From Agnes Fleming to Helena Landless: Dickens, Women and (Post-) Colonialism

Abstract

In recent years, challenging new readings of English literature have been provided by the fields of women’s studies and post-colonial studies. They have introduced a concern with gender and race to the reading of literary texts.¹ It is the aim of this essay to cast a dual focus on feminist and postcolonial issues and, therefore, it is necessary to identify common denominators of these approaches. Both are concerned with the politics of space and the discourse of alterity. From these premises I shall concentrate on the following aspects: naming, place and the body. I want to point out developments within Dickens’s writing and draw attention to the fact that neither the treatment of women in a patriarchal society, nor the oppression of the indigenous people in or from the colonies could go unnoticed. These concepts are inscribed in the texts of their time.