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“Influence Of Locality” In Dickens, Austen, And Hardy: Placing Nineteenth-Century British Literature, Jessica Shapiro

English Honors Theses

Tim Cresswell explains in his book Place: A Short Introduction (2004) that “Place is how we make the world meaningful and the way we experience the world. Place, at a basic level, is space invested with meaning in the context of power” (19). In fiction, place influences how we experience a constructed narrative. In the nineteenth-century British novel, place becomes a part of the narrative, and the narrative, in turn, informs England’s geographical heritage making.

This exhibition explores how three nineteenth-century British authors—Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Thomas Hardy—use the natural geography of Southern England in various ways to affect …