Studies in the Novel, September 22nd, 1996
Florence Dombey in Charles Dickens' 'Dombey and Son' is a character created to be the perfect Victorian female, but her sentimental suffering makes her vulnerable to homoerotic desires because desire for and protective feelings about Florence's perfection are felt by other women. Florence's father, Paul Dombey, Sr., a wealthy shipping merchant, degrades Florence for surviving when his son and heir is dead. Florence's relationship with women results from the anxiety created by the postponement of Florence's proper ideological place in the heterosexual world. If Dombey and Son is a novel about ...
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