Abstract
This article explores the unique role of Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna's Helen Fleetwood (1841), one of the first social-problem novels, in shaping the concerns and strategies of the genre. Writing at a moment of cultural change in the attitude toward children, Tonna's Blakean vision of child labor as diabolical allows her to offer a daring critique of social institutions. Yet her political vision is inconsistent: although she redeems the working-class child's point of view and rehumanizes this figure, Tonna's staging of child labor as originating in a metaphysical, divine plan leads her to construct children's suffering as a justifiable and even desirable ethos.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 783-801 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | SEL - Studies in English Literature |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2011 |
| Externally published | Yes |
