A New Historicist Reading of Dickens’ Great Expectations: Dickens’ Pip Studied Through Victorian Ideals

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Member of the academic faculty of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Persian Language and Literature, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran

10.22059/jor.2023.351153.2360

Abstract

Victorian society was paradoxical as far as the idea of childhood is concerned, because although it perceived childhood as an essential period in a person’s life, most of its juveniles were not given the chance to experience growth and a safe transition into adulthood. Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (1861) provides great insight into Victorian society. Dickens is actually the voice of the voiceless people, especially orphans. Dickens’ child characters are either orphaned or of unknown parentage. His novels are full of neglected, exploited, or abused children. Dickens paints an extremely vivid picture of childhood. The reader is able to enter the mind of the child hero and see the world through his eyes. This might have been partly influenced by Dickens’ own horrible childhood experience. Dickens in a way rewrites his own painful, unforgettable memories of childhood in the novel. In fact, by choosing a child as the protagonist of the novel, Dickens could make a contrast between the real ideals of his character and those of the Victorian society as he shatters those ideals. Thus, the aim of this paper is to examine the ideals of children in the Victorian age and to compare them with the reality by adopting the new historicist approach. Since new historicism is based on the premise that a literary text should be considered a product of the time, place, and circumstances of its composition, the historical and social conditions of this era will be analyzed.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

Beyad, Marmyam Soltan and Sajjad Gheytasi, Goftemansazi va Monazeate Goftemani dar Delband e Tony Morrison (Discourse Making and Discourse Argument in Tony Morrison’s The Beloved). Tehran University Publication: Tehran, Iran. Research in Contemporary World Literature (Pazhuhesh-e Zabanha-ye Khareji), vol. 24, no. 1 (Spring and Summer 2020): 251-268.
Boone, Troy. Youth of Darkest England: Working-Class Children at the Heart of Victorian Empire. New York, Routledge, 2005.
Cain, L. "Dickens, Family, Authorship: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Kinship and Creativity", Burlington, Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008.
Chesterton, G. K. Criticism and Appreciation of the Works of Charles Dickens. Yorkshire, House of Strauss, 2001.
Coveney, Peter. The Image of Childhood; The Individual and Society: A Study of the Theme in English Literature. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967.
Davis, Paul. Critical Companion to Charles Dickens, New York, Facts on File, 2007.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London, Penguin Books, 2002.
Dutta, Anindita. "Children in Dickens's Novels".  International Journal on Studies in English    Language and Literature (IJSELL) Volume 2, Issue 2, February 2014, pp. 1-4 ISSN 2347-3126 (Online) www.arcjournals.org. Accessed 2 Feb 2020.
Flegel, Monica, Conceptualizing Cruelty to Children in Nineteenth-Century England. Literature, Representation, and the NSPCC, Ashgate, Farnham, 2009.
Foyouzi, Sobhan.  “André Gide and Goftemanhaye Ghodrat; Negahi Now be Farayande Afsoonzodayee az Commonizm dar Ketab Bazgasht az Shoravi (André Gide and Power Discourses; A New Look at the Disenchantment of Communism from the Book ‘The Return from the Soviet Union’”). Research in Contemporary World Literature (Pazhuhesh-e Zabanha-ye Khareji), Tehran University Publication: Tehran, Iran. vol. 27, no.1 (Spring and Summer 2021): 644-673.
Gavin, Adrienne E. The Child in British Literature: Literary Constructions of Childhood, Medieval to Contemporary. London, Palgrave, 2012.
Grace, R "Charles Dickens's Great Expectations: The Failed Redeemers and Fate of the Orphan” Liberty University, College of General Studies, Master of Arts in English, 2013.
Greenblatt. Stephen. Towards a Poetics of Culture. London, Southern Review, 1987.
Hardy, Barbara. Dickens and Creativity. London. Continuum, 2008.
Harper, George Mc Lean. "The Intimations Ode" from William Wordsworth: His Life, Works, and Influence. Vol. II, London: John Murray, 1916.
Hunt, Peter. An Introduction to Children's Literature. London, Oxford University Press, 1994.
Kincaid, J.R. Child-Loving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture. London and New York, Routledge, 1992.
Locke, Richard. The Use of Childhood in Ten Novels. New York, Columbia University Press, 2011.
Mackenzie, N. & Mackenzie, J. Dickens: A Life, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1979. 
Mc. Culloch, Fiona. Children's Literature in Context. London, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011.
Mohammadi, Alimohammad, “Roykardi Adabi be Hamkoneshiye Goftemani Ensan: Karbordhaye Pazhooheshi and Amooeshi (A Literary Approach to the Interaction of Human Discourse: Educational and Research Functions)”, Research in Contemporary World Literature (Pazhuhesh-e Zabanha-ye Khareji), vol. 24, no.1 (Spring and Summer 2020): 123-147.
Morrisson, Peter. Study and Revise for GCSE Great Expectations. London, Hodder    Education, 2010. 
Nakajima, T. “Pip the hero and Pip the Sinner: A Study of Self–reproach in Great Expectations”, Doshisha University, Kyoto, 1993.
Orwell, George. Fifty Orwell Essays.  London, Project Gutenberg, Styled by Limpid Soft. 1945.
Pakarova. Katerina. "The Theme of Childhood in Oliver Twist", Masarky University, Bachelor   Thesis, 2014.
Palmer, William J. Dickens and New Historicism. New York, St. Martin's Press, 1998
Phares, Jane. “Natural, Civilized, Citizen: Dickens' Characters and Rousseau's Philosophy” (PhD dissertation) The Graduate School Florida State University, 2009.
Slater, M. Charles Dickens. Yale University Press, London, 2009.
Stephanie, F.  "An introduction to Charles Dickens's Great Expectations". London, The Open University Publication, 2004.
Temple, Jennifer Mc. Clinton.  Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature. New York, Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data, 2011.
Veeser, A. The New Historicism, New York, Routledge, 1989.
Victorian Web: Literature, history and Culture in the Victorian age, Http://www.victorianweb.org/misc/ge.html
Watson, Ethan. "Desire in the Bildungsroman: Construction and Pursuit of an Ideal Self Through the Ideal Other", https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses, Union College. 2018.
Werenbery, C. " Pip's Quest for Gentility in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations". Sammara University Press, Sammara, 1995.
Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads. London, Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Zeips, Jack. When Dream Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition. (2nd   Edition). London, Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2007.
Research in Contemporary World Literature
Volume 29, Issue 2
November 2024
Pages 551-579

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics