Scenes of Sympathy

Front matter

Scenes of Sympathy

Scenes of Sympathy

Identity and Representation in Victorian Fiction

Part II Fear of Falling

3. Under Cover: Sympathy and Ressentiment in Gaskell’s Ruth 77

4 Isabel’s Spectacles: Seeing Value in East Lynne 95

Part HI The Aesthetics of Cultural Identity

5 Consenting to the Fact: Body, Nation, and Identity in Daniel Deronda 121

6 Embodying Culture: Dorian’s Wish 158

Index 181

Acknowledgments

Í have benefited from the wisdom of the following friends and colleagues, who read and commented on various parts of the manuscript at various times: Deborah Dyson, Catherine Gallagher, Jean Gregorek, Nicholas Howe, Beth Ina, Jill Matus, Mary Ann O’Farrell, Linda Raphael, David Riede, Peter Schwartz, Julie Solomon, David Suchoff, Herbert Tucker, and Susan Williams. I am also grateful to audiences at the Dickens Project in Santa Cruz, the University of Virginia, Texas A&M, and Ohio State for their responses. Portions of the book have appeared, in somewhat different forms, in the following publications: Chapter 1 as “Spectacular Sympathy: Visuality and Ideology in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol,’ PMLA 109 (1994): 254-65; Chapter 2 as “Detecting the Beggar: Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry Mayhew, and “The Man with the Twisted Lip,” Representations 31 (1990): 96-117, © 1990 by the Regents of the University of California; and Chapter 3 as “Under Cover of Sympathy: Ressentiment in Gaskell’s Ruth,” Victorian Literature and Culture 21 (1993): 51-65. I am grateful for permission to reprint.

Many of the ideas that inform this book emerged in discussions with Peter Schwartz, not the least of whose contributions was to suggest that I read a Sherlock Holmes story called “The Man with the Twisted Lip.” And it is a pleasure, once again, to acknowledge the undeconstructable sympathy and intellectual energy of Mary Ann O'Farrell.

For Eli Jaffe Schwartz, a message: Mom has written a book, and pretty soon, if you want to, you can read it.

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