Postcolonial Responses to Charles Dickens

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1. Theoretical Premises 19
1.1 Counter-Canonical Discourse: Criticism and Expansions 19
1.2 Adaptation Theories, Transnation(alism), Diasporas 26
1.3 Settler Cultures 30

2. The Convict's Return: Peter Carey's Jack Maggs 35
2.1 An Australian Novel 36
2.1.1 London: Imperial Centre and Hell 36
2.1.2 Maggs's Returns: Cultural Cringe and Emancipation 40
2.1.3 The Ending 43
2.2 Dysfunctional Families 45
2.3 The Ethics of Writing 49
2.3.1 The Author within the Text 49
2.3.2 The Death of Maggs 52
2.3.3 Fiction as Theft 54
2.3.4 "a different type of story": Jack Maggs as Writer 56
2.4 References to Australian Literature 58
2.5 Writing Back to Dickens? 60

3. Pacific Dickens: Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip 66
3.1 Border Crossings: Towards Transnational Readers 67
3.1.1 Versions 1 and 2: Cultural and Generational Borders 67
3.1.2 Version 3: Retrieving Dickens 70
3.1.3 Version 4: Mr Watts's Story 72
3.1.4 Version 5: Matilda's Story 78
3.2 Functions of Literature81
3.2.1 Escape and Immersion 81
3.2.2 "lazybone dogs": Reading as Instruction 85
3.3 Migration 87
3.4 Conclusion 92

4. Appropriating History: Richard Flanagan's Wanting 94
4.1 Challenging Official Memory 98
4.1.1 The Victorian Age Revisited 98
4.1.2 Victorian Heroes Rewritten 100
4.1.3 Retrieving Forgotten Histories 105
4.2 The Power of Words 106
4.2.1 Dickens 106
4.2.2 Mathinna 118
4.3 "a rigid programme of improvement": Mathinna's Education 123
4.4 Reason and Desire 127
4.4.1 "'her future is bright indeed'":
George Augustus Robinson and Mathinna 129
4.4.2 "the love of a mother for her child": Lady Jane and Mathinna 132
4.4.3 "an exotic object of amusement": Sir John and Mathinna 134
4.4.4 The Image of the Black Swan: Leda and Rowra 137
4.4.5 "neither white nor black": Mathinna 140
4.4.6 "his undisciplined heart": Dickens and Ellen Ternan 142
4.5 Othering Places: North and South 144
4.6 Conclusion 148

5. Female Artists: Carmel Bird's