Dissertationen zum Thema „William Makepeace“

El objetivo principal de este tesis doctoral es el poner de relieve le evolución que se de en W. M. Thackeray en cuanto al tratamiento de la mujer y del matrimonio en sus noveles, evolución que nos lleva a pensar en un Thackeray progresista y reformista respecto de la sociedad de su tiempo. Los temas "mujer" y "matrimonio" han sido estudiados conjuntamente por considerar que en la obra de Thackeray el matrimonio aparece como la vertiente social de la mujer (el papel da ésta en la sociedad que Thackeray describe es el matrimonio), constituyendo ambos temes de este modo un todo inseparable en la obra de este autor victoriano.

Cabe destacar, asimismo, que este trabajo se centra en las cuatro novelas principales de Thackeray, a saber "Vanity Fair", "Pendennis", "Henry Esmond" y "The Newcomes", por considerar que en ellas (contrariamente a lo que ocurre con el resto de su novelística) existe une clara evolución hasta la creación de Ethel Newcome, en "The Newcomes". Así, y teniendo siempre presente que Thackeray centró su obra en unos grupos sociales determinados (esencialmente en la clase media-alta del Londres de principios del siglo XIX), podemos decir que a través de sus cuatro novelas principales explora la naturaleza de le mujer y su papel en le sociedad, llegando a la creación de un nuevo ideal de mujer que sitúa a caballo entre el ideal victoriano y las nueves ideas que sobre la mujer empezaban a aflorar en la Inglaterra de su época.

Pare lograr el objetivo central de este trabajo, el material se encuentra estructurado en cinco capítulos. El primero de ellos es de tipo introductorio, pues ofrece el lector une breve historia social de la mujer en la primera mitad del siglo XIX, creando así un contexto socio-histórico contra el que se podrá contrastar la figura de la mujer y el matrimonio tal y como aparece en la obra de Thackeray, al tiempo que se podrá apreciar mejor su evolución como escritor.

Tras este capítulo introductorio, se ha dedicado uno independiente a cada novela. Estos cuatro capítulos se encuentran ordenados cronológicamente, es decir, siguiendo el orden de publicación de las novelas. En cada novela, su texto ha sido el punto de partida en la elaboración de las hipótesis, así como el punto de llegada para su confirmación. Se ha tratado, pues, de poner de relieve como los diferentes textos exponen una serie de idees que, contrastadas con el marco social de la época, nos revelan la preocupación de Thackeray por la situación de la mujer y su papel en la sociedad de la Inglaterra de la primera mitad del siglo XIX. Thackeray se caracterizó siempre por su búsqueda del ideal de "gentleman"; a lo largo de su obra se puede observar cómo esta búsqueda le preocupaba enormemente y de qué modo exploró este concepto a lo largo de sus personajes masculinos, llegando a dar vida al Coronel Newcome, el más "gentleman" de todos ellos. Paralelamente, y como se puede apreciar en estas cuatro novelas, Thackeray exploro también el ideal de "gentlewoman", tratando de dar con un ideal de mujer que se acoplara al nuevo mundo pero que, al mismo tiempo, conservara ciertos valores tradicionales tales como la maternidad, valor que consideraba esencial en este figura global y perfecta de la "gentlewoman".

El análisis detallado de estas cuatro novelas nos ha llevado a la conclusión de que Thackeray nos revela, a través de ellas, su gran preocupación par la naturaleza y situación de la mujer en un momento en que se empezaba a percibir la necesidad de que esta situación experimentara un cambio. Este estudio nos lleva a ver de qué manera Thackeray desarrolla en su obra básicamente dos tipos de mujer en busca de un equilibrio que, como hemos mencionado anteriormente, no encuentra hasta su creación de Ethel Newcome. Estos dos tipos de mujer, que se pueden agrupar en torno a los personajes de Becky y Amelia, engloban su retrato de la mujer de principios del siglo XIX, y e través de ellos el autor hace un estudio de la naturaleza de la mujer y su papel en la sociedad. En torno a Amelia se agrupan Helen, Rachel, Rosey y Clara, y Thackeray explora la fragilidad, dependencia, maternidad, amor e infelicidad, características comunes a todas estas mujeres. En torno a Becky se agrupan Blanche y Beatrix, y las principales características que les unen son la fortaleza, la independencia, el rechazo a la maternidad y la incapacidad de amar, manteniendo como característica común a las mujeres agrupadas en torno a Amelia la infelicidad. El equilibrio entra estos dos tipos de mujer lo encuentra Thackeray en Ethel, aunque hay que tener presente sus primeros esbozos en los personajes de Lady Jane y Laura. Así, si hemos comenzado anotando la preocupación de este autor victoriano por la situación de la mujer en la sociedad de su época, se debe concluir que el análisis detallado de la obra de este autor nos lleva a reafirmarlo como progresista y reformista respecta de la misma.

