Reinterpretations of Dickensian Orphanhood in Contemporary Literature of English-speaking Countries

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to focus on postcolonial novels which use the motif of orphanhood with direct or implied/obscured reference to Dickens as a metaphor of parent-child relations between imperial Mother Britain and its overseas colonial offspring. If we read Dickensian orphanhood as a means to censure Victorian society for its greed and indifference and Victorian institutions for their inefficiency, the motif can also be applied to a critical interrogation and reexamination of literary representation of power dynamics in British colonies. The analysed novels use the motif of orphanhood to address the problem of loss of a sense of belonging and identity, consequences of acculturation, dislocation, broken physical and emotional bonds with one’s community and home, oppression of the indigenous peoples by allegedly superior culture. Orphanhood as a literary figure does not only mean the condition of being parentless. When seen from a postcolonial lens, it has relevance to those subjected to the process of inferiorisation by the colonial discourse, to the “orphaned” colonial societies seen as “marginal” in the process of cultural denigration.