The Relationship Between The Individual And Institution In Charles Dickens’ Later Novels

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) enjoys critical popularity for his concern for social problems. To be more specific, the relationship between the individual and institution becomes the thematic focus in many of his later novels. A brief review of critical tradition reveals that Maxist critics apply different terms such as social truth, social morality, social order, social structure, social problems and systematic evil to indicate institutional problems in the novels. Their discussion, lacking an in-depth analysis of the formation and connotation of institution, provides preliminary sample studies on this topic. After the1990s, Foucauldian theories have been recognized as the dominant theoretical approach in radical Dickensian criticism in place of Maxist theories. Critics represented by D.A.Miller and Jeremy Tembling turn to theories of social discipline and panopticism to analyze institution of policing and prison mentality, hence expand the study from the pespective of Foucaudian micro-power theories. Nevertheless, their analyses miss the essence of legal and penal institutions in the novels. Generally speaking, most research findings are fragmentary analysis on a certain institution. Systematic study and overall analysis are rarely seen. The individual and institution is an important Dickensian theme to which comprehensive studies are yet to be done.The present dissertation aims at a systematic study on the relationship between the individual and institution in Dombey and Son, Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities and Our Mutual Friend. With19th century social reality as its reference, the analysis is based on previous research findings and facilitated by theories of Foucault and Althusser. The author maintains that descriptions of institutions in the fore-mentioned novels on the one hand serve as faithful records of the settings and transitions of institutions in the19th century, on the other manifest the novelist’s distrust of institutional governing strategies in adherence to a social context of de-institutionalization. To be more specific, Dickens reveals how the customary practice of mankind exerts influence upon individuals through the combined forces of power, knowledge, discourse, discipline and ideology. The study chooses to focus on relationship rather than on mechanism, its reasoning process is fact-based rather than completely theoretically grounded, so that such a grand theme as institutions can be better dealt with. Apart from its social significance and aethetic value, the study of institutions can also serve as a referential sample study in our understanding of British institutions.Further elaboration is divided into four chapters in accordance with different forms of institutions to show how characters’personalities are shaped and their lives affected. The first chapter centers on educational institutions such as classroom instructions, extracurricular normalizing disciplines and examinations. Based on binary power-relationship between teachers and students, these institutions become vehicles of social disciplines through physical control and judgment of power. Students may counteract disciplinary power by disobeying classroom orders unintentionally, or lose their individuality and self respect by bowing to the authority. They even grow into self-absorbed egoist and ruin their own lives. All these cases manifest the disciplinary power of educational institutions, at the same time exemplify the novelist’s doubt and reflection upon ragged school, charity school and teachers’training college.The second chapter discusses economic exploitation and spiritual oppression in family institutions such as marriage, inheritance and patriarchal relations. On the one hand, father and mother in family resort to knowledge or discouse to interpellate daughters into commodities. On the other, popular commercial mode intrudes into family and affect inheriting behaviors. What’s more, family ideology represented by patriarchal ideology can be used in public sphere to defend exploitative behaviors. The distortion and alienation of family relationship undermine the holy image of family, and destablize the institutional center of Victorian life.The third chapter bases its discussion on Chancery and prison. The institution of Chancery exemplifies the significant role of discourse in institutionalization. Enchanted by discourse of equity, courtroom discourse and discourse of lawyers, individuals are mentally and financially exhausted in ceaseless legal proceedings. They can never escape from being governed and institutionalized. Prison is known as total institution which erodes the subject’s established identity and reshapes the subject’s personality in the process of resocialization. It either radically alters the appearance, personality and psychological condition of inmates, or reshapes prisoners into institutionalized beings with no sense of independence or that of responsibility. All these descriptions respond faithfully to the transition of legal institutions and public opinions in19th century.The last chapter mainly concerns the operation of power in political institutions. The network of power in Circumlocution Office and the power of money and discourse in parliamentary system leave individual rights unfulfilled. The Nineteenth century political institutions, though theoretically founded upon laissez-faire spirit, ironically limit individual liberty. Under the operation of power in political institutions, individuals either fall victims to political bargaining or become slaves of bureaucratic power.