Por último, destacar que se han incluido dos apéndices. El primero de ellos contiene une tabla cronológica donde se destacan los hechos más relevantes de la vide de Thackeray, así como la fecha de publicación de sus novelas. El segundo contiene un breve repaso a las críticas que se he escrito sobre la obra de este autor (es interesante para ello ver la sección de la bibliografía dedicada a este tema), con el objetivo de demostrar la originalidad del tema de este trabajo.
The main aim of this thesis is to show the evolution that exists in W.M. Thackeray's treatment of women and marriage in his four main novels, that is to say in "Vanity Fair", "Pendennis", "Henry Esmond" and "The Newcomes". Women and marriage have been studied together because in Thackeray's novels marriage appears as the role of women in society and thus it seemed that both aspects should be regarded as a unique whole.

In these four novels it can be seen that, parallel to his search for an ideal gentleman, Thackeray was as well in pursuit of an ideal gentlewoman who he would find in Ethel Newcome. Thackeray created basically two types of women which may be grouped around the two central female characters in "Vanity Fair", that is to say Becky and Amelia. These two groups of women constitute in this way Thackeray's portrait of women at the beginning of the nineteenth century at the same time as a profound analysis of the nature of women and her role in society.

What Thackeray explores in his search for the ideal gentlewomen is one that he thought would adapt to the "new times" but that would nevertheless keep some traditional values among which "motherhood" is the one that he thought should be inherent to that ideal women.

From the thorough analysis of Thackeray's four main novels, the evolution in his creation of women characters until his creation of Ethel reveals his concern with both the nature of women and her role in society and thus points to his progressive attitude as reformer in his relation with the society of his time.

Scholars have heretofore under-examined William Makepeace Thackeray's early critical essays despite their potential for illuminating Victorian manners and life. Further, these essays' treatments of aesthetics, class, society, history, and politics are all influenced by the pecuniary aspects of periodical journalism and frequently expose socio-economic attitudes and realities. This study explicates the circumstances, contents, and cultural implications of Thackeray's critical essays. Compensatory payments Thackeray received are reconciled with his bibliographic record, questions regarding Thackeray's interactions with periodicals such as Punch and Fraser's Magazine answered, and a database of the payment practices of early Victorian periodicals established. Thackeray's contributions to leading London newspapers, the Times and the Morning Chronicle, address history, travel, art, literature, religion, and international affairs. Based upon biblio-economic payment records, cross-references, and other information, Thackeray's previously skeletal newspaper bibliographic record is fleshed out with twenty-eight new attributions. With this new information in hand, Thackeray's views on colonial emigration and imperialism, international affairs, religion, medievalism, Ireland, the East, and English middle-class identity are clarified. Further, Thackeray wrote a series of social and political "London" letters for an Indian newspaper, the Calcutta Star. This dissertation establishes that Thackeray's letters were answered in print by "colonial" letters written by James Hume, editor of the Calcutta Star; their mutual correspondence thus constitutes a revealing cosmopolitan - colonial discourse. The particulars of Thackeray's Calcutta Star writings are established, insights into the personalities and viewpoints of both men provided, and societal aspects of their correspondence analyzed. In his many newspaper art exhibition reviews Thackeray popularized serious painting and shaped middle-class taste. The nature and timing of Thackeray's art essays are assessed, espoused values characterized and earlier analyses critiqued, and Thackeray's role introducing middle-class readers to contemporary Victorian art explored. Other Thackeray newspaper reviews addressed literature; indeed, Thackeray's grounding of literature in economic realities demonstrably carried over from his critical thesiss to his subsequent work as a novelist, creating a unity of theme, style, and subject between his early and late writings. Literary pathways originating in Thackeray's critical reviews are shown to offer new insights into Thackeray novels Catherine, Vanity Fair, Henry Esmond, and Pendennis.

