Dickens and temporality: reading Dickens's fiction through the lens of Bergson's philosophy

Abstract

This thesis examines the representation of subjective temporal experience in Dickens’s fiction, by reading his fiction through the lens of Henri Bergson’s philosophy of subjective time. This research’s main argument is that Dickens’s fiction anticipates a modern conception of temporal experience, which is rooted in heterogeneity, a coexistence that implies both past and present, memory and re-creation, continuity and change. In the first section, I begin by analysing Bergson’s concepts of memory, interconnectedness and continuous re-creation, which will form the lens through which to read Dickens’s fiction. Following this, I conduct three specific case studies in Dickens’s fiction. I begin by showing that Dickens’s Christmas books represent a turning point in his conception of temporality and subjectivity, before analysing the incorporation of these ideas in Dickens’s construction of narrative voice in David Copperfield, arguing that this novel marks a shift in his perspective on subjective time and memory. Finally, I show that Dickens’s most complex exploration of the human experience of time is found in Great Expectations, as his quintessential novel of time, showing the coexistence of past and present, life and death, memory and re-creation, continuity and change. This research addresses the gap in scholarship surrounding Dickens’s representation of time and temporal experience, showing that his fiction’s unparalleled success in the nineteenth century was tied to his new conception of and particular insight into subjectivity and temporality.