Tuesday 27 October 2009
Dickens and Fairy Tales
Some interesting things, I thought, came out of yesterday's seminar; and I've blogged a few of them at The Valve. Check it out. [AR]
Diane Kutten, Response to Nussbaum
In her article ‘Steerforth’s Arm: Love and the Moral Point of View’, Martha Nussbaum asks the question of how it is possible that, just like David, we cannot help but love the character of James Steerforth. She leads us into her argument by suggesting that she herself was at the beginning rather critical towards the young man: ‘I felt that I had know long ago […] that he was simply not worthy of a good person’s love.’ Outraged that her daughter is infatuated with him, she resolves to re-read the book and thus prove that she is not prone to the same ‘immature reading’ of the book that her daughter committed. Despite this resolution, she has to admit that, at the end of the book, she has fallen for him as well: ‘I felt my heart […] rushing happily from the firmness of judgement into the eager volatility of desire.’ This first part of her argument is very important, as the reader cannot help but identify himself with her, and thus becomes interested in the question of the ‘why?’. Why is it that we do in fact sympathize with a character that is so clearly, as Nussbaum suggested, ‘not worthy of a good person’s love’?
Martha argues that there is not only the realm of the ‘daylight world’ but also a ‘darker’ one, ‘a world of shadows and spirits’. The distinction between these two worlds becomes central to her argument. This is indeed a very powerful point. As we have already seen last week in ‘The Autobiographical Fragment’, Dickens is fascinated with this ‘shadowy world’. Just like he hovers on the edge of both worlds when he uses parts of his own life in David Copperfield, we feel that he is entering it every time he engages with Steerforth. At this point, we might want to ask ourselves whether ‘The Autobiographical Fragment’ can be applied Dickens himself. David is obsessed with books; not only does he read them, but he actually imagines that he sees the protagonists of these novels in real life. Like Dickens, he dives into this other world, and thus, to him, the characters become, in a way, real. Steerforth is the ultimate example for this, everything about him belongs to this world of fancy. As opposed to that, Nussbaum gives us the example of Agnes, who is clearly part of the other, the ‘daylight’ world. Interesting here is the comparison of these two ‘angels’, good and bad, by means of their arm gestures. Martha’s point here is, that as long as we’re in the ‘daylight world’, the terms of morality apply, but as soon as we enter the ‘other’ world, they become suspended, which is the reason why we, as readers, cannot help but love Steerforth.
Even though her argument is very powerful, I’d like to think that there is more to it than that. Steerforth’s death is clearly central to the book. After the storm, David starts writing his autobiography. The fact that he is telling the story himself makes it possible for us to see into his head, his trail of thoughts becomes clear to us. Thus, we find that there are some hints to a homoerotic relationship between them. The fact that David is so attracted to the charm of this young man makes it impossible for us to argue with David’s feelings, as soon as we get to know him better and start feeling for him. Here, we come back to the more theoretical part of Martha Nussbaum’s argument about the ‘literary spectator’. Even though he cannot grasp love as a concept, the spectator can feel and hope for David, which makes him sympathize with him. It is the way David speaks about Steerforth, for instance, to the Pegotty family, that attract their attention to him, in the same way as it attracts ours. When they finally meet Steerforth, he indeed manages to live up to their expectations, just like he did with ours. Steerforth is a great character, but it is David who makes sure that he is valued as such not only by himself, but also by the reader.
Martha argues that there is not only the realm of the ‘daylight world’ but also a ‘darker’ one, ‘a world of shadows and spirits’. The distinction between these two worlds becomes central to her argument. This is indeed a very powerful point. As we have already seen last week in ‘The Autobiographical Fragment’, Dickens is fascinated with this ‘shadowy world’. Just like he hovers on the edge of both worlds when he uses parts of his own life in David Copperfield, we feel that he is entering it every time he engages with Steerforth. At this point, we might want to ask ourselves whether ‘The Autobiographical Fragment’ can be applied Dickens himself. David is obsessed with books; not only does he read them, but he actually imagines that he sees the protagonists of these novels in real life. Like Dickens, he dives into this other world, and thus, to him, the characters become, in a way, real. Steerforth is the ultimate example for this, everything about him belongs to this world of fancy. As opposed to that, Nussbaum gives us the example of Agnes, who is clearly part of the other, the ‘daylight’ world. Interesting here is the comparison of these two ‘angels’, good and bad, by means of their arm gestures. Martha’s point here is, that as long as we’re in the ‘daylight world’, the terms of morality apply, but as soon as we enter the ‘other’ world, they become suspended, which is the reason why we, as readers, cannot help but love Steerforth.
