Atonement and Self-Sacrifice in Nineteenth-Century Narrative

Jan-Melissa Schramm explores the conflicted attitude of the Victorian novel to sacrifice, and the act of substitution on which it depends. The Christian idea of redemption celebrated the suffering of the innocent: to embrace a life of metaphorical self-sacrifice was to follow in the footsteps of Christ''s literal Passion. Moreover, the ethical agenda of fiction relied on the expansion of sympathy ...