Björn OellersCrisis of Liberalism – The Narrative of Charles Dickens’ Novels

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This study deals with the stabilising and dissolving tendencies of society. The basic approach is interdisciplinary, because the relationship between individual and society forms the focus both of the form of the novel, and of the theory of society.

The widely-known term neoliberalism implies two things: it relates to classic liberalism, and it claims to establish a new version. The former can be characterised by a fundamental contradiction, namely the glorification and destruction of the individual. This is shown by an analysis of English literature, notably by a close reading of novels written by Charles Dickens.

Liberalism sees the individual as a free being, and claims to usher in a historical period of freedom, peace and well-being for all. Dickens’ novels, however, draw a different picture. They not only present a panorama of social problems in the epoch of high liberalism. In chronological order they also describe a historical process. They show the emergence (Dombey and Son), peak (Bleak House), decay (Little Dorrit) and end (Our Mutual Friend) of liberalism. The result of this development is the world of Our Mutual Friend: where the characters treat one another as natural beings devoid of reason, while they take society as something that cannot be influenced, and therefore as an immutable living condition. Society is seen as a nature of its own, one that is independent of its members. This study also shows that Dickens’ novel Our Mutual Friend marks an important step of abstraction in comparison to his previous novels, because the nexus of society is not explained by means of a central instance, but rather it is deduced from the individual.

At the same time the four novels not only show the crisis of society and the destruction of the individual, but they show how a new kind of societal integration evolves. They mark the way from the crisis of liberalism to a new form of social integration in the following historical period: the Age of Imperialism.

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