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HUMANITIES 127 The absence of this larger context leads Groves to make conclusions thatdo notalways do justice to the subtletyofhis readings. Overand over again he concludes a reading with a 'universal' value. Hogg, he claims, leads us repeatedly to the 'simple admission thatall people are essentially the same.' There's something to be said for such startling simplicity, but this levelling quality in Hogg's work also needs to be situated in a larger context of comedy. The egalitarian stance, in any case, involves (as Groves himself indicates elsewhere in the book) an 'appreciation of diverse temperaments, creeds, and perspectives.' Groves is at his best when he shows how Hogg's craft is the result of his tolerance for difference - his refusal to take sides on the divisive political and theological issues that swirled around Blackwood's in those days. The best part ofthis rather uneven book is without question the reading of Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Groves emphasizes the 'unconscious kinship between the editor and Robert' and examines the way Hogg's technique 'subverts the individualism' of each and reduces them 'to the same level of confusion and self-doubt,' showing 'their involvement in relationship, process, and community.' (MAGDALENE REDEKOP) Frances Armstrong. Dickens and the Concept of Home UMI Research Press. 175. us $39.95 Frances Armstrong's Dickens and the Concept of Home makes a valuable contribution to Victorian social history as well as to Dickens scholarship. Armstrong does a revisionist reading of Dickens's attitudes towards the home, domesticity, and gender roles in Victorian England. Her work complements recent studies, such as Michael Slater's Dickens and Women, which investigate the often symbiotic relationship between Dickens's personal domestic life and the sometimes idealized, sometimes denigrated concepts of marriage and the family which appear in his novels. It analyses what Domesticity meant to Dickens as metaphor and reality, and glances at the tensions surfacing in Dickens when real and ideal inevitably clash. Dickens has long been attacked for his nai:ve portrayals of 'good' heroines such as Agnes Wickfield in David Copperfield or Esther Summerson in Bleak House, and for his tacit acceptance of the 'angel in the house' syndrome. The counterpart of his naivety about 'good' women is his portrayal of 'bad' women who neglect the domestic sphere for activities rooted in egocentricity- Mrs Jellyby or Mrs Pardiggle. In between are such charming but essentially feckless and helpless characters as David Copperfield's mother or his young wife Dora. One recalls Lord David Cecil chastizing Charlotte Bronte for her inability to create believable male 128 LETTERS IN CANADA 1989 characters ('Serious male characters are always a problem for a woman novelist'), while he extols Dickens and Thackeray without raising the analogous question of the difficulty male novelists have in creating believable female characters. Armstrong creditably explores the reasons underlying Dickens's presentation of both the ideals and failures of marriage and the family. She views his weaknesses in this presentation as both symptomatic of the Victorian mindset on gender roles - the doctrine of 'separate spheres' elevated to a secular religion - and as emanating from his own peculiar family and marital history. Her analysis takes off from such earlier Dickens critics as George Orwell, whose classic essay sums up Dickens's social philosophy as focusing on humanity as one extended family: 'If men would behave decently the world would be decent.' She recognizes that Dickens assumes consensus among readers on the 'religion of home' and reinforces thatconsensus through the power ofwords. A deconstructionist would find evidence here for the view that much nineteenthcentury fiction has a hidden agenda to 'sell' bourgeois ideology. This, however, would be too reductive a reading unless one pays close attention to Dickens's many ambivalences. Armstrong's own work on dollhouse miniaturization seems to have heightened her awareness ofthe 'doll's house,' in Ibsen's terms, as both the essence of domesticity and the site of rebellion. 'Home at Its Best,' as Armstrong names her strong first chapter, affords for Dickens's characters a scope for action which can later be translated to 'the world beyond.' Armstrong notes the attraction of walls and roofs for these...

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