The Fl(?)neurs And London: Understanding The Modernity In Dickens’ Works

This dissertation takes the distinguished British writer Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop,Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend as the research objects.Based on the concept of the fl(?)neur from Walter Benjamin,focusing on the fl(?)neurs in London city during the nineteenth century,this dissertation analyzes the relationship between the fl(?)neur and London to explore Dickens’ understanding of modernity.Dickens has created marvelous distinct characters of the fl(?)neurs in his novels including the dandy,the stroller,the worker,the gambler,the prostitute and the rag-picker.In Benjamin’s view,the fl(?)neur is not only the product of city life,the witness of the great changes in cities,but also the witness of the urban modernization in the nineteenth century marked by rationalization and commercialization.This dissertation aims to dig out the reason why Dickens takes modern society as ruins by analyzing the fate of the fl(?)neurs including their generating,developing and disappearing in London and analyzing the various fl(?)neurs’ experience in modern life of London.Although the three novels of Dickens have attracted much attention by the Chinese scholars,most of the previous researches just concern themselves chiefly with the analysis of the single work.This dissertation attempts to take the fl(?)neurs in the London city as the entry point to intensively and deeply discuss the modernity contained in Dickens’ three representative novels in the early,middle and late periods.This dissertation intends to discuss it from the following aspects:Chapter one gives the introduction of Dickens and his three representative works.This chapter analyzes the research status of Dickens’ works at home and abroad.And it then discusses Dickens’ reflection on modernity.Chapter two analyzes the various fl(?)neurs in Dickens’ works.This chapter analyzes the distinctive characteristics of different images of the fl(?)neurs such as “dandy”,“stroller”,“worker”,“gambler”,“prostitute” and “rag-picker”.And it also analyzes the task that the fl(?)neurs take to illuminate modernity.Chapter three explores the relationship between the fl(?)neur and London in Dickens’ works.The main activity places of the fl(?)neurs in London have gone through the changing processes.There are three dominating changing processes of wandering from the living room to the arcades,from the arcades to the streets and from the streets to the department stores.And the changing process of the wandering places exactly shows the history of theemergence,development and extinction of the fl(?)neur.Chapter four focuses on the relationship between the fl(?)neurs in Dickens’ works and modernity.Modernity can be compared to a labyrinth,and the best guides of the labyrinth are exactly the fl(?)neurs who live in the labyrinth and also keep estranged from it.The fl(?)neurs’ distinctive observing behavior and walking posture make themselves the representation of modernity.The last chapter summarizes the whole dissertation by making a comment on the writing of Dickens’ fl(?)neurs description,and his understanding of the nineteen-century London in ruins as modernity.It then reveals the criticism and reflection of Dickens’ works on contemporary society.Finally it probes into the literary value and practical significance of Dickens’ writing on the fl(?)neurs.