The Body Speaks A Study of Deformity in Select Victorian Novels

Abstract

The main objectives of the research are to study the range of social and cultural newlinemeanings attributed to the deformed body, construction of the identities of the deformed, newlineto interrogate the binary polarities: normal and abnormal, human and non human, ugly newlineand beautiful, and sexual and asexual and to analyse strategies of representation of newlinephysical difference. The research limits itself to the study of four novels written during newlinethe Victorian Period in Britain. They are: Charles Dickens s The Old Curiosity Shop newline(1841), Dinah Maria Mulock Criak s Olive (1850), Wilkie Collins s The Moonstone , newline(1868) and Robert Louis Stevenson s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde newline(1886). These works project indifferent, abhorrent and sympathetic attitudes towards the newlinedeformed. The deformed characters in these novels are neither mentally nor physically newlinechallenged. They are not dysfunctional in their respective societies. Hence, the research newlinedoes not deal with disability/differently abled in detail. It is limited to the study of bodily newlinedifferences which mar beauty according to the standards of beauty . newline