A Feminist Approach To The Fallen Women In Dickens' Novels

This study will examine the way in which the nineteenth-century novelist- Charles Dickens- deployed the figures of the fallen women in his three novels to comment on social and economic aspects of the Victorian society. Then, we could have a better understanding of Charles Dickens as a male writer in educating the public about the Victorian value through his pen.Dickens is sympathetic towards the fallen women in his earlier works, but with his experience in the fallen women's refugee house getting richer, he starts to attribute women's falleness to the inherited flaws in their characters, like vanity, laziness and greediness. And he believes that fallen women's way-out is emigration to and marriage in a distant land.This paper intends to have a closer look at the fallen women image through Dickens' works to better understand the author by utilizing feminist point of view and textual analysis. I would like to argue that Dickens' way-out for fallen women does not work. The roots of the tragic fates of the fallen women lie in the inequality of law which deprived women the right to property, the dependent status of women caused by patriarchal social value, and women's extremely difficult economic position.Dickens' prescription for the fallen women's redemption is to send them to a distant colony and make them get married, however, I would like to argue that women could well land on their feet by being single and independent in asserting one's own wishes.