuming the past - the backward glance of "Washington Square": commodity and style; money, history and writing. Part 2 Consuming the present - the private spectacles of "The Bostonians": publicity and emptiness; language, setting and self; the peculiarity of social life - reform and gender; the personal, the private and the public. Part 3 Romancing the past - "The Europeans" and the design of desire: sincerity and performance; the self's representation.
