OLIVER ALL OVER AGAIN: DICKENSIAN NARRATIVES OF ORPHANHOOD IN THE VICTORIAN ...

243 Pages·2012·1.36 MB·English

by  Susan Reynolds

OLIVER ALL OVER AGAIN:
DICKENSIAN NARRATIVES OF ORPHANHOOD
IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL

by
SUSAN ELIZABETH REYNOLDS
ALBERT PIONKE, COMMITTEE CHAIR
WILLIAM ULMER
DEBORAH WEISS
EMILY WITTMAN
JOHN BEELER

A DISSERTATION

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in the Department of English
in the Graduate School of
The University of Alabama

TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA

2012
Copyright Susan Elizabeth Reynolds 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ABSTRACT

This dissertation examines the trope of orphanhood in mid-nineteenth century novels and
argues that the orphan emerges as a symbol of middle-class fears about legitimacy and survival.
Though many critics concentrate their analysis upon orphaned street children, arguing that
authors used these figures to elicit sympathy for various social and political causes, the majority
of orphans in nineteenth-century novels are members of the middle-class. In my dissertation, I
examine the origin of the orphan as a synecdoche of middle-class anxiety in Charles Dickens‘s
Oliver Twist, a novel whose title character Dickens and other authors continue to revise
throughout the early and mid-Victorian era. Analysis of Oliver and his many reincarnations
shows the evolution of an eighteenth-century orphan prototype into a character distinctly
Victorian. The orphan, taking on a specific trajectory of middle-class formation that would
culminate in the cultivation of morality and authenticity, symbolized the middle-class desire to
survive and legitimize itself in England. As the century progresses, male and female literary
orphans, who came to embody the complex gendered behavior requirements of the nineteenth-
century middle class, had to undertake different, though equally important, courses of formation
in order to ensure middle-class survival. Male and female authors continually reproduced this
character throughout the era, but by mid-century, the Dickensian orphan narrative shifted slightly
to reveal a stable middle class no longer worried about its origin or long-term survival but
instead concerned about its need to reform England as a whole, so that the country adhered to
middle-class values and becomes moral and authentic. Chapters of the dissertation explore the
ii
evolving character of the orphan, including analysis of orphaned characters in Wuthering
Heights, The Mill on the Floss, A Child’s History of England, Bleak House, No Name, and The
Small House at Allington. The latter two novels will show a distinct shift away from Dickens‘s
use of the orphan as a middle-class symbol embodying fears about survival and explore how the
orphan begins to evolve to emulate new class-based concerns about masculinity and
professionalization. Always key, however, was the orphan‘s ability to cultivate and maintain a
distinctly Victorian morality and authenticity.

iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the many teachers and professors who have encouraged me and
helped me throughout my education. I owe a tremendous amount of gratitude to Albert Pionke,
who not only guided me through my PhD studies at the University of Alabama but who also
provided the best of scholarly and professional models for me to emulate. I could never repay
him for his patience, kindness, generosity, and advice over the last several years. I am also very
indebted to William Ulmer, who served on my MA defense committee in 2004 and who has
provided wonderfully insightful and helpful commentary for all of the years that I have known
him. I also would like to thank Deborah Weiss and Emily Wittman for allowing me the privilege
of exploring ideas with them at various times and for being incredibly supportive. A special
thank you also goes to John Beeler, who not only provided advice and help during our MLIS
program experience but who also continues to offer helpful feedback and support for this
dissertation, agreeing to be my outside reader. In short, I am grateful for each person who serves
on this committee. You will never know how much I appreciate each of you.
I would also like to thank the faculty and staff of the University of Alabama English
department, along with my fellow graduate students (especially Elizabeth Wade). Each of you
has contributed to this dissertation in one way or another, and I thank you. To the staff of
Alabama Heritage magazine (especially Donna Cox Baker): thank you for your support and
understanding. It has meant everything to me, and I could not be at this point without each of
you. Heartfelt gratitude goes to Laura Hunter for teaching me, at age sixteen, to see literature in a
new way, changing my life forever. Many thanks also go to Myron Tuman, who introduced me
iv
to Victorian literature, and to Carol Adams. Endless amounts of gratitude go to Kelly Wilcox, for
the many phone calls and for allowing me to discuss my ideas nonstop. Also, thank you to
Elizabeth Lemon, who we lost too soon. I hope you know that I finished.
Last, but never least, I wish to thank my family. You have loved and supported me
throughout it all. Special thanks go to my cousins, Jessica and Jeff, who have made things much
easier than they might have been. I continue to give the greatest thanks to my mother and father,
Linda and David Reynolds, who never withheld pathways to knowledge and who allowed me an
endless supply of books and love. I know that you are sick of hearing about Charles Dickens. I
love you, and thank you.

v
CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................ ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................... iv
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................1
THE ORPHAN‘S PROGRESS BEGINS:
OLIVER TWIST AND THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP ..........................31

GYPSY INFLUENCES: THE WANDERING WOMEN OF
WUTHERING HEIGHTS AND THE MILL ON THE FLOSS ..............68

―HARDY, BRAVE, AND STRONG‖: ENGLAND AND ORPHANS
IN A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND BLEAK HOUSE .....129

MEN WITHOUT WOMEN: THE DIMINISHING INFLUENCE OF
DOMESTICITY IN NO NAME AND THE SMALL HOUSE
AT ALLINGTON ..................................................................................179

