When Like Begets Like [microform] : Dickens and Heredity

Résumé du livre

"The very last section of the thesis focuses on the Darwinian revolution. There I argue that Dickens's attitude towards the importance of hereditary endowment changed after the publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species in 1859. I suggest that Darwin's book prompted Dickens to rethink his earlier deterministic approach to the problem of human identity. After 1859, Dickens jettisons heredity entirely as a factor in the formation of the self and replaces it with environment and experience. The last novels displace the Dickensian metaphors of hidden kinship and universal connection--both of which are related to heredity--and put in their place, the thematics of dispersal and disintegration." --