Police Inadequacy and the Space of the City in British Fin de siècle Literature

Abstract

This thesis examines the representation of police in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century British literature. My analysis focuses on the relations between the subjects of the texts, as well as the texts themselves, and the institution of the police. I develop an understanding of the police as a compromised force of bureaucratic adjuncts who, in the conception of these Victorian texts, possess a troubling power over the bodies and spaces of British citizens. I discuss the multifarious anxieties about imperial and national decline during the period, and show how in all of my primary texts fears about the loyalties and effectiveness of police run parallel to fears for more traditionally Victorian modes of social control, such as class, charity, and the family. Also I examine the built space and social environment of fin de siècle London as it is constructed in these texts and show how they figure the capital as a space of alienation, danger, and degeneration. The combined investigation of the space and those who police it reveals serious concerns about justice and identity as meted out by an often-impersonal but increasingly interventionist state. The projects seeks to contribute to a larger cultural history of the police in order to better understand that institution which orders and arbitrates so much of modern life, and also seeks to articulate some of the concerns raised during the development of the modern welfare state.