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The double in Dickens' final completed novels /

This thesis is an examination of the double motif used by Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and Our Mutual Friend. There is a subtle shift that takes place in these last completed works, from a double motif which is used to prescribe individual behaviour along the lines of domestic or Christian ideology, to one which examines the social and psychological consequences of the individual's submission to such ideological imperatives. In fine, Dickens begins to distance himself from the stock, physical double he had inherited, turning instead to a double that finds its causes and ramifications firmly located in both the social and psychological spheres. This increasing complexity of the double motif is indicative of Dickens' gradually more sophisticated, less stereotypical view of the relationship between the individual and society than that suggested by his famous caricatures or his previous works.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.27950
Date January 1997
CreatorsLawrie-Munro, Brian.
ContributorsO'Toole, T. (advisor)
PublisherMcGill University
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatapplication/pdf
CoverageMaster of Arts (Department of English.)
RightsAll items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
Relationalephsysno: 001619088, proquestno: MQ37215, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest.

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