Parentage and Inheritance in the Novels of Charles Dickens

Dickens' plots have often been dismissed as conventional or cheaply sensational: Anny Sadrin argues that they should rather be seen as the embodiment of one of Dickens's central preoccupations: dramatised rituals of succession. Through readings of individual texts Professor Sadrin shows how the simple pattern of quest for father which characterises Oliver Twist develops in Dickens's later novels into an extended exploration of the triple inheritance of looks, name and property. Increasing intricacies of plot represent growing tension between conflicting forces in the parent–child relationship: the wish to belong and the wish to break free, the quest for identity and the fear of shameful identification, the filial piety of Telemachus and the patricidal yearnings of Oedipus. Throughout, Dickens is using plot to account for the complex process of reinstatement and revaluation which enables rightful heirs to take their rightful place in the family and society.