Ioana Boghian

Houses in Victorian Novels: A Semiotic Approach Ioana Boghian

Approaching the house as a sign of identity from a semiotic point of view supports investigating the way in which a house signifies on different levels. The cultural and semiotic approach to the concept of the Victorian house helps analyse aspects such as: the house as a cultural product of a certain society in a certain age; the interactions and relationships between inhabitants and guests; the Victorian house as both a private and public space; interactions and relationships among inhabitants and/or between inhabitants and outsiders as indicators of social, domestic and moral hierarchies.

Semiotics, the main approach applied in this study, supports in crossing the boundaries of academic disciplines. A psychological approach to the house would have provided only the possibility of connecting the concept of the house with the inner life of a character; semiotics allows not only this, but also to see the way in which the Victorians' interpretation of the house is reflected in their cultural and social practices, as well as their evolution as individuals. Analysing the house as a semiotic object supports the identification of cultural spaces and cultural paradigms, social and domestic roles and positions as part of the house's process of signification and the way in which the resulted meaning is communicated to readers by means of Victorian novels.

With these purposes in mind, the author has structured the book into chapters focused on different aspects related to the concept of the house: the semiotic approach reveals the concept of the house as a triadic relationship, functioning either as an iconic, symbolic or indexical sign in relation to its inhabitants; the cultural approach applied to the concept of name and naming houses reveals criteria for the act of naming, as well as types of house-names and their origins; the semiotic approach to the relationships established within the Victorian house enables the elaboration of a classification of houses, owners, inhabitants and guests into subjects, objects and agents; the concept of relatedness is discussed as an act of signifying (everything within and outside a house generates meaning); the relationship between nature and culture is analysed as another element of the signification process which contributes to constructing the identity of a Victorian house and its inhabitants; through semiopoetics, the author has addressed the concept of the house as a metaphor for the text and for the human body; the ekphrastic representation of houses highlights the function of paintings and portraits of characters in Victorian houses and novels.