City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 6-2014 The Grammar of Choice: Charles Dickens's Existential Idea of Religion Hai Na Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/261 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] The Grammar of Choice: Charles Dickens’s Existential Idea of Religion HAI NA A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2014 ii © 2014 Hai Na All Rights Reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. David Richter April 17, 2014 __________________________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee Mario DiGangi April 17, 2014 __________________________________________ Date Executive Officer David Richter Donald Stone Joseph Wittreich Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv Abstract The Grammar of Choice: Charles Dickens’s Existential Idea of Religion By Hai Na Advisor: Professor David Richter This dissertation challenges the received opinion that Charles Dickens’s religious thinking is merely sentimental and philanthropic. Instead, I argue that there is in his works a very consistent “existential” sense of religion, especially in his mature novels. To be religious for him does not lie in the adherence to dogma or the study of theological arguments, but in the crucial choices people make every day. In order to illustrate this “existential” sense of religion, I analyze, in the first chapter, relevant works by Kierkegaard, Carlyle, George Eliot, and Dostoevsky, in order to establish the context in which Dickens’s religious views can be discussed. In the second chapter I examine him in the context of twentieth-century writers such as Sartre and Camus to underscore Dickens’s existential modernity. The central argument of this chapter is that the very possibility for characters to make a choice is rendered difficult by the widespread loss of faith. Two novels deal with this issue in particular: David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities. The third chapter begins by examining the choice of good versus evil, which is shown to be a very complex issue for Dickens, even in his early works. Then I proceed to discuss the implications of this choice and conclude that knowingly to choose evil over good constitutes “sin” for Dickens, as he demonstrates in Dombey and Son. The last chapter focuses on Dickens’s last published novel Our Mutual Friend and discusses the possibility of free choice, a religious issue complicated by the implications of Darwinian evolution. v Acknowledgements My first thanks go to Professor David Richter, my thesis advisor. Professor Richter carefully read my multiple drafts and provided me with many valuable suggestions concerning the argument, the structure, and the style of the dissertation. I am especially indebted to his Biblical scholarship which is so crucial in this project. I would like to thank Professor Donald Stone, my longtime mentor and dear friend, without whom this dissertation could not have been finished. Professor Stone first introduced me to the world of Victorian studies back in 2007 in Peking University, and has since then inspired me with many wonderful insights. His ardent love for and erudite knowledge of literature, art, and music have provided me with a role model. I thank Professor Joseph Wittreich who taught me two Milton seminars, sat on my Orals examination, and kindly agreed to read my dissertation in his retirement. His Milton seminars will remain one of the fondest memories I have about the Graduate Center. A very special note of gratitude is owed to Professor Felicia Bonaparte, who helped me to see the importance of thinkers like Kierkegaard, whose existential ideas, as I discovered, have relevance with regard to Dickens. Without her help this dissertation could not have been conceived in the first place. She not only devoted many hours and numerous insightful emails to discussing the project with me, but also kindly let me read her manuscript of her forthcoming book. For all of this I am deeply grateful. Last but not the least, I thank my parents, my wife Alice, and, my angel: little Natalie. vi Table of Contents Chapter I: “The Direct Paths of Truth” (Camus) ............................................................................................ 1 The “Center” of the Dickens World ........................................................................................................ 1 Where to Locate Religion in Dickens? ................................................................................................... 7 “Existential” Religion in Dickens’s Time: Kierkegaard and Others ..................................................... 18 Chapter II: Voices “from the Underground”: The Inability to Choose ......................................................... 43 The Existential Situation ....................................................................................................................... 43 David Copperfield and the Journey from Despair to Affirmation ........................................................ 52 The Historical Moment of Choice in A Tale of Two Cities ................................................................... 70 Chapter III. The Choice between Good and evil .......................................................................................... 79 The Complexity of Good and Evil in Dickens’s Works ....................................................................... 79 Dombey’s Choice and Its Implications ................................................................................................. 96 Chapter IV: Natural Selection, Free Choice, and Our Mutual Friend ........................................................ 117 Design, Darwin, and Dickens ............................................................................................................. 117 Instinct and the Non-choice ................................................................................................................ 126 Bunyan, Kierkegaard, and Choice as Religion ................................................................................... 135 Afterword: Toward a More Comprehensive View of Dickens’s Religion ................................................. 155 Works Cited ................................................................................................................................................ 162 1 Chapter I: “The Direct Paths of Truth” (Camus) The mixture of opinions about the highest being or the world and of precepts for a human life (or even for two) you call religion! Schleiermacher, Speeches on Religion There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Hamlet 1.5 Human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barriers of system. George Eliot, Silas Marner The “Center” of the Dickens World If we could borrow Orhan Pamuk’s definition of the “center” of the novel as “a profound opinion or insight about life, a deeply embedded point of mystery, whether real or imagined” (Pamuk, 153), we would proceed to ask what the center is in Dickens’s novels. In my dissertation, I would argue that the center is religion. However it is not religion in the ordinary sense, but a particular kind which Dickens defines in his imaginative way. Although religion is often only an undercurrent in Dickens, it nevertheless is a vital center that pulls together the historical, social, economic, and psychological aspects of the time of the Dickens world. However, Dickens’s religion has been largely misunderstood in our thoroughly, epistemologically secular time, the reasons for which I will analyze subsequently. Even in his own time, discussions of his works have not often taken him seriously as a religious thinker, or, for that matter, a serious thinker of any kind. Harriet Martineau wished that “he had a 2 sounder social philosophy, and that he could suggest a loftier moral to sufferers; could lead them to see that ‘man does not live by bread alone,’” and proceeds to conclude that for Dickens, “happiness lies in those parts of his nature which are only animated and exalted by suffering”(Martineau 235-6). Others, like Lord Jeffrey, while able to capture the transcendental moment in Dickens, could not further determine the particular kind of transcendence in Dickens works. For instance, upon reading Dombey and Son, Lord Jeffrey writes to Dickens that “in reading of these delightful children, how deeply do we feel that ‘of such is the kingdom of Heaven;’ and how ashamed of the contaminations which our manhood has received from the contact of earth, and wonder how you should have been admitted into that pure communion…´ (Jeffrey 217). Lord Jeffrey stops short of specifying either the “kingdom” or the “communion.” But the typical reaction was that Dickens’s domain is artistic creation rather than exposition of serious ideas, despite his constant reactions to recent thoughts. Harriet Martineau, one of Dickens’s contributors