RT Article
T1 Esther Summerson's Biblical Judgment: Queen Esther and the Fallen Woman in "Bleak House"
JF Religion & literature
VO 50
IS 3
SP 71
OP 93
A1 Carruthers, Jo
LA English
PB Dep.
YR 2018
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1693586029
AB In literary criticism to date, intertextual invocation of the biblical Queen Esther in the Victorian novel has been explained as one that invokes "womanly virtue." By drawing on the meanings that had accumulated around the name "Esther" in the Victorian period, this article argues instead for Queen Esther's significance in her identity as a sexual transgressor. Drawing on a range of Victorian novels that include an Esther character, the argument is applied more precisely to Charles Dickens's Bleak House (1852-3). Manifested in the protagonist's illegitimacy, sexual transgression makes Esther Summerson a quilting point for layers of biblical allusion to the fallen woman and judgment within Bleak House. Linked to John 8's woman caught in adultery and the novel's repeated invocation of apocalyptic judgment, attention to Queen Esther reveals the novel's negotiation of different kinds of judgment to avert condemnation of the fallen woman whilst underlining the need for the denunciation of social ills.
K1 CARRUTHERS, Jo
K1 ESTHER (Book)
K1 ESTHER, Queen of Persia
K1 Illegitimacy
K1 JUDGMENTS (Law)
K1 PROTAGONISTS (Persons)
K1 VICTORIAN Period, Great Britain, 1837-1901
DO 10.1353/rel.2018.0023