ABSTRACT
The way in which electricity and experimentation with it was represented involved confronting a range of obstacles, and not just scientific ones. Electricity's emergence is a literary and scientific phenomenon implicitly contests the opposition of the two spheres and supports, instead, the 'one culture' model. Electricity, in particular, represented an 'immaterial, conceptual space' that demanded new forms of spatial imagination', as well as an array of authorial purposes, intellectual exchanges, publication forums and genres. The speed and power of electricity makes it appropriate as a metaphor for emotional shocks and for fear. In Dombey and Son, electricity becomes the metaphor for a particularly interesting type of fear. Electricity denotes a disturbing nervousness and mental restlessness in characters, which also epitomised life's unpredictability. Electricity as a phenomenon provides a way in which to figure the invisible yet 'vital' power of metaphysical connectedness.
