Abstract:
Dickens in his last finished novel
Our Mutual Friend provides a vivid picture of the middle classes in the mid-19th century. Dickens witnessed a time of transition when changes of the English society had been altering the static hierarchy of the past century. That society was not only a diversified and conflicted one but also one that progressed by yoking together these contradictions. Raymond Williams's culture theories are especially useful in examining this situation, where residual, emergent and dominant cultures interplay with each other. It helps to sort out a more clarified picture of middle-class cultures and in turn to observe Dickens's response to this cultural phenomenon.