One of the epochal changes in British literature is the shift from the mid-Victorian celebration of familial life, such as that found in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, to modernist
portrayals of alienation from the family and rejection of the moralizing and emotionalism of Victorian familialism such as embodied in Oscar Wilde's comment that "One must have a heart of stone
to read the death of Little Nell without laughing." Hatten (English, Bellarmine U.) investigates the decline of Victorian familialism as evidenced in the writings of Dickens, George Eliot, and
Henry James, who he sees as emblematic of the sudden shift in the Victorian portrayal of domesticity. He argues that this shift came about as writers responded to changing understandings of the
role of women in society and in the patriarchal family, particularly as related to rapid socioeconomic changes of industrialization. Annotation 穢2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
(booknews.com)