Even though her argument is very powerful, I’d like to think that there is more to it than that. Steerforth’s death is clearly central to the book. After the storm, David starts writing his autobiography. The fact that he is telling the story himself makes it possible for us to see into his head, his trail of thoughts becomes clear to us. Thus, we find that there are some hints to a homoerotic relationship between them. The fact that David is so attracted to the charm of this young man makes it impossible for us to argue with David’s feelings, as soon as we get to know him better and start feeling for him. Here, we come back to the more theoretical part of Martha Nussbaum’s argument about the ‘literary spectator’. Even though he cannot grasp love as a concept, the spectator can feel and hope for David, which makes him sympathize with him. It is the way David speaks about Steerforth, for instance, to the Pegotty family, that attract their attention to him, in the same way as it attracts ours. When they finally meet Steerforth, he indeed manages to live up to their expectations, just like he did with ours. Steerforth is a great character, but it is David who makes sure that he is valued as such not only by himself, but also by the reader.
Monday 26 October 2009
Megan Haddow, Response to Nussbaum's ‘Steerforth’s Arm: Love and the Moral Point of View’
Response to ‘Steerforth’s Arm: Love and the Moral Point of View’ by Martha Nussbaum
It seems to me that the premise of Nussbaum’s article is a defence of Steerforth’s character and conduct. Nussbaum claims that the reader, like Copperfield, falls deeply in love with Steerforth despite Dickens’ attempts to portray him as a villain or a ‘bad Angel’(p.313). Instead she sees Steerforth as inhabiting an alternate world, a shadow land or dream world, in which he can exist with ‘Daisy’. This world is conjured by Steerforth and David in the secrecy and mystery which surrounds their friendship, and David has access to it through his ‘shadowy sister’ (Nussbaum, p.348) Betsey Trotwood, the female he should have been born as who exists in the dream world permanently. In contrast to Copperfield’s ‘other angel’ Steerforth, Nussbaum attacks Agnes as the ‘Angel of Death’ (Nussbaum, p.359), claiming that she is linked closely to death in the novel and that she is unlovable and unattractive as a character.
I am not convinced by Nussbaum’s interpretation of Steerforth’s character and his friendship with David. I feel she is glossing over the homoerotic undertones in her conviction that Steerforth and Daisy inhabit a shadow land. The relationship between the two boys clearly contains elements of a sexual nature, and these are evident even from their first meeting. One of the first things Copperfield notes about Steerforth is that he is ‘very good-looking’ (p.76) and he is anxious to please him from this moment on. The attraction appears to be mutual and Steerforth immediately lays claim on Copperfield: ‘You belong to my bedroom, I find’ (p.76). From this moment we are led through the progression and development of this close and often touching relationship between the two boys, but there are undertones of sexual desire throughout.
The secrecy and mystery that surrounds the boys’ friendship, as noted by Nussbaum, does not signify a secret world, but a secret shared between them of homosexual desire. These first stages of the relationship affected David so acutely that he is transported back to these first moments of excitement simply by the memory of them:
Of course Copperfield purports to “fall in love” many a time throughout the novel, but these infatuations appear to attach themselves to any available and half-attractive woman that is present in David’s life. He claims to have feelings for Littl Em’ly, Miss Dartle, the eldest Miss Larkins, Dora, Agnes and several more besides. These feelings, therefore, cannot be considered to be true love as they appear to be inspired in David far too readily to earn that status. Instead they are mere entertainments, distractions even, to employ his public affection through a channel that is morally and socially acceptable to those around him. His fantasies with other women are merely a decoy, which is why he feels the need to attach himself to at least one at any point in his life, even from when he is a small boy.
Even in describing his love for these women, Copperfield appears to be trying to convince himself of his feelings. This is evident in his proclamation of love for Emily:
His love for Steerforth, however, is prevalent throughout, and no one ever replaces him in David’s affections. Even Steerforth’s own actions and elopement with Emily cannot shake Copperfield’s strong and determined love for him: ‘You have no best to me Steerforth …and no worst. You are always equally loved and cherished in my heart’ (p.373). Nussbaum suggests that the reader rejoices in this claim and sympathises with Copperfield’s feelings here. It seems, however, that we are led to believe that Steerforth is a bad influence on Copperfield, and perhaps that his influence on Copperfield is the reason for his homosexual persuasion and that this is an amoral path to have chosen.
