ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the representation of domestic accidents in popular Victorian fiction. Taking Mrs Henry Wood’s Mrs Halliburton’s Troubles (1862) as a case study, I discuss how accidents at home signpost changing reactions to risk and risk-management as much as to the work of managing a household. Women’s writing is more likely to depict the home as the site of domestic labour, as a place of worry even, rather than as a stable space that stands apart from or in opposition to work. Wood goes further in turning housework into a sensational topic, capitalising on a growing tendency in Victorian print to expose the hazards of everyday life, while importing new ideas of risk into household management. A critical reconsideration of accidents in the Victorian home allows us to trace how the representation of household hazards impacted on shifting concepts of chance, coincidence, and risk, as well as on attempts to make sense of them in and through narratives.

摘要

本文调查了维多利亚时代流行小说中家庭事故的表现。解决亨利伍德夫人的哈里伯顿夫人的麻烦(1862) 作为案例研究，我讨论了家庭事故如何改变对风险和风险管理以及管理家庭工作的反应。女性的写作更可能将家庭描绘成家务劳动的场所，甚至是令人担忧的地方，而不是与工作相分离或与工作相对立的稳定空间。伍德进一步将家务劳动变成了一个耸人听闻的话题，利用维多利亚时代印刷品暴露日常生活危险的日益增长的趋势，同时将新的风险观念引入家庭管理。对维多利亚时代家庭事故的批判性重新考虑使我们能够追踪家庭危害的表现如何影响机会、巧合和风险概念的转变，以及在叙述中和通过叙述来理解它们的尝试。