Magical Objects in Victorian Literature: Enchantment, Narrative Imagination, and the Power of Things
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Magical Objects in Victorian Literature: Enchantment, Narrative Imagination, and the Power of Things By Dan Fang Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in English August, 2015 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Jay Clayton, Ph.D. Rachel Teukolsky, Ph.D. Jonathan Lamb, Ph.D. Carolyn Dever, Ph.D. Elaine Freedgood, Ph.D. For lao-ye, who taught me how to learn ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the Martha Rivers Ingram Fellowship, which funded my last year of dissertation writing. My thanks go to Mark Wollaeger, Dana Nelson, the English Department, and the Graduates School for the Fellowship and other generous grants. My ideas were shaped by each and every professor with whom I have ever taken a class—in particular, Jonathan Lamb who was a large part of the inception of a project about things and who remained an unending font of knowledge through its completion. I want to thank Carolyn Dever for making me reflect upon my writing process and my mental state, not just the words on the page, and Elaine Freedgood for being an amazingly generous reader who never gave up on pushing me to be more rigorous. Most of all, my gratitude goes to Rachel Teukolsky and Jay Clayton for being the best dissertation directors I could ever imagine having. Rachel has molded both my arguments and my prose from the very first piece on Aladdin’s lamp, in addition to providing thoughtful advice about the experience of being in graduate school and beyond. And Jay has always been by my side, ready to read, talk, advise, and celebrate, far above the call of duty. The two of them comprised the biggest part of my intellectual growth: they taught me to write more clearly without sacrificing my voice, to argue more forcefully without sacrificing my creativity. This project could never have become what it is without them. I also have to thank my wonderful group of friends and colleagues. My cohort—Andy Hines, Kathleen Deguzman, Erin Pellarin, Lacey Saborido, Killian Quigley, Jennifer Bagneris, and Emma Ingrisani—though scattered in different directions, gave me an idea of what a great community we could have in the program. I want to thank Emma in particular for emblematizing great friendship; she is always there for advice, comfort, and giggly rides on the Metro North. Jennifer, Deann Armstrong, and the other participants of the Persons and Things seminar at the iii Robert Penn Warren Center helped me to explore and refine what things could stand for. My gratitude goes to Stephanie Higgs, great fellow Victorianist, for always being willing to talk through life and Dickens; to Michael Alijewicz, who gave me an example of the industrious scholar; to Faith Barter, who was a relentless cheerleader for each new idea; to RJ Boutelle, for spending countless hours with me at coffeeshops across Nashville; to Adam Miller, for being willing to be a sounding-board at any moment; to Landon Oakes, for sticking with me through the darkest parts of writing; and to Wietske Smeele and Aubrey Porterfield, for being the best support system anybody could have. Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank my parents for being who they are: my father, who never allowed life to get in between his passions, and my mother, who grew up reading pirated copies of Jane Eyre by candlelight. Thank you for letting me love fairy tales the way I wanted to. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iii LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... vi Chapter INTRODUCTION. What Are Victorian Magical Objects? ........................................................... 1 The Enchantment of the Victorian World ................................................................................... 4 The Enchantment of Objects ....................................................................................................... 8 Magical Objects as Elements of Fictionality ............................................................................ 14 I. Circulating Narratives and Narratives of Circulation: Magical Objects in It-Narratives, Fairy Tales, and Beyond ......................................................................................................................... 23 The Anxiety of Objects: It-Narrative, Circulation, and Authorship ......................................... 25 A Nation of Magical Objects: Fairy Tales and the Negotiation of British Enchantment ......... 38 II. Acting Like a Living Creature: Magic Dolls and Victorian Character .................................... 56 Staring at Nothing: Dumb Witnesses in Bleak House .............................................................. 70 Ghostly Dolls: Unearthly Surrogates in Villette ....................................................................... 84 III. Needing a Dark History: Magic Diamonds and Plots of Imperialism .................................... 97 “A devilish Indian diamond”: Fantasies of Social Mobility in The Moonstone ..................... 112 The Great Agra Treasure: Childhood Fantasies in The Sign of the Four ............................... 122 “We had got them”: Fantasies of Value in King Solomon’s Mines ........................................ 130 IV. Through the Looking-Glass: Magic Mirrors as Narrative Portals ........................................ 139 Looking-Glass World: Logic and Nonsense in Through the Looking-Glass ......................... 156 The Egyptian Sorcerer’s Ink: Realism and Fantasy in Adam Bede ........................................ 163 CONCLUSION: Freud, Harry Potter, and the Afterlives of Magical Objects ........................... 174 WORKS CITED ......................................................................................................................... 181 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. John Tenniel, "New Crowns for Old Ones" .............................................................................. 23 2. George Du Maurier, Illustration for the Introduction of The Story of a Feather ...................... 30 3. George Du Maurier, Illustration for the First Chapter of The Story of a Feather .................... 31 4. George Du Maurier, Illustration for the Conclusion of The Story of a Feather ....................... 31 5. Photography of Dolls Room in Pollock's Toy Museum ........................................................... 56 6. The Koh-i-Noor Diamond ......................................................................................................... 97 7. John Tenniel, Illustration for Through the Looking Glass ...................................................... 159 vi INTRODUCTION WHAT ARE VICTORIAN MAGICAL OBJECTS? In his 2014 bestseller Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire, and the Internet of Things, David Rose proposes a class of technology that we will soon see in our future. These are pill bottles that would glow as a reminder to take medicine or an umbrella that tells its owner to take it along on rainy days. For Rose, these enchanted objects are enhanced by technology but inspired by the “objects of fantasy and folklore” (7), so much so that he contacted Jack Zipes, the foremost expert in fairy tale studies, who provided him with a list of magical objects: The wishing wand or ring that fulfills any desire in an instant. The flying carpet that swiftly transports us. The bottomless purse that never runs out of money. The superspyglass through which we can see thousands of miles. Magic boots that enable us to walk miles in one stride. The horn or whistle with which we can summon help. The crystal ball that enables us to know the future. The invisibility cloak or shield that hides us from danger. The endless table that feeds hundreds with a bountiful feast. (10) These objects seem to exist only in the fabulous realm of fairy tales and folklore, able to gain traction in the real world only because of ultramodern technology that, as Rose’s book attests to, mostly has yet to be invented. Yet the lack of realizing potential never stopped these magical objects from taking hold in our imagination, exerting their power on and enchanting our everyday world. This dissertation examines how magical objects exerted a similar enchantment in the Victorian period by flourishing in the world of writing. The Victorian world was one stuffed to the brim with objects. Its relationship to objects is emblematized by the Great Exhibition of 1851, which claimed to contain almost every type of object on earth, from raw materials like iron 1 and cotton that comprise British industry to sophisticated products, both domestic and imported, like soaps, carpets, and statues. Elsewhere, in the parlors, department stores, and even trash heaps, the Victorians engaged in a relation of excessive care, if not excess itself, with their possessions. They indulged in their things, as Deborah Cohen has argued, to the point of making their possessions stand for every facet of their character and morality. This indulgence shone through the literature of the period—especially fiction—through which one can see, as John Plotz has commented, “One universally acknowledged truth about the Victorians is that they loved their things” (1). Objects in Victorian fiction stand for a great many things: a lost handkerchief can expose