Economic Imperialism and Financial Citizenship
Reconsidering British Subjectivity in Martin Chuzzlewit and Lawrie Todd
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12553269 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jasper Schelstraete (0000-0003-3117-3572, corresponding author), Jennifer Scott (0000-0002-1438-4987, Simon Fraser University) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 87-100 |
| Publication date | 2014-11-05 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Victorian Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1355-5502 • E-ISSN: 1750-0133 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13555502.2014.974660 |
| OpenAlex | W1974665885 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 1 |
During the tumultuous time of financial and colonial expansion between 1825 and 1855, both Charles Dickens and John Galt published picaresque novels depicting transatlantic travel and land speculation. If emigration is the act of permanently leaving one's homeland and living in another, then neither novels' eponymous protagonist Martin Chuzzlewit nor Lawrie Todd is an emigrant. By reading Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44) and John Galt's Lawrie Todd (1830) alongside nineteenth-century developments of the geo-political and financial spheres, this article shows how these works form a counter-narrative to traditional novels of emigration. Both protagonists leave Britain with the explicit intent to seek their fortune in America through engagement with land speculation companies. Though the characters' experiences of transatlantic financial speculation is dichotomous (with Todd becoming rich and Chuzzlewit losing all he has), both characters ultimately return to Britain. In these counter-narratives, we argue that America is deployed as Britain's financial periphery, rather than an alternative imperial centre, working to entrench British nationalism through transatlantic financial speculation. It is through the act of returning from America that Dickens and Galt counter typified emigration narratives that represent the choice to emigrate to America as synonymous with abandoning the Empire for the 'Great Republic'. Instead, Dickens and Galt show how America can be exploited as a financial extension of Empire where Britons can maintain national loyalty while simultaneously responding to an unstable global financial market that was increasingly dependent upon speculation and foreign investment practices
Citizenship · Economics · Epistemology · Political science · Sociology · Subjectivity · Law · Philosophy · Political and Economic history of UK and US
| Citations per year | 0.11 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2017 - 2017 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |