The eyes have it! Charles Dickens brought his detective characters to life by focussing on their eyes

In this video interview Dr Pablo Mukherjee, an expert in Victorian detective fiction from the University of Warwick’s English and Comparative Literary Studies department, talks to Professor Jon Mee about crime and the police in Charles Dickens’ novels.

For many, Charles Dickens’ Bleak House is considered to be one of the earliest detective novels to really grab people’s attention and start the love affair with the genre.

The novel was written shortly after the police force had been transformed into a credible institute, making a hot topic of conversion among his peers and the Victorian public in general.

Dickens had a deep interest in the development of the police force, leading him to become friends with Inspector Charles Field – the man who formed the basis for Bleak House’s Inspector Bucket.

Despite being friends with a prominent police officer of the time Dickens often used his literary licence to appeal to the masses, confusing what was real with what would make a good story.

In his novels it appears slightly different to how it goes in his non-fiction. His characters appear in a much more complicated and contradictory way.

Inspector Bucket is presented to us as this very effective, super detective but as it turns out his detection isn’t that effective as in the final climactic chase where he is trying to follow and detect Lady Deadlock he completely fails to intercept her with drastic consequences.

What’s really interesting about Dickens is whenever he writes about these new detective heroes of his, he focuses on their eyes. As a novelist he is very interested in how people look at each other and really the power of looking is what defines the new police for Dickens.

And this is what he writes about Inspector Fields, he focuses on his eyes and how he can detect the very souls of the people when he is looking at them.

Dr Pablo Mukherjee