Bibliography: p. B.1-5.This thesis takes as its point of departure the analysis of a certain formal element which appears in narrative during the nineteenth century. It concentrates especially on the form this element takes in Dickens's works, particularly in Great Expectations, and in so doing it joins a large group of recent writings in which critics have tried to develop more flexible ideas about the formal structure of Dickens's novels than had been current before. This new focus of attention has been important, because Dickens presents the critic with certain problems which can only be overcome if he develops a fairly complex sense of what might constitute the novel form when Dickens is handling it