Copperfield’s susceptibility is highlighted throughout the novel; he is always very small and vulnerable, he always has decisions made for him, he is almost a puppet in his own life. This is displayed most clearly in the scene in which his waiter manages to manipulate him easily into giving him most of his food and drink. Steerforth seems particularly aware of this trait of David’s, and he can be seen to act upon his vulnerability right from the start, when he takes all of Copperfield’s money. He also states later that he ‘feel[s] as if [David] were [his] property’ (p.250) and possessively nicknames him ‘my dear Daisy’ (p.250). The feminine nickname given to David also hints at an erotic relationship between the two of them, but one in which Steerforth is dominant and Copperfield is submissive.
Agnes represents the other side of the spectrum to that of Steerforth; she is presented as Copperfield’s ‘good Angel’ (p.313) and as a morally upright influence upon his character. Agnes warns David away from Steerforth:
Nussbaum claims that Agnes’ ‘gesture’ (Nussbaum, p.358) is upward-pointing, and she claims it is a symbol of her link with death and heaven. It can also be viewed, however, as a symbol of her moral righteousness, of her social acceptability and her desire to help Copperfield remain upright in his morals and society. If Agnes represents all that is moral and upright, Steerforth represents all that is sordid and low, suggesting public attitudes to homosexual activity at the time. The fact that Copperfield marries Agnes at the end, whereas Steerforth is sent away like the ‘fallen woman’ and then found dead, endorses this idea of homosexuality as unacceptable both in the novel and in society at the time.
Perhaps one of the most telling points in the novel on this topic is the meeting between Copperfield and Steerforth’s mother and Miss Dartle. Here, despite her high esteem of Steerforth, his mother worries that ‘her son led but a wild life at college’ (p.251). This could be taken to imply a number of forms of misbehaviour or mischief until Miss Dartle takes up the conversation:
Nussbaum’s claims then that the reader falls in love with Steerforth seem completely unfounded and I certainly found myself almost repelled by this character until I studied the homosexual nature of his relationship with David and therefore came to realise that Dickens was perhaps deliberately making Steerforth repellent. We are led to see Steerforth as a bad influence upon the moral and social character of David Copperfield, and to admire Agnes who endeavours to keep David morally and socially upright throughout. It is clear, however, where Copperfield’s real affections lie throughout the novel. Despite the many heterosexual fancies he publicly admits, it is the secret desires and feelings David harbours for Steerforth that remain the example of true love in the novel.
Bibliography:
Dickens, Charles, David Copperfield (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1999).
Nussbaum, Martha, ‘Steerforth’s Arm: Love and the Moral Point of View’, Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
It seems to me that the premise of Nussbaum’s article is a defence of Steerforth’s character and conduct. Nussbaum claims that the reader, like Copperfield, falls deeply in love with Steerforth despite Dickens’ attempts to portray him as a villain or a ‘bad Angel’(p.313). Instead she sees Steerforth as inhabiting an alternate world, a shadow land or dream world, in which he can exist with ‘Daisy’. This world is conjured by Steerforth and David in the secrecy and mystery which surrounds their friendship, and David has access to it through his ‘shadowy sister’ (Nussbaum, p.348) Betsey Trotwood, the female he should have been born as who exists in the dream world permanently. In contrast to Copperfield’s ‘other angel’ Steerforth, Nussbaum attacks Agnes as the ‘Angel of Death’ (Nussbaum, p.359), claiming that she is linked closely to death in the novel and that she is unlovable and unattractive as a character.
I am not convinced by Nussbaum’s interpretation of Steerforth’s character and his friendship with David. I feel she is glossing over the homoerotic undertones in her conviction that Steerforth and Daisy inhabit a shadow land. The relationship between the two boys clearly contains elements of a sexual nature, and these are evident even from their first meeting. One of the first things Copperfield notes about Steerforth is that he is ‘very good-looking’ (p.76) and he is anxious to please him from this moment on. The attraction appears to be mutual and Steerforth immediately lays claim on Copperfield: ‘You belong to my bedroom, I find’ (p.76). From this moment we are led through the progression and development of this close and often touching relationship between the two boys, but there are undertones of sexual desire throughout.
The secrecy and mystery that surrounds the boys’ friendship, as noted by Nussbaum, does not signify a secret world, but a secret shared between them of homosexual desire. These first stages of the relationship affected David so acutely that he is transported back to these first moments of excitement simply by the memory of them:
A certain mysterious feeling, consequent on the darkness, the secrecy of the revel, and the whisper in which everything was said, steals over me again. (p.77)The excitement of the secrecy that the boys are sharing is linked to the thrill of the nature of their relationship. Steerforth comes to educate Copperfield that ‘that were all right which [Copperfield] had a secret misgiving was nearly all wrong’ (p.77). Being a great deal older than David Steerforth introduces him to these secrets and feelings and he comes to see that his desires are not shameful.
