On Imperialism In Charles Dickens’ Dombey And Son

Dombey and Son is a Victorian realistic novel by Charles Dickens, one of the great masters of English literature. The novel depicts the rise and fall of the Firm of Dombey and Son, which is located in London and deals with the wholesale, retail and for exportation. The novel focuses on Dombey’s expectation for his son and performs bitter-sweet scenes. Dombey is a greedy businessman, whose wife and kids all become his tools for profit. Eventually, after Dombey loses his wealth and power, he gets a real happy family. By carrying out a post-colonial study with the framework of Edward W. Said’s Culture and Imperialism and Orientalism, this thesis will do a comprehensive and in-depth study on imperialism in the novel Dombey and Son.This thesis is divided into three parts. Chapter One discusses imperialism through Dickens’ businessmen. Empire enters the 19 th century text in the images of commodities, wealth and business. This chapter selects three businessmen of different social ranks to discuss the visible and invisible imperialism in the text. Chapter Two focuses on the wayward “relatives” of the empire to investigate the collusive relation between culture and empire. They reveal the imperial culture and play a significant role in rationalizing the myth of empire. Chapter Three analyzes the frightening “outsiders” to reveal the ignored history and the resistance. This chapter tries to analyze the obscure “outsiders” in the remote colonies and the courageous “outsiders” in Britain by ways of contrapuntal reading.In conclusion, this thesis holds that Dickens’ Dombey and Son shows the penetration and influence of imperialism. It is a visualized text to illustrate the writer’s imperial discourses.This thesis has some academic value in promoting the textualization of post-colonial criticisms and enriching researches on Victorian literature.