Chapter 1 Summary

The chapter begins as the narrator says, "I first saw the light in the city of Boston in the year 1857." The speaker asserts that there has been no mistake. He did not mean 1957, but was correct in giving the date of a hundred years ago. While noting how strange his words might be, the narrator goes on to discuss the social and class standing of Boston in the mid-19th century. He claims that the society is deeply divided into the classes consisting of the rich and educated, to which he belonged, and the poor and uneducated. The narrator freely admits that his great grandfather had made a great sum of money. Now the interest for the money continues to multiply their wealth, and he does not have to work at all. Using an analogy of a coach pulled by people, the narrator...