Dans l'oeuvre de thackeray ecrire est depeint comme une activite malsaine. Le lecteur remarque que tous ceux qui ecrivent, lisent, trafiquent ou contribuent de quelle maniere que ce soit a la fabrication et a la distribution de textes sont en quelque sorte souilles par ce contact impur. Afin d'eclaircir l'attitude de thackeray envers le texte, ce travail considere le statut du texte dans le texte thackerayen ainsi que la position de l'auteur vis-avis de l'ecriture comme mode de representation. Le texte de thackeray est examine a travers et a l'aide des differentes definitions du mot "vanite": ostentation, orgueil, frivolite, futilite, suffisance, traitrise, vide et illusion. Les textes sont des objets de veneration qui provoquent une iconolatrie et un fetichisme nefastes, ils sont autoreferentiels et hypotextuels, et le texte thackerayen trahit son lecteur, le prive de directives et designe le texte comme un espace d'illusion aussi fugace et frivole qu'une attraction dans une foire. Thackeray decourage ses lecteurs de chercher un signifie dans son texte, sauf peut-etre le signifie de la vanite d'une telle recherche
In the work of thackeray writing is portrayed as an unhealthy activity. The reader quickly perceives that all those who write, read, traffic in or contribute in any way to the manufacture and distribution of texts is in some way sullied by such an undesirable contact. To clarify thackeray's attitude to texts, it is necessary to consider the status of the text in thackeray's text as well as the author's position concerning writing as a mode of representation. Thackeray's text is examined with the help of the different definitions of the word "vanity": ostentation, pride, frivolity, futility, self-importance, betrayal, emptiness and illusion. Texts are objects of veneration which engender a harmful iconolatry and fetichism, they are self-referential and "hypotextual", and thackeray's own text betrays the reader, depriving him of authorial maps and presenting the text as a place of illusion, as ephemeral and frivolous as an attraction in a fair. Thackeray discourages his readers from seeking a signified in his text, except perhaps the signified of the vanity of such a quest

This thesis examines the works of Peacock and the early periodical contributions of Thackeray in the light of recent twentieth-century critical interpretations of satire. In particular, attention to Peacock's use of elements of the Menippean sub-genre in his satirical fiction offers a reassessment of his place in the literary tradition. While Thackeray's early writings demonstrate some characteristics of Menippean satire, a review of his work from the broader perspective of Bakhtin's exposition of carnival influences in serio-comic literature provides a new understanding of the origins and uses of his narratorial devices. A comparison of the work of the two authors, within the time constraint of the first half of the nineteenth century, illustrates how nineteenth-century publishing innovations shaped literary perception of satire. Although the high status of the genre in the predominant culture of the previous century was challenged by the growth of the reading public, satire found new energy and modes of expression in the popular magazines of the period. In addition, writers facing the increasing heterogeneity of new reading audiences, were forced to reconsider their personal ideals of authorship and literature, while renegotiating their position in the literary marketplace. Organized in six chapters, the discussion opens with an account of traditional interpretations of satire, and goes on to examine recent analyses of the genre. The second chapter focuses on the relevance of these new interpretations to the work of Peacock and Thackeray and the extent to which the use of Menippean forms of satire enabled each to challenge the established opinions of their period. Changes in concepts of reading and writing and innovations in modes of publication form the substance of the third chapter and this is followed by an analysis of the work of both writers, using Bakhtin's interpretation of the Menippean sub-genre in the broader context of serio-comic discourse and the carnival tradition, Chapter five is a comparative study of the attitudes of both writers towards contemporary literature and the final section places their work in the political context of the period. Both Peacock and Thackeray made extensive use of elements of Menippean satire in their fiction. The content of their work, however, and their modes of writing were highly individual, to some extent shaped by the different markets they supplied. Collectively, their writings illustrate two aspects of the cultural watershed of the early nineteenth century, Peacock reflecting traditional notions of authorship and Thackeray representing a new industry, regulated by the commercial considerations of supply and demand. As satirists,each succeeded in adapting the genre to satisfy both his own authorial integrity and the expectations of his readers.