Of course Copperfield purports to “fall in love” many a time throughout the novel, but these infatuations appear to attach themselves to any available and half-attractive woman that is present in David’s life. He claims to have feelings for Littl Em’ly, Miss Dartle, the eldest Miss Larkins, Dora, Agnes and several more besides. These feelings, therefore, cannot be considered to be true love as they appear to be inspired in David far too readily to earn that status. Instead they are mere entertainments, distractions even, to employ his public affection through a channel that is morally and socially acceptable to those around him. His fantasies with other women are merely a decoy, which is why he feels the need to attach himself to at least one at any point in his life, even from when he is a small boy.
Even in describing his love for these women, Copperfield appears to be trying to convince himself of his feelings. This is evident in his proclamation of love for Emily:
Of course I was in love with little Em’ly. I am sure I loved that baby…I am sure my fancy raised up something round that blue-eyed mite of a child, with etherealised, and made a very angel of her. (p.36)The repetition of ‘I am sure’ serves the opposite purpose of convincing us that David is particularly unsure of his feelings towards Emily, and his conviction that ‘of course’ he loves her suggests that he knows he should rather than that he actually does.
His love for Steerforth, however, is prevalent throughout, and no one ever replaces him in David’s affections. Even Steerforth’s own actions and elopement with Emily cannot shake Copperfield’s strong and determined love for him: ‘You have no best to me Steerforth …and no worst. You are always equally loved and cherished in my heart’ (p.373). Nussbaum suggests that the reader rejoices in this claim and sympathises with Copperfield’s feelings here. It seems, however, that we are led to believe that Steerforth is a bad influence on Copperfield, and perhaps that his influence on Copperfield is the reason for his homosexual persuasion and that this is an amoral path to have chosen.
Copperfield’s susceptibility is highlighted throughout the novel; he is always very small and vulnerable, he always has decisions made for him, he is almost a puppet in his own life. This is displayed most clearly in the scene in which his waiter manages to manipulate him easily into giving him most of his food and drink. Steerforth seems particularly aware of this trait of David’s, and he can be seen to act upon his vulnerability right from the start, when he takes all of Copperfield’s money. He also states later that he ‘feel[s] as if [David] were [his] property’ (p.250) and possessively nicknames him ‘my dear Daisy’ (p.250). The feminine nickname given to David also hints at an erotic relationship between the two of them, but one in which Steerforth is dominant and Copperfield is submissive.
Agnes represents the other side of the spectrum to that of Steerforth; she is presented as Copperfield’s ‘good Angel’ (p.313) and as a morally upright influence upon his character. Agnes warns David away from Steerforth:
It is very bold in me ... who have lived in such seclusion and can know so little of the world, to give you my advice so confidently, or even to have this strong opinion…I am certain that what I say is right. I am quite sure it is…when I caution you that you have made a dangerous friend. (p.314)Agnes’ stress on her innocence and inability to understand here hints at something unmentionable and even sordid in the issue she is addressing. It seems Agnes suspects the true nature of the relationship between Steerforth and Copperfield and is attempting to lead him away from it as his moral guide.
Nussbaum claims that Agnes’ ‘gesture’ (Nussbaum, p.358) is upward-pointing, and she claims it is a symbol of her link with death and heaven. It can also be viewed, however, as a symbol of her moral righteousness, of her social acceptability and her desire to help Copperfield remain upright in his morals and society. If Agnes represents all that is moral and upright, Steerforth represents all that is sordid and low, suggesting public attitudes to homosexual activity at the time. The fact that Copperfield marries Agnes at the end, whereas Steerforth is sent away like the ‘fallen woman’ and then found dead, endorses this idea of homosexuality as unacceptable both in the novel and in society at the time.
Perhaps one of the most telling points in the novel on this topic is the meeting between Copperfield and Steerforth’s mother and Miss Dartle. Here, despite her high esteem of Steerforth, his mother worries that ‘her son led but a wild life at college’ (p.251). This could be taken to imply a number of forms of misbehaviour or mischief until Miss Dartle takes up the conversation:
You know how ignorant I am, and that I only ask for information, but isn’t it always so? I thought that kind of life was on all hands understood to be – eh? (p.252)The rest of the conversation continues with plenty of gaps and silences whenever such subject as is being discussed is to be mentioned. This silence suggests that the subject is something unspeakable, something not to be mentioned in society and something that is only assumed and hinted at, much like the homoerotic nature of Steerforth and Daisy’s relationship. Miss Dartle appears to be voicing her observations and concerns without ever stating overtly what she is actually suggesting.
