Social Anxiety and Anti-Chinese Sentiments in the 19th-Century Britain: Reading Dickens' Unfinished Novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood in the Context of Opium Trade

Abstract

Abstract: Dickens' representation of opium-smoking and London's opium dens in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, the novel that was left unfinished upon his death, is worth exploring in depth. Also, his portrayal of several rarely featured Chinese characters in the novel may carry multiple racial and historical implications. Dickens, who frequently took laudanum during his twilight years and, therefore, was keenly aware of opium's peril, exposes its harmful effects implicitly in the novel by describing the symptoms of Princess Puffer and Jasper. Since the First Sino-British Opium War, news reports about opium dens and opium addicts had frequently appeared in British newspapers, which reflected the simmering social anxieties and intensifying anti-Chinese sentiments in England at that time. These reports imaginatively constructed and stigmatized Chinese stereotypes in an effort to scapegoat the Chinese in Britain for white Britons' exposure and addiction to opium smoking. An analysis of the representation of opium and Chinese characters in the novel can provide us a unique perspective into the profound historical background of the Sino-British opium trade and the two Opium Wars.

Key words: Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, opium trade

Ning Yiyang. Social Anxiety and Anti-Chinese Sentiments in the 19^th-Century Britain: Reading Dickens' Unfinished Novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood in the Context of Opium Trade[J]. Foreign Literature Studies, 2021, 43(1): 141-151.

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Social Anxiety and Anti-Chinese Sentiments in the 19^th-Century Britain: Reading Dickens' Unfinished Novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood in the Context of Opium Trade

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