Charles Dickens's Our Mutual Friend: Hope for the future arising from heaps of dust

찰스 디킨스의 "우리 모두의 친구": 쓰레기 더미에서 보이는 미래에 대한 희망

This paper attempts to prove Dickens's hopeful view of the future in his last completed novel Our Mutual Friend. This novel has been usually regarded as one of the "dark" novels, "dark" in the sense of viewing social reality and the future negatively. However, although it has the dark descriptive color of society typical in Dickens's later novels, it still contains some elements that point to a better future. To prove this positive view of future, this paper will disentangle the intricate narrative structure of Our Mutual Friend and find out the true meaning of the dust--money. In addition, it will investigate how people react to dust(-like money). From a close study of several characters' lives, it will testify that the dark world of Our Mutual Friend, in the end, could be a world of regeneration, a world that will lead to a better future.