From the “angel in the house” to the heroine of an educational novel: The image of Florence in Charles Dickens’ novel “Dombey and Son”

Abstract

The aim of the study is to substantiate the ambiguity of the central female character in Charles Dickens’ novel “Dombey and Son” (1846-1848), Florence Dombey, who significantly deviates from the typical image of a Victorian woman as an “angel in the house”. Florence, along with other Dickens characters such as Agnes Copperfield (“David Copperfield”, 1850), Esther Summerson (“Bleak House”, 1853) and Amy Dorrit (“Little Dorrit”, 1855-1857), is usually seen as the embodiment of the Victorian ideal of a woman who subordinates her life to the service of the family, a dominant role in which belongs to a man. From the point of view of gender literary research, especially in feminist interpretations, the embodiment of Florence as a stereotypical female role model in a Victorian patriarchal society makes her a flat and disappointing figure, a trivial character acting as a typical victim of the patriarchal system, and her desire for paternal love is interpreted as masochistic, since female masochism serves as a rather convenient fiction for patriarchal domination. Throughout the novel, Florence follows the path of becoming a standard Victorian woman with her inherent social functions: daughters, sisters, wives and mothers. Despite this, the character, behavior, and actions of the heroine are described by Dickens in a contradictory manner, which prompted us to hypothesize that Florence’s image is atypical for the Victorian novel and Victorian society. The scientific novelty of the study is determined by the hypothesis put forward in the article and the justification of Florence’s ambivalent features, which do not fit into the image of an “angel in the house”. This article reveals the inconsistency of Florence’s image with the canon of “angel in the house” in the context of character development through the following prisms: 1) the father and daughter relationship – Florence as a threat; 2) Florence and Walter – the story of Dick Whittington, the story of class elevation through marriage; 3) Florence, Edith and Alice – the creation of two types of romantic heroines with intertwining destinies: virtuous “noble” and marginalized “fallen”. The results of the study confirm that Florence to some extent corresponds to the characteristic of an “angel in the house” within the framework of the Victorian patriarchal society, given her identity as a “daughter, wife and mother”, and her ambivalence is a response to the symbolic condensation of patriarchal substance in the image of the father, which gives socio-cultural value exclusively to relationships along the family line “father and son”. From the point of view of considering Florence as the main character in the upbringing novel, the article analyzes the atypical nature of Florence for the “angel in the house” paradigm in three senses: 1) in her relationship with Dombey, her father, in which she openly challenges him; 2) in her relationship with Walter, in which she assumes a leading role; 3) in the relationship between Florence, Edith and Alice, based on the symbolism of “hair”, drawn in order to prove that Florence actually stands at a crossroads, at the boundary separating the “angel in the house” from the “fallen women”. The mentioned trials, which put Florence in a borderline position, guarantee her becoming a well-educated person at the end of the novel.

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About this article

Publication history

• Received: October 30, 2024.
• Published: January 14, 2025.

Keywords

• роман Ч. Диккенса «Домби и сын»
• типичный образ викторианской женщины
• гендерные литературные исследования
• канон «ангел в доме»
• Ch. Dickens’ novel “Dombey and Son”
• typical image of a Victorian woman
• gender literary studies
• canon the “angel in the house”

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