This thesis examines the editorial contributions of W.M. Thackeray, Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope to the Cornhill Magazine, All the Year Round and Saint Pauls Magazine, analyzing their cultivation of a familiar or personal style of journalism in the context of the 1860s family magazine and its rhetoric of intimacy. Focusing on their first-person journalistic series, it argues that these writers/editors used these contributions as a means of establishing a seemingly intimate and personal relationship with their readers, and considers the various techniques that they used to develop that relationship, including their use of first-person narration, autobiography, the anecdote, dream sequences and memory. It contends that those same contributions questioned and critiqued the depiction of reader-writer relations which they simultaneously propagated, highlighting the distinction between this portrayal and the realities of the industrialized and commercialized world of periodical journalism. It places this within the context of the discourse of family that was integral to the identity of these magazines, demonstrating how these series both held up and complicated the idealized image of Victorian domesticity that was promoted by the mainstream periodical culture of the day, maintaining that this was a standard feature of family magazine journalism and theorizing that this was in fact a large part of its popular appeal to the family market. The introductory chapter examines the discourse of family that dominated the mid-range magazines of the 1860s and how this ties in with the series’ rhetoric of intimacy. Chapter One looks at Thackeray’s ‘Roundabout Papers’, examining the manner in which Thackeray establishes a sense of familiarity between his editorial persona and the reader, only to consistently undermine his own efforts, viewing this within the context of Thackeray’s realist aesthetic. Chapter Two turns to Dickens’s ‘The Uncommercial Traveller’, and traces the relationship between Dickens’s use of the personal, his concept of the ‘Uncommercial’ in the series and his preoccupation with the forces of commercialism and Utilitarianism, which it reads as ultimately concerned with his own sense of complicity in the commercialization of literature. Chapter Three studies ‘An Editor’s Tales’ within the context of its publication during the last months of Trollope’s editorship of Saint Pauls and reads the ambivalent relationship of the series to the personal and its unconventional treatment of the family in relation to this, viewing the series as a part of Trollope’s reaction to the failure of the experiment he undertook with Saint Pauls.

Dans une perspective plus large d'interrogation sur le journalisme litteraire tel qu'il se pratiquait au debut de l'epoque victorienne, cette etude s'attache au "cas" thackeray qui fut journaliste professionnel entre 1837 et 1847. Apres une evocation de la presse vers 1840, sont analyses les differents aspects de la carriere de thackeray, ainsi que le contenu de ses recits journalistiques (critique litteraire, critique d'art, critique gastronomique, recits de voyage, papiers d'observation social, parodies, etc. ) il apparait que thackeray, tout en restant tout a fait typique de son temps, a fortement contribue a rehausser le statut de journaliste litteraire. En annexe, ou trouvera une bibliographie complete de l'oeuvre journalistique de tackeray de 1828 (date de ses tout premiers ecrits) a 1848 (parution de vanity fair)
Within the larger framework of journalism in early victorian england , this study focuses on the case of thackeray who worked as a professional journalist from 1837 to 1847. After an analysis of the english press circa 1840, the various aspects of thackeray's career, as well as the content of his journalism (book and art reviews, gastronomic articles, travel writing, social criticism, parody, etc) are examined. It emerges that thackeray, although very typical of his time, contributed significantly to the professionalisation of journalists. A complete bibliography of thackeray's writings from 1828 (date of his first appearance in print) to 1848 (publication of vanity fair) completes the study

This essay presents a comparative analysis of the characterizations of the female protagonists Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen̕ s Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Becky Sharp in William Makepeace Thackeray̕ s Vanity Fair (1847-1848). The analysis is conducted from a gender perspective, and with the use of feminist criticism. The two novels complement each other since they are both satirical images of society, concerning aspects such as class and gender. Also, both novels  portray women climbing the class ladder, during the period of the Napoleonic wars. In the comparison, the main focus lies on the social satire constructed around the heroines of these novels. I come to the conclusion that Austen̕ s and Thackeray̕ s characterizations are very different from each other, mainly due to their different satirical approaches. This conclusion is put in relation to a patriarchal context and to feminist values.
I denna uppsats presenteras en komparativ analys av karaktäriseringarna av de kvinnliga huvudkaraktärerna Elizabeth Bennet i Jane Austens Stolthet och Fördom (1813), och Becky Sharp i William Makepeace Thackerays Vanity Fair (1847-1848). Analysen är utförd från ett genusperspektiv, och med användning av feministisk samhällskritik. De två romanerna kompletterar varandra då de båda är satiriska illustreringar av samhället, och både rör aspekter såsom klass och genus. Dessutom porträtterar båda novellerna klassklättrande kvinnor under tiden för Napoleonkrigen. I jämförelsen ligger största fokuset på samhällssatiren konstruerad kring hjältinnorna i de båda romanerna. Jag når slutsatsen att Austens och Thackerays karaktäriseringar skiljer sig mycket från varandra, främst på grund av författarnas skilda förhållningssätt till sin satir. Denna slutsats relateras till en patriarkal kontext, samt till feministiska värderingar.

