Hunger and Food-Consumption Practices in Dickens’s Novels and Christmas Novellas: Political Implications and Social Critique

Abstract

This thesis examines the role of food and hunger in Charles Dickens’s literature, with its social, economic, and political implications: in particular, it focuses on food scenes in Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations and in the Christmas Novellas. The food topic as the object of (heated) political discussion is described in the first chapter: it proposes food as a connection between the local and the global, social problems at home, in England, and colonialism with global history and commodity history. The chapter also highlights the changes in food practices across different ages and social classes, as they had a great impact on Dickens’s work. The second chapter shifts the attention to the pervading food scarcity of the Victorian Era and how it especially affected children, portrayed as victims of power relations in Dickens’s novels. In the third chapter, the analysis focuses on the context of the family, describing female characters in Dickens, seen not only as providers of food, but also metaphorically configured as food themselves and as victims of eating disorders. The fourth section, then, highlights the importance of banqueting and Christmas traditions, not so much built on a “national” cuisine but rather on the goods of the empire. By dissecting these themes, the thesis aims to offer a new perspective on Dickens’s timeless insight into food matters and how the conditions he described still have an enduring impact today.