Fielding, Dickens, Gosse, Iris Murdoch and Oedipal Hamlet

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In this work, the author uses literary theory to offer re-readings of various major texts. Hamlet is used as the key to understanding the psychological and narrative structures in the works discussed which include Tom Jones , Great Expectations and Father and Son . The question, why do Fielding’s Tom Jones and Dickens’ Pip in Great Expectations watch performances of Hamlet? , lead the author to re-examine these and the other texts. Combining insights drawn from neo-Freudian, feminist and post-structural critical practice with historical context, he reveals the extent to which Fielding and Dickens shaped these fictions in accordance with their perceptions of the Oedipal structure of Hamlet . He also shows how Hamlet raises the level of feminist consciousness in Fielding and Gosse and shows that for them, as well as for Dickens, the Ophelia icon is a sign of the possible redemption of women from patriarchial tyranny. The redemption of Ophelia is also, the author demonstrates, the triumphant theme of Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince , a study of sexual difference in which Murdoch impersonates the autobiographical voice of a middle-aged writer obsessed with Shakespeare’s play in order to try to rescue not just Ophelia, but the world of words for the woman writer.