Gender, family, and domestic ideology

Abstract

As the editorial manifesto he wrote in 1850 to accompany the first number of 'Household Words' indicates, Dickens had always aspired "to live in the Household affections, and to be numbered among the Household thoughts" of his readers. He saw himself as a prophet of the hearth, and his contemporaries hailed his reputation as the purveyor of cozy domestic bliss. As a reviewer of 'David Copperfield in Fraser's Magazine' wrote, "There is not a fireside in the kingdom where the cunning fellow has not contrived to secure a corner for himself as one of the dearest, and, by this time, one of the oldest friends of the family." This reviewer attributes Dickens's widespread popularity to "his deep reverence for the household sanctities, his enthusiastic worship of the household gods." Yet despite this reputation as the prophet of domestic bliss, any close examination of Dickens's novels reveals very few portraits of happy and harmonious families.