"Anno Dombey and Son":Charles Dickens'Imagination of British Sea Power
In Dombey and Son,Dickens participates in,in imaginary means or real life experience,the construction of British sea power,especially in the building of hegemony of British maritime trade:by shaping a gallery of characters of British businessmen and ordinary people that have been involved in a grand picture of the empire's booming maritime trade expansion,and further by rendering the gorgeous silhouette of the rich East India House and the contour of the prosperous City of London,Dickens not only fully demonstrates the reality of British hegemony of maritime trade over the world in the 19th century,but spreads through the novel the idea of sea power that"whosoever commands the sea commands the trade… and consequently the world itself".
Charles DickensDombey and Sonsea powermaritime tradehegemony