Dickens and the Daughter of the House [Paperback]

This book examines the role of 'legless angels' (George Orwell), 'angry women' and 'good daughters' in Dicken's narratives.The daughter in Dickens' fiction is considered in this study not as an emblem of tranquil domesticity and the hearth-fire, but as a bearer of cultural values--and as a potentially disruptive force. As the good daughters in his novels (Little Nell, Agnes Wickfield, Esther Summerson, Amy Dorrit) must leave the father's house and enter the wider world so they transform and rewrite the stories they are empowered to tell. The daughter's secret inheritance, her 'portion', gives Dickens a way of reading and writing his own culture differently.The daughter in Dickens' fiction is considered in this study not as an emblem of tranquil domesticity and the hearth-fire, but as a bearer of cultural values--and as a potentially disruptive force. As the good daughters in his novels (Little Nell, Agnes Wickfield, Esther Summerson, Amy Dorrit) must leave the father's house and enter the wider world so they transform and rewrite the stories they are empowered to tell. The daughter's secret inheritance, her 'portion', gives Dickens a way of reading and writing his own culture differently.The daughter in Dickens' fiction is considered in this study not as an emblem of tranquil domesticity and the hearth-fire, but as a bearer of cultural values--and as a potentially disruptive force. As the good daughters in his novels (Little Nell, Agnes Wickfield, Esther Summerson, Amy Dorrit) must leave the father's house and enter the wider world, so they transform and rewrite the stories they are empowered to tell. The daughter's secret inheritance, her portion, is to give Dickens a way of reading and writing his own culture differently.Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part I. Making Fictions: 1. The uncanny daughter: Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, and the progress of Little Nell; Part II. On Not Committing Adultery in the Novel: 2. Dombey and Son: the daughter's nothing; 3. Hls+