Many Nineteenth century writers experienced the withdrawal of God discussed by Miller in The Disappearance of God. Robert Browning and Charles Dickens present two examples of "Fra Lippo Lippi" and Great Expectations model effective alternatives to accepting God's absence. Conversely "Andrea del Sarto" accepts the void the other two heroes shun.

The themes of uncertainty, muddle and imprisonment, which are inextricably linked, permeate Charles Dickens’s novels. In his ‘early’ first five novels, The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge, society is depicted as emerging from the Classical episteme of the eighteenth century into a period of uncertainty that is dominated by values inspired by mercantilism. Social and bureaucratic institutional practices have been outpaced by commercial developments and are shown to be lacking; they are outdated and irrelevant in meeting the needs of a society that is in the process of rejecting its feudal history. Yet, during these uncertain times, these archaic instruments of social control continue to exert a power over the individual in the absence of something more relevant to a commercialised nineteenth-century society. The legislature, the judiciary and the executive all continue to exercise their misguided power over those under their control, capturing these in webs and labyrinths of uncertainty, with the result that Mr Pickwick, Oliver, Nicholas, Little Nell and Barnaby all fall victim to these vagaries, and experience prison in one form or another. The second, or ‘middle’ group of novels, comprising Martin Chuzzlewit, Dombey and Son, David Copperfield, Bleak House and Hard Times, reveal something different. Although institutions are still depicted as deeply flawed, Dickens shifts his focus from the inadequacies of social institutions to the flawed individuals who inhabit this defective society; individuals who are required to rid themselves of their flaws in order to achieve authenticity and, thus, enable a regeneration within society to take place. The ‘final’ novels, Little Dorrit, The Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend, seem to suggest that the ambit of commercialisation, with its skewed values, is so all-encompassing that no character is able to escape its clutches. The result is a society and its citizens who are inescapably imprisoned in their respective physical, emotional and moral prisons. This thesis examines the development and consequences of institutional uncertainty on the individual and on society. It is argued that Dickens follows a Foucauldian trajectory, initially visiting the uncertainties of the times on the bodies of his characters during the early nineteenth century, attempting to create ‘docile bodies’ of his characters through discipline and punishment of the soul in the middle of the century and, finally, in the second half of the century, revealing an entire society caught up in the morass of uncertainty from which there appears to be no escape. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil.(English)

Cheung Fung-Ling. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-112). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.v / Chapter Chapter One --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter Two --- Passionate Impulses in Childhood and Adolescence --- p.26 / Chapter Chapter Three --- Moral Dilemmas in Love --- p.52 / Chapter Chapter Four --- The Ultimate Return --- p.75 / Chapter Chapter Five --- Conclusion --- p.99 / Notes --- p.104 / Bibliography --- p.106

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This dissertation asserts a strong connection between democratic culture and the novel form in the period 1832--1867. As England debated constitutional reform and the extension of the franchise, novelists Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot endeavoured to define human communities on democratic terms. Drawing on work of contemporary political philosopher John Rawls to develop a methodology that considers constitutions and novelistic representations as analogous contexts for reasoning about shared political values and citizenship, this study provides readings of Bleak House, North and South, and Felix Holt that emphasize each novel's contribution to the period's ongoing deliberations about pluralism, justice, and the meaning of membership in democratic life. When read alongside Bentham's work on legislative reform, Bleak House offers a parallel model of social interaction that weighs the values of diversity of thought, security from coercion, and the nature of harmful actions. Felix Holt and North and South are novelistic contributions to defining and contesting the attributes of the new liberal citizen. Through their central characters, as well as in their respective novelistic practices, Eliot and Gaskell highlight the difficulty of uniting autonomous individuals with collective social groups, and this was as much a problem for literary practice in the period as it was for constitutional reform.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The object of this study was the novelette A Christmas Carol, by the English writer Charles Dickens (1812-1870+), specially concerning about its presentation on Dickens Public Readings, spectacles in which, on stage, the author would read pieces of his books. The objective was to observe the transformation process of the novelette to the Public Reading performances. Dickens adapted the text for stage through manuscript notes on a printed edition of the original text. This volume, named by Philip Collins as prompt-copy and by us, in Portuguese, as Roteiro de Leitura (Reading Script), was used as a guide for rehearsals and performances. We had access to the prompt-copy by means of the manuscript facsimile, edited by Philip Collins in the book A Christmas Carol: the Public Reading Version (1971). Firstly published in 1843, the novelette A Christmas Carol was already on the repertoire of the author s first Public Reading, presented, in 1853, with the intention of collecting funds for charity. Five years later, Dickens began to perform professionally, in a career that lasted twelve years. His repertoire counted with sixteen items, being A Christmas Carol one of the most enjoyed by the author and by the public. Such repertoire was carefully adapted for the stage. Dickens not only read the contents, but interpreted each character, seeking to create a variety of voices, gestures and emotions. Altogether, he presented about 470 times, in England, in Ireland, in Scotland, in Paris and in the United States. A Christmas Carol, the longest item in the repertoire, was read in no less than 127 performances, being part of the author s last Reading, in 1870. First, we made a historic contextualization of Dickens Public Readings, seeking to understand which aspects of that context were favorable to their good reception and that made them possible. Then, understanding Paul Zumthor s concept of performance, we analyzed A Christmas Carol s Public Readings, observing them with respect to the textual and performance aspects. In this way, we tried both to perceive the adaptation process of the text, through the analyses of the manuscript, and to form an idea about the scenic aspects of the Public Readings, by registers of spectators who witnessed them. / O objeto deste estudo foi a novela A Christmas Carol, do escritor inglês Charles Dickens (1812-1870+), em especial o que se refere à sua apresentação nas Leituras Públicas de Dickens, espetáculos em que, no palco, o autor lia trechos de seus livros. O objetivo foi observar o processo de transformação da novela para as performances de Leituras Públicas. Dickens realizou a adaptação do texto para o palco por meio de anotações manuscritas feitas em uma edição impressa do texto original. Esse volume, o qual nomeamos de Roteiro de Leitura, era usado como guia para os ensaios e para as performances. Tivemos acesso ao Roteiro por meio do fac-símile do manuscrito, editado por Philip Collins no livro A Christmas Carol: the Public Reading Version (1971). Inicialmente publicada em 1843, a novela A Christmas Carol já constava no repertório da primeira Leitura Pública do autor, realizada, em 1853, com o intuito de arrecadar fundos para caridade. Cinco anos mais tarde, Dickens passou a se apresentar profissionalmente, numa carreira que durou doze anos. Seu repertório contou com dezesseis itens, sendo A Christmas Carol um dos preferidos do autor e do público. Tal repertório era cuidadosamente adaptado para o palco. Dickens não apenas lia o conteúdo, mas interpretava cada personagem, buscando criar uma variedade de vozes, gestos e emoções. Ao todo, ele se apresentou por volta de 470 vezes, na Inglaterra, na Irlanda, na Escócia, em Paris e nos Estados Unidos. Item mais longo do repertório, A Christmas Carol foi lida em não menos que 127 performances, fazendo parte da última Leitura do autor, em 1870. Inicialmente, fizemos uma contextualização histórica das Leituras Públicas de Dickens, procurando entender quais aspectos daquele contexto favoreceram-lhes a boa acolhida e tornaram-lhes possível a realização. Num segundo momento, entendendo o conceito de performance de Paul Zumthor, analisamos as Leituras Públicas de A Christmas Carol, observando-as com respeito a dois aspectos: o textual e o performático. Desse modo, procuramos tanto perceber o processo de adaptação do texto, pela análise do manuscrito, quanto formar uma ideia dos aspectos cênicos das Leituras Públicas, por meio de registros de espectadores que as testemunharam. / Mestre em Teoria Literária

The character of the detective in Victorian literature and entertainment seems to be a paradox: tasked with surveillance but enacting it via disguise and other performative and even theatrical hallmarks. Scholars have often read the detective as an extension of the panoptic state, as a policing figure whose investigative work is undertaken through surveillance. How, then, are we to explain why Victorian detectives are so performative, which seems hardly compatible with surveillance? In this dissertation, I look beyond surveillance as the detective’s main function, towards the process of detection overall—which I demonstrate is completed through the detective’s use of performance and involves the manipulation of spectacle and evaluation of audience expectations. In redefining detection as a performative practice, I look at four different cases in which Victorian fictional detectives rely on a specific performance practice, style, or tradition to complete their detective work. The first two chapters establish the embeddedness of performance within the practice of detection, focusing on feats of non-theatrical performance by detectives who rely on and cultivate spectacle around them. In Chapter One, I analyze Dickens’s detectives, Mr. Nadgett of Martin Chuzzlewit and Inspector Bucket of Bleak House: conjuror figures who rely on controlled concealment, illusionistic demonstrations, and enthralling revelations to crime-solve, in a way that will win the favor of the Victorian public. In Chapter Two, I detail how Sherlock Holmes borrows the spectacular conventions of Victorian scientific performance to legitimize his own “Science of Deduction” as a discipline. The third and fourth chapters examine cases in which the feats of performance undertaken by detectives demonstrate the ways that detection is essential to the practice of performance—and that performance itself is not only a logical act, but also an interactively educational one. In Chapter Three, I analyze the practices of “lady detective” characters who have had prior careers as professional actresses and use the acting skills they cultivated on the stage to un-spectacularize themselves, achieving a level of invisibility that allows them mobility, access, and information. In Chapter Four, I look at two stage detective characters who are themselves performing roles: Hawkshaw in Tom Taylor’s The Ticket-of-Leave Man and Gripper in W.S. Gilbert’s A Sensation Novel. I analyze how these plays showcase the detective’s acting to refocus the ways that the actor is doing detection—that is, the ways in which, through performance, the theater is able to disseminate news and critique institutions of power, like the police itself.

The plot twist is a complex narrative surprise in which a revelation retroactively transforms readers’ understanding of the preceding events. Readers discover belatedly that the situation depicted in the narrative had all along been quite different from what they thought. Although the term “plot twist” was first used in the early twentieth century, many of the best-known works of fiction of the nineteenth century were revealed, in retrospect, to be twist narratives. This dissertation studies twist narratives and their readers in the period before the plot twist became a known device. Through case studies of Jane Austen’s Emma, Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace” and Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the chapters investigate what kinds of knowledge-making practices readers engage in during first-time readings and rereadings of twist narratives, as well as before and after reading. Across these chapters I make the case that twist narratives demonstrate the crucial and interconnected roles of knowledge and temporality in any narrative experience. What we know, and when, and especially what we don’t (yet) know, is crucial to how narratives work and why we enjoy them.