Dickens’ın David Copperfield Adlı Eserinde ve Viktoryen Kültüründe Hizmetçiler

Öz

Viktoryen devrin orta sınıf ailesi, sınıf kimliğini tanımlamak üzere hizmetçiler tutmuştur. Dönemin ideolojisi, hizmetçilerin varlıklarını hissettirmemesini gerektirirdi, böylece mahrem alan kamusal alandan ayrılmış olurdu. Bütün iş alametlerinin ailesel alandan silinmesi gerektiği için, hizmetçiler göze batmamalılardı. Aynı zamanda, kültürel hayal gücünde, Viktoryenler, işçi sınıfı kadınlara belirgin vücutlar, orta sınıf kadınlara ise zarif bir hafiflik atfettiler. Charles Dickens’s romanı David Copperfield, romanla aynı adı taşıyan anlatıcının hizmetçi tasvirleri aracılığıyla bu toplumsal cinsiyet ve sınıf ideolojilerine tepki gösterir. David, hizmetçilerin belirginliğini patronların sınıf hiyerarşisindeki yerine göre belirlemek suretiyle, bu diktelere hem uyar hem karşı çıkar. Peggotty, Littimer, ve romandaki diğer hizmetçiler gösterir ki, David’in anlatı süreci onun içsel ruhsal ihtiyaçları ve sınıf ideolojisinin dayatmaları arasında geçen bir pazarlık sonucu şekillenir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Charles Dickens,David Copperfield,Sosyoekonomik Sınıf,Evcimenlik,Hizmetçiler

Servants in Dickens’s David Copperfield and Victorian Culture

Öz

The Victorian middle class kept servants to define their identity as middle class. The ideology of the period dictated that servants must not make their presence felt, so that the private sphere may be properly separated from the public one. Traces of business must be effaced from the domestic space, so servants must not be conspicuous. At the same time, the Victorians ascribed to working-class women conspicuous bodies in their cultural imaginary and their middle-class counterparts appeared ethereal. Charles Dickens’s novel David Copperfield responds to these gender and class ideologies through its eponymous narrator’s portrayal of servants. David conforms to and challenges these norms by correlating the servants’ visibility to their masters’ place in the class hierarchy. Peggotty, Littimer, and other servants in the novel show that the process of narration for David reflects a negotiation between his spontaneous psychic needs and the impositions of class ideology.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Charles Dickens,David Copperfield,Class,Servants,Domesticity

Kaynakça

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