Charles Dickens and the Image of Women / David K. Holbrook.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Holbrook, David K., Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870--Characters--Women.

Dickens, Charles.

Women and literature--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Women and literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (210 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : New York University Press, [1993]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

How successful is Dickens in his portrayal of women? Dickens has been represented (along with William Blake and D.H. Lawrence) as one who championed the life of the emotions often associated with the "feminine." Yet some of his most important heroines are totally submissive and docile. Dickens, of course, had to accept the conventions of his time. It is obvious, argues Holbrook, that Dickens idealized the father-daughter relationship, and indeed, any such relationship that was unsexual, like that of Tom Pinch and his sister—but why? Why, for example, is the image of woman so often associated with death, as in Great Expectations? Dickens's own struggles over relationships with women have been documented, but much less has been said about the unconscious elements behind these problems. Using recent developments in psychoanalytic object-relations theory, David Holbrook offers new insight into the way in which the novels of Dickens—particularly Bleak House, Little Dorrit, and Great Expectations—both uphold emotional needs and at the same time represent the limits of his view of women and that of his time.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE. Bleak House: The Dead Baby and the Psychic Inheritance

CHAPTER TWO. Religion, Sin, and Shame

CHAPTER THREE. Little Dorrit; Little Doormat

CHAPTER FOUR. At the Heart of the Marshalsea

CHAPTER FIVE. Great Expectations: A Radical Ambiguity about What One May Expect

CHAPTER SIX. Finding One Another's Reality: Lizzie Hexam and Her Love Story in Our Mutual Friend

CHAPTER SEVEN. Dickens's Own Relationships with Women

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 177-179) and index.

This eBook is made available Open Access under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jun 2020)

ISBN:

9780814744871

0814744877

OCLC:

782877992

Access Restriction:

Open access Unrestricted online access