
Vanishing Points
Dickens, Narrative, and the Subject of Omniscience
Audrey Jaffe(Author)
University of California Press
Published on 26. June 1991
Book
Hardback
200 pages
978-0-520-06918-3 (ISBN)
Description
In traditional narrative theory, the term "omniscience" refers to a narrator's absolute knowledge and authority. Narrative theory provides no social, historical, or psychological context for omniscience, nor does it attempt to explain the predominance of omniscient narration in nineteenth-century British fiction. Audrey Jaffe uses Dickens's novels and sketches to redefine narrative omniscience as a problematic that has implications for the construction of Victorian subjectivity, giving us new insights into Dickens and into other fiction as well.
Jaffe demonstrates that omniscience is the effect of a series of oppositions-between narrator and character, knowledge and its absence, sympathy and irony, privacy and publicity. Showing how these oppositions participate in and enforce Victorian ideas about family, the subject, and private life, this study illuminates connections between ideology and narrative form.
Jaffe demonstrates that omniscience is the effect of a series of oppositions-between narrator and character, knowledge and its absence, sympathy and irony, privacy and publicity. Showing how these oppositions participate in and enforce Victorian ideas about family, the subject, and private life, this study illuminates connections between ideology and narrative form.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Berkerley
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-520-06918-3 (9780520069183)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Audrey Jaffe is Assistant Professor of English at Ohio State University.