CONCLUSION ........................................................................................220
WORKS CITED ......................................................................................230
vi
INTRODUCTION
Critics through the later Victorian era and the first half of the twentieth century spent
much time debating Charles Dickens‘s ability to develop realistic characters. Many scholars and
editors vociferously argued that Dickens‘s personalities, especially in the earlier novels, were too
simple—too much like caricatures. The criticism prevailed for many years, for some scholars
believed that caricature as a literary device equated with disparaging simplicity. Earle R. Davis,
in his 1940 article ―Dickens and the Evolution of Caricature,‖ began to question this viewpoint,
and he advocated that the Victorian author had a ―distinct type of caricature,‖ one that
―emphasize[d] eccentricities and…mannerisms of speech and tags by means of which we
remember the individuals in his motley world‖ (240). Davis‘s argument rests on the idea that
Dickens advances the role of caricature to the point that it functioned to bring about a depth to
characters who might otherwise be overlooked, rather than serving to focus the reader‘s attention
solely on the comedic.
Though scholars indeed have moved on to identify the complexities of such seemingly
facile characters, particularly when it comes to Dickens‘s later stories, it is not unheard of to
witness scholars still pronounce his protagonists as caricatures—especially when applying the
word to one of Dickens‘s earliest novels. The title character in Oliver Twist, for example, is often
subjected to this simplistic label today and was in the nineteenth century as well, with critics
pointing out that Oliver is too good, too moral, and too perfect.1 Even by the end of the

1 Productive examinations of Oliver‘s perfect and/or caricatured depiction can be found in many
articles, including ―Truth and Persuasion: The Language of Realism and of Ideology in Oliver
Twist‖ by Michal Peled Ginsburg and ―Another Version of Pastoral: Oliver Twist‖ by Joseph M.
1
nineteenth century, in 1897, when Andrew Lang, the famous collector of fairy tales and folklore,
produced a new edition of Oliver Twist, he could not resist accusing Dickens of poor
characterization in this early novel. When the edition was published, Lang and a writer for the
Saturday Review launched a vicious screed against the long-dead author, saying that this early
story was, in essence, ridiculous. The two men defame the novel for its overuse of ―[c]aricature,‖
particularly when it came to the depiction of Oliver. ―Oliver‘s ‗innocence and elegant language
may be explained by heredity,‘‖ the reviewer states, quoting Lang, ―[but it is this caricature that
forms] part of the general weakness [of the novel]‖ (358).
Indeed, these criticisms are at least partially valid. Oliver is the epitome of the Christ-like
child incapable of committing a calculated error. He is good to his core, a child who, according
to an 1839 reviewer, is ―improbable…[and] a pattern of modern excellence, guileless himself,
and measuring others by his own innocence; delicate and high-minded, affectionate, noble,
brave, generous, with the manners of a son of a most distinguished gentleman, not only
uncorrupted but incorruptible‖ (Quarterly Review 96). Oliver never fails to feel remorse for any
wrongful act, always unintended, of course, and he willingly works hard at every task, eager to
prove his worth and contribute to the good of all. Few children of Oliver‘s age, then or now, can
be said to be so perfect.2

Duffy, Jr. (among others). An especially interesting article, however, is ―The Instabilities of
Inheritance in Oliver Twist‖ by Cates Baldridge. In the article, the author suggests that Oliver is
an ―incorruptible‖ because Dickens is worried that the influence of the home is not enough to
ensure his goodness. Therefore, the child must be born and emerge in the world ―fully formed.‖
Though I disagree that Dickens believes that the home cannot perform the proper character-
building tasks middle-class boys need in order to become men, I do find the author‘s
identification of ―anxiet[ies]‖ about forming productive citizens to be quite valuable (184).
2 For more information about Oliver Twist appearing as a child embodying Christ-like virtue,
and for a comparison of Oliver with John Bunyan‘s Christian (the pilgrim of The Pilgrim’s
Progress), please see Barry Qualls‘s The Secular Pilgrims of Victorian Fiction (Cambridge UP,
1982). Qualls describes Oliver as ―the perfect Romantic archetype…innocent, pure, untouched
2
The idealistic attributes that lead to Oliver‘s label as a caricature are often viewed
pejoratively, for the word usually is defined negatively as that which is deliberately ―grotesque‖
or ―ludicrous‖ (OED Online). But nothing about Oliver matches these descriptions, and it is clear
that in the child‘s status as the novel‘s hero, Dickens does not intend to emphasize any abnormal
traits in his make-up. Therefore, perhaps the reader should consider that Dickens is creating a
new kind of caricature—one that has a positive rather than a darkly comedic or sentimental
agenda. Oliver‘s function as a type of caricature in the novel should not be frowned upon, nor
should it relegate him or his story to a diminished status. In reality, Oliver is an astounding
character who reveals a startling authorial gesture of didacticism. In spite of his stereotypical
goodness, this child faces yet rises above all obstacles in the world and secures a position for
himself in society based upon his adherence to a work ethic rather than luck (as might happen in
an eighteenth century story about an orphaned or foundling child in his situation). Taken alone,
these aspects of Oliver‘s story indicate that he could be a stand-in for a particular value system—
one that Dickens would evoke over and over again throughout his canon of work and one that
would influence other writers of the Victorian age. Oliver is no mere ideal child; instead, he was
the model for a rising class to emulate and to aspire to become in the real world.
Dickens accomplishes his ideal child‘s purpose by casting the character into two very
distinct roles: an overly romanticized child and an uncertain orphan. Both of these archetypes
have been recast repeatedly, but Oliver‘s status as a perfect orphaned child most strongly
associates him with the emerging value system of the Victorian middle class. Like the members
of this stratum of society, he must struggle to survive in a class-based world unused to allowing
for upward mobility. The threat such a world creates is that one may rise, but one may also fall.

by a hostile environment…[and on] a journey towards a happy-ever-after world utterly removed
from the evil left behind‖ (23).
3