Dickens’s Bleak house and The Old curiosity shop: a reading through things

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2015

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Eratalay, Etkin Bilen

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This thesis analyzes Dickens' Bleak House and The Old Curiosity Shop from the perspective of thing theory as expounded by Bill Brown to explore how objects and other material entities are represented, and what kinds of meanings and values they take upon themselves within the narratives. In addition to making use of insights of thing theory, this thesis also makes references to the concepts of the carnivalesque, the grotesque and the uncanny since they are integral parts of Dickens' portrayal of the material worlds in both of his novels. This thesis concludes that Dickens depicts the material world as saturated with values and ideas, and that he regularly challenges the idea of a firm boundary between the characters and objects by depicting characters as objects and objects as people.

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English literature

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http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12619414/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/25071

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Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

E. B. Eratalay, “Dickens’s Bleak house and The Old curiosity shop: a reading through things,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2015.