The Duck-Billed Reader

The Duck-Billed Reader

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Shriek, Roar, and Rattle: Trains as Engines of Doom in Victorian Fiction
Charles Dickens makes a convincing case that the railway is taking us into the inferno.
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Claire Laporte
6
"Poor Mr. Casaubon": Narratorial Guidance and Reader Judgment in Middlemarch
How do narrative techniques affect our judgments about characters we like or dislike?
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Claire Laporte
17
All the World's a Stage—With Only One Player On It
How do one-actor shows change the meaning of the literature they're presenting?
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Claire Laporte
4

May 2025

Suspended in Time: Thomas Hardy and the Original Cliffhanger
A serialized novel written by Thomas Hardy leaves a character hanging off a cliff for a month - and inspires the coining of the term "cliffhanger."
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Claire Laporte
12
Writing the "Other": Jews in Trollope's Novels
Anthony Trollope's failure to represent Jewish characters without falling into stereotypes illustrates the difficulty of writing across difference.
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Claire Laporte
Shielding the Reader: "Fallen" Women and the Realist Victorian Novel
The Victorian realists tie themselves into knots when addressing the touchy subject of nonmarital sex.
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Claire Laporte
Antisemitism and Philosemitism: Jews in Dickens's Novels
Dickens's unsuccessful struggle to represent Jewish characters without falling into stereotypes illustrates the difficulty authors face when attempting…
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Claire Laporte
5
At the Edge of Death: Safety Coffins, Poe, and Dracula
What happens when the boundary line between life and death is blurry?
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Claire Laporte
3

April 2025

Love Triangles, Death, and Art in Dahl’s "Skin" and Wilde’s "Dorian Gray"
What is the true cost of art for those involved in its making?
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Claire Laporte
5
Narration and Voicelessness in The Woman in White
What is the impact of Wilkie Collins's multiple first-person narrators in The Woman in White?
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Claire Laporte
6
Some Writer: The Invisible Author in the Web
E.B. White on the power of writing
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Claire Laporte
9
The Art of the Deal: Not-Cinderella Stories from Charles Dickens
In some of Charles Dickens's novels, the real players in the marriage market are the parents of the bride.
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Claire Laporte
3
© 2025 Claire Laporte
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