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The Columbia History of the British NovelThese villainous doubles often desire the very same social goals-in some cases even the same woman-as does the hero (thus Uriah Heep envies David Copperfield his social favor, and sees himself as a rival for Agnes; Bradley Headstone in Our Mutual Friend competes with Wrayburn for Lizzie Hexam; and Orlick in Great Expectations aspires after Biddy, the woman who belatedly becomes an object of Pip's affections). They also conveniently carry out vengeance against characters who obstruct the ambitions of the hero (Orlick murders Pip's sister Mrs. Joe; Rigaud in Little Dorrit destroys Mrs. Clennam). Readers have disagreed about Dickens's intentions in this evidently self-conscious doubling-389- whether it is the effect of Dickens's bad conscience about the built-in hypocrisy of class society; whether it acknowledges moral ambiguities the better to reject them out of hand by scapegoating «evil» characters; or whether it provides some means of formulating coherent moral distinctions between the aggressive individualist and the virtuously «selfmade» man ...» |
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