Oppression, Punition And Alienation: The Spatial Perspectives In Dickens’s Major Novels

The middle and later periods of the twentieth century witnessed a trend of“spatialization” in the contemporary Western academia. With the subversion of thetraditional sense of space as a static and natural setting or a “container”, it gains itsnew meaning of a converging metaphor with multidimensional social and culturalinformation. Literary space is not only the reflection of social space, but also thecrucial component of it. The spatial interpretation of literary works may throw a newlight on the society and culture represented in novels, on the significance of space intheme construction and the importance of literature in the reorganization of socialspace, thus exhibiting the social value of literature on every side.Dickens’s novels with rich contents of culture, religion, identity and power,profoundly reflect the society of England in the Victorian age and get themselvesactively involved in the reorganization of the social space in the context of theIndustrial Revolution. Dickens’s three major novels of different periods (DavidCopperfield, Little Dorrit and Great Expectations) are selected as the texts foranalysis. Based on the spatial theory by Henri Lefebvre and Foucault’s theory ofpower and space, this study probes into the space of personal growth, the space ofpower and the space of spirit, with the efforts to disclose the dynamic role of space,the restrictive effect of it on man and the cultural implications of Dickens’s novels,aiming at a new perspective to reinterpret the literary classics.The dissertation is composed of the introduction, the three chapters and theconclusion:The introduction covers the summary of Dickens and his spatial writing,justifying the significance of the latter to Dickens’s novels; and the researchachievements of both foreign and Chinese scholars from the perspective of space. Theintroduction lays its special stress on the theoretical basis of this dissertation:Lefebvre’s spatial theory, according to which, space is a process during which socialrelations are reorganized and social order is reconstructed. It highlights the socialproductivity of space and argues that the productivity of space is the result of production, meanwhile, it has productivity in itself as well. Lefebvre’s spatial theoryis the general framework of this study, while Foucault’s ideas of power and space arethe important theoretical support for the analysis and interpretation of some specialspaces in the novels. They together form the theoretical basis of this dissertation.With Foucault’s ideas of power and space as the theoretical basis and DavidCopperfield as the study text, Chapter One provides a profound analysis about theoppressive space of personal growth, focusing on the three spaces of the protagonist’schildhood—family, school and factory, which embody the money-orientedrelationship. Space is the premise for any public life as well as the premise for theoperation of power. It is the change of the nature of space that makes the family ofwarmth and affection full of tension, indifference, anxiety and oppression, turns theschool into an extension of the family oppression and power relations, and forces theprotagonist into the space of factory which imposes an indelible trauma on his mind.The abnormality displayed in the three spaces cannot attribute to any single individual;instead, it illustrates the indifference to the rights of children in the society at that time.The space of personal growth can be viewed as the epitome of the social space, whichmirrors the relationship between the individuals and the society, while the spatialoppression is concretized in the alienation and indifference among people. In DavidCopperfield, space as the acting agent, is not the sheer place of events, but actuallyinflicts oppression and discipline on the protagonist physically and spiritually. For thisreason, David Copperfield still enjoys the prominent value in realistic meaningregarding the study on children’s growth.Chapter Two is the exploration into the punitive space of power. Based onFoucault’s theory of power and space, two prison spaces in Little Dorrit—the physicalprison and the symbolic one, are analyzed. With the real conditions of British prisonsin the nineteenth century as reference, it is unfolded that the prison space, as the agentof power, casts the discipline on the mind and heart, effectuating the punishments onman. Space is the key for the realization of power. The special space of prisonprovides the greatest possibility for the productivity of space. In the specific space ofprison, the imprisoned individuals are spiritually isolated from the external real social environment and their relationships with people around them are altered completely.Consequently, their personality and fate fall into the utmost changes. The secludedprison space becomes the only medium of their perception of the outer world or thesole shelter for their guilty conscience and escapism. With the aid of combination ofpower and space, the prison, as the actor, extricating itself from its ordinary status asthe passive place of events, reveals the active involvement in the process of disciplineand punishment.Chapter Three is the discussion of the alienated space of spirit in GreatExpectations, concentrating on the spirit-diverging space of faith and thevanity-seeking space of culture with the purpose to elucidate the social reasons for theprotagonist’s spiritual predicaments in the materialistic environment and toforeground the moral lessons of the novel. The individual pursuit cannot break awayfrom the trend in the social space; the development of natural science triggered thereexamination of the old spiritual belief by the Victorian people; the economicprosperity released the unprecedented power of money and capital, making them thedominant force of the entire social life. Meanwhile, materialism intruded anddisintegrated the traditional faith space. Material success, as a result, turned out to bethe life goal of most Victorians; the individual pursuit of material, in turn, hastens thedeep segmentation and reorganization of the social and cultural space, during whichspace exerts the shaping power on the state of both individuals’ lives and spirit.The present research, in the framework of Lefebvre’s theory of space, explores indepth the different spaces in Dickens’s three novels and clarifies the multiple roles ofspace in literary works—story development, characterization and theme sublimation.The major conclusions of this study include:(1) in the process of children’s growth, space is not a passive scene for differentevents, but an active agent who embodies the money-oriented relationship and thesociety’s indifference to children;(2) when power aims at reshaping the people who do not satisfy the socialregulations, prison is the ideal executor who can realize the intention of powerperfectly, and at the same time, the consciousness of prison also forces those with sense of guilt turn their residence into prisons;(3) in the tradition-challenged society, space is not a vehicle of time and events,but a shaper who shapes not only the physical life but also the spiritual one.The current study is aimed at providing an insightful research perspective forDickens’s works, with hopes to serve as a valuable path toward the contemporaryreinterpretation of the literary classics.