This thesis investigates the way that moral and aesthetic concerns about the relationship between fiction and reality are manifested in the work of particular novelists writing at different periods in the nineteenth century, Chapter One examines an early-century subgenre of the novel that features deluded female readers who fail to differentiate between fantasy and reality, and who consequently attempt to live their lives according to foolish precepts learned from novels. The second chapter deals with the realist aesthetic of W. M. Thackeray; focusing on the techniques by which his fiction marks its own relationship both to less realistic fiction and to reality itself. The final chapter discusses Oscar Wilde's critical stance that art is meaningful and intellectually satisfying, while reality and realism are aesthetically worthless: it then goes on the explore how these ideas play out in his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
iv, 120 leaves ; 28 cm.

This thesis is a study of rebellious child protagonists in Victorian bildungsroman. It discusses five novels ??? Jane Eyre, The Mill on the Floss, What Maisie Knew, Vanity Fair and Kim ??? that feature ???radical child??? protagonists who use indirect methods of narrative control to resist conservative models of character development. It argues that these novels form a subset of subversive English bildungsromane, which threaten the genre???s traditionally liberal values. Theories of narrative desire, reader seduction and discursive manipulation are used to reveal how the radical child in the Victorian bildungsroman takes command of the reader???s sympathy and gains power over the realist text, despite its physical and social powerlessness. Especially important is the presence of a fantasy counterplot, which coexists with, and ultimately undermines, the bildungsroman???s realistic surface narrative of successful socialisation. The counterplot allows radical child protagonists to develop in a non-linear manner that contradicts bourgeois ideals of stable progress. Focusing instead on sites of rupture between the individual and society, subversive bildungsromane resist both the dialectical model of character, which aims to harmoniously unite the protagonist with the realist world, and the dialogic model of interaction, which requires the restriction of personal liberty for the common good. This rebellious child in the Victorian bildungsroman thus represents an assault on the genre???s democratic ideals. Rejecting compromise, the radical child replaces the bildungsroman???s central ethic of interpersonal responsibility with an individualistic ethic of domination. Indeed, the thesis argues that the appeal of such child protagonistslies in their rejection of the obligatory, but anticlimactic, exchange of freedom for security that underpins the realist bildungsroman???s social contract, a rejection attractive to the reader precisely because it is unrealisable in reality. Finally, the thesis compares this radical child with the Gothic monster. While the monster is punished for its subversion, the radical child???s counterplot enables it to enact most of its subversive desires unpunished. The conservative English bildungsroman thus becomes a more effective way of representing asocial energies than the more obviously radical Gothic genre, which openly displays its anti-democratic sentiments.

碩士
中國文化大學
英國語文學研究所
97
The aim of this thesis is to examine the two controversial heroines in William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley. Amelia is a naïve, faithful, self-effacing woman who always tries to meet patriarchal expectations for women. From a Victorian point of view, she is regarded as an ideal woman. In comparison, Becky is selfish, self-confident and cunning. In order to achieve her goals, she departs from the model of traditional femininity. A female rebel against tradition was the standard image for bad women in the Victorian period. Therefore, Becky seemingly represents the image of the disastrous siren. Although Amelia and Becky are both attractive and charming, they represent two different kinds of women, considered respectively as the monster and the angel. Thackeray is a patriarchal writer and whether the heroine of Vanity Fair is a traditional Victorian woman or not, his attitude toward women is crucial. In addition, Thackeray's irony and mockery also take a wide range in Vanity Fair, and his true attitude and ideas are more complicated than the text. This thesis also analyzes Thackeray’s interpretation of the two heroines and discusses the women’s position at different levels in this novel.

