Some explanation of this hard, real life : the problem of evil in mid-Victorian literature and culture

Abstract

[Exerpt from the final paragraph of the introduction, page 65] Likewise, the novels considered in the chapters that follow are not bound by a rationalist imperative, but articulate their responses to evil in creative and unstructured ways, through plot and metaphor rather than through constructing entirely cohesive theodicies. My analysis of these complex texts will necessarily leave out much that is peripheral to the study of the problem of evil. Nevertheless, I hope not only to reconstruct some of the ways in which this ancient problem has been treated from the perspective of those 'who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones', but to show also that an informed interpretation of a novel's vision of the meaning of evil can illuminate other aspects of the text.