Abject capitalism as the sight of dead bodies in nineteenth-century novels

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

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Abstract

By extending Imogen Tyler’s and Jack Halberstam’s theories of the abject, the image of the dead body in nineteenth-century literature reveals the structural inequalities that shape the nineteenth-century economy through biopolitical processes, as well as demonstrating the ways in which the nineteenth-century novel, as a literary form, attempts to obscure or contain the everyday crisis of poverty. In the novels of Maria Edgeworth, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Charles Dickens, the presence of the dead body decisively disrupts the socio-economic narrative of normality and containment, resulting in a crisis of representation for the Gothic economy.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationThe Routledge Companion to Literature and Class
EditorsGloria McMillan
PublisherTaylor and Francis
Pages293-305
Number of pages13
ISBN (Electronic)9781000413915
ISBN (Print)9780367442118
StatePublished - Jan 1 2022
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Charles Dickens
  • Elizabeth Gaskell
  • Maria Edgeworth
  • Medical Humanities
  • Capitalism
  • Abjection
  • Death Studies

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