This dissertation consists of a critically edited text of William Makepeace Thackeray's first novel, Catherine, along with a complete set of annotations, an extensive textual apparatus, appendices reprinting the sources for the real-life murder story on which Thackeray based his novel, and commentaries discussing the politics of the novel, the textual history and textual difficulties of the novel, and the novel's literary and historical context. In the absence of the manuscript, the copy-text for this edition is the first edition from Eraser's Magazine in 1839-40, the only edition from Thackeray's lifetime. Following this copy-text, the present edition includes all the passages expurgated in posthumous editions, expurgations recorded in one section of the Textual Apparatus. Another section of the apparatus consists of a glossary of Thackeray's characteristic spellings and capitalizations, based on a study of his surviving manuscripts. This study suggests that the style of accidentals in the first edition is not Thackerayan. However, because of the difficulty of restoring Thackerayan accidentals, the first edition accidentals have in general been left untouched, with the only emendations in this edition (all of which are recorded in the apparatus) being those made to correct errors in the copy-text. The annotations to the edition, besides explaining obscurities in the text, indicate the command Thackeray had over his historical materials, reveal his borrowings from earlier authors, and point out motifs that recur in other works by him. The political commentary to the edition discusses Thackeray's adoption of the Tory politics of Eraser's in his novel even though his views at the time were Radical. The critical commentary discusses the alterations Thackeray made to his sources for the murder story and points out that although the novel originated as an attack on the Newgate school of fiction and the glorification of criminals, it in fact, for the most part, celebrates the rogues it depicts. The general introduction notes that despite the resulting inconsistency in the novel, Catherine contains many qualities - including narrative virtuosity, satirical cleverness, and a skilful presentation of picaresque adventures - which suggest that it should no longer be neglected

Catherine, Man and Wife, and Dombey and Son will be compared with respect to their treatment of women characters. Each novel is either sympathetic to feminism and the treatment of women as equals, or constraining in its attitudes toward women. This assessment will be based on the fate of the rebellious woman character, the degree of conventionality found in its women characters and whether the attitudes toward women expressed generally in the novel are enlightened, or conventional. Also discussed will be how novels by nineteenth-century British novelists such as Thackeray and Collins and nineteenth-century British marriage laws were interrelated. In each of the three novels, there is one unconventional independent woman character whose presence encourages the reader to be sympathetic to women's concerns. However, if the novel views the rebellious woman character negatively and punishes her, then the novel did not accept this new woman.

This dissertation makes two arguments: First, it elaborates a depressive genealogy of the Victorian novel that asserts a category of realism rooted in affect rather than period or place. Second, it argues for a critical strategy called "depressive reading" that has unique purchase on this literary history. Drawing on Melanie Klein's "depressive position," the project asserts an alternative to novel theories that are rooted in sympathy and desire. By being attentive to mood and critical disposition, depressive reading homes in on the barely-contained negativities of realism. Through readings of novels by William Makepeace Thackeray, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, and Charlotte Brontë, it explores feelings of ambivalence, soreness, and dislike as aesthetic responses and interpretations, as well as prompts to varieties of non-instrumentalist ethics. In the final chapter, the psychological and literary strategy of play emerges as a creative and scholarly possibility.

This dissertation considers the role of affective management in realist aesthetics and British imperial culture. Drawing on formalist analyses of English novels, nineteenth-century theories of emotion, and postcolonial accounts that identify the colonizer’s affective desensitization as the ground from which ongoing violence can be perpetrated, this study explores how domestic English novels developed new techniques for deflating the heightened feelings surrounding empire and distant intimacy. Through satires of sensibility, the replacement of epistolary style with impersonal omniscience, and newly dispassionate presentations of villains and protagonists alike, realist novelists explored affective restraint as at once a generic characteristic and an increasingly central element of British imperial and racial identities. This dissertation therefore argues, through readings of works by Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, George Eliot, and Joseph Conrad, for the deep influence of imperial culture on the realist novel’s distinguishing formal features. At the same time, it prompts critics to revisit longstanding accounts of the relationship between the novel and sympathy. Since the Victorian era, critics have readily understood the realist novel as concerned with the expansion of readers’ sympathies: this study reframes this important account by examining how the insistence on sympathy in novels often rerouted more turbulent reactions to empire’s dislocations—such as longing, desire for vengeance, and guilt—into cooler, more tractable feelings.