Marking territory with London's East End: Arthur Morrison and the imagination of modern borders

Abstract

In their writings on London's East End slums at the end of the nineteenth century, contemporary urban planners, social reformers, and novelists often attributed many of the slum's social "evils" to the deeper problem of overcrowding. This thesis explores how overcrowding functions as an import ant narrative device in each of Arthur Morrison's own East End novels, A Child of the Jago, To London Town, and The Hole in the Wall. I argue that overcrowding contributes not only to violence and depravity among his characters, but also to their violation of the slum's topographical borders: the pressures of overcrowding ultimately disperse populations into outlying territories. This phenomenon is taken up paradigmatically in Morrison's later novels, yet in relation to London's larger metropolitan expansion. Attention to Morrison's progressive approaches to the city's shifting urban environment extends the critical application of his works from a distinctively "Victorian" one, to include a much broader history of representing London and the East End.