The artistic interpretation of characters' spiritual world in charles dickens's "Hunted down"

Abstract

This article examines Charles Dickens's short story "Hunted Down" (1859) as a significant contribution to Victorian detective literature that transcends conventional genre boundaries. Through close textual analysis, this study demonstrates that Dickens transforms a narrative of crime into a sophisticated examination of conscience, morality, and spiritual identity. The analysis reveals how Dickens employs detective conventions to illuminate the psychological and spiritual dimensions of both heroic virtue and criminal corruption, creating a text that functions as both popular fiction and serious moral inquiry. This research contributes to understanding Dickens's distinctive fusion of detective narrative with spiritual-moral concerns characteristic of Victorian literature.