The Pawn-Shop as a Mediator between the Public and the Private Space
The Pawn-Shop as a Mediator between the Public and the Private Space

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to argue, from a cultural-historical and imagological perspective, that the pawn shop present in Fergus Hume’s novel Hagar of the Pawn-Shop represents a mediator between the public and the private spheres and that it reflects the anxieties which existed during the Victorian period regarding the possibility that the domestic space would be corrupted by the dangerous public sphere. As a result, the degradation of the private sphere and the public institutions of the public space was viewed as a sign that the British Empire would eventually collapse.

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