Abstract:

In 1845, the year before Dickens begins Dombey and Son, the fugitive slave Frederick Douglass arrived in Ireland and Britain where he became a speaking and publishing sensation. Designed to advance the cause of abolition, Douglass's page-turning Narrative employs a range of rhetorical modes from irony to pathos and uses sentimental and sensational scenes to expose slavery's horrors. This article considers the influence of Douglass's autobiography on Dombey and Son, arguing that Dickens invokes it in the plotting and characterization of his novel. Read through the lens of Douglass's text, the troubling gender and family dynamics of Dickens's novel come into different focus. By considering how Dickens reimagines Douglass's Narrative to tell a woman's story, this article offers a radical reassessment of Dombey and Son that includes Dickens's conception of Edith and her fate.

摘要：

狄更斯（Dickens）出任Dombey and Son的前一年（1845年），逃亡的奴隶Frederick Douglass到达爱尔兰和英国，在那儿他引起了演讲和出版轰动。道格拉斯翻页的叙事小说旨在推动废除死刑的原因，采用了从讽刺到悲惨的一系列修辞模式，并使用感性和耸人听闻的场景来揭露奴隶制的恐怖。本文考虑了道格拉斯自传对唐贝和儿子的影响，认为狄更斯在其小说的情节和人物描写中引用了自传。通过阅读道格拉斯（Douglass）文本的镜头，狄更斯小说中令人不安的性别和家庭动态变成了另一个焦点。通过考虑狄更斯如何重塑道格拉斯的叙事为了讲述一个女人的故事，本文对唐贝和儿子进行了彻底的重新评估，其中包括狄更斯对伊迪丝的构想及其命运。