Nussbaum’s claims then that the reader falls in love with Steerforth seem completely unfounded and I certainly found myself almost repelled by this character until I studied the homosexual nature of his relationship with David and therefore came to realise that Dickens was perhaps deliberately making Steerforth repellent. We are led to see Steerforth as a bad influence upon the moral and social character of David Copperfield, and to admire Agnes who endeavours to keep David morally and socially upright throughout. It is clear, however, where Copperfield’s real affections lie throughout the novel. Despite the many heterosexual fancies he publicly admits, it is the secret desires and feelings David harbours for Steerforth that remain the example of true love in the novel.
Bibliography:
Dickens, Charles, David Copperfield (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1999).
Nussbaum, Martha, ‘Steerforth’s Arm: Love and the Moral Point of View’, Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Thursday 22 October 2009
Dickens and Autobiography response
Michael Englefield, 'A response to Ferguson-Carr's 'A Wild Beast and its Keeper'
Jean Ferguson-Carr has a very revealing insight into Dickens’s use of autobiography in his work. She writes of an author so seemingly reserved, one who “fear[ed]… releasing too much of himself” yet who “had a pressing autobiographical urge”. Her argument seems to tread the fine line between these two perspectives on Dickens’s life, personality and work; for Ferguson-Carr on the one hand he seems an incredibly private character due to a fear of “losing control of his ‘life’, both the written and lived versions” and yet on the other hand she accuses him of having a “powerful ego” who felt that he was a “public institution”. These two opinions surely need to be reconciled in some way through his works, particular David Copperfield and the posthumously published autobiographical fragment, yet the accounts of Dickens’s early years spent in the blacking factory and the accounts of the eventually-orphaned David Copperfield can be strikingly similar as well as strikingly different.
Perhaps the key aspect of the argument is the fact that David Copperfield was actually finished and published while Dickens was still alive, and yet the autobiographical fragment had to be published by someone else after his death. Though this may have been Dickens’s express wish, perhaps feeling that the mortification of having what he himself describes as a humiliating period of his life made so public given that he was, as Ferguson-Carr rightly asserts, a public institution and known to all, one cannot help but wonder why he was so able to complete David Copperfield, which was based on the intimate details of his early life, and not his own autobiography. Dickens himself admitted, according to Ferguson-Carr, that there was a “connection between David’s life and his own”, yet there was apparently not enough of a connection to treat his own life story the way he treated not only David’s but also the stories of countless other characters in his fiction.
In John Forster’s The Life of Charles Dickens (the handout) the accounts that Forster claims as Dickens’s own are littered with real-life people that he has consumed into his fiction: a boy at the blacking factory accidentally christened ‘Poll’ made his way into Martin Chuzzlewit; Dombey and Son’s Mrs Pipchin arose from an amalgamation of two elderly women that had been his landladies; an orphan girl in the debtors’ prison became the Marchioness from The Old Curiosity Shop and he borrowed the name of another blacking factory co-worker and gave it to Oliver Twist’s Fagin. The fact that he was so willing to borrow from real life experiences, not just for the names of his characters but also, in the case of David Copperfield, for large parts of the plot shows his willingness to share, albeit covertly, aspects of his life with the general public through his fiction. Despite this appropriation of his life experiences into his fiction, however, Dickens appears to blench at actually composing the real thing; Ferguson-Carr speaks of his fear of “dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world” which, unlike the mere hints and suggestions at his own life in his fiction, would perhaps be too much for Dickens to bear. This ‘shadowy world’ of his writing seems to be composed of “floating ideas” according to an account Ferguson cites in her article; perhaps his own real life experiences were just too tangible, too real, to be committed to paper in the way the experiences of his other characters are.
Ferguson-Carr closes are article with the assertion that the biography of Dickens “both revealed [him] and suggested the ominous nature of what still lay concealed”. This seems an appropriate way to conclude. Dickens interwove his work with real-life experiences, and even wrote part of an autobiography on his early life, yet there is always the sense that Dickens seems to be holding back some part of himself from being published, some part to keep personal to himself, his intimate friends and family. The “shadowy world” of the written word could be seen as Dickens’s obsession, given the sheer volume of work that he published in his lifetime yet also, especially when we learn that he burned an account of an adolescent love-interest of his, it could be seen as his greatest fear. To lose himself in the world belonging to his characters was something Dickens seemed desperate to save himself from, though he flirts closely with that danger in the real-life details of David Copperfield, the shadowy world of the written word was something Dickens never let his entire self fall into.
Jean Ferguson-Carr has a very revealing insight into Dickens’s use of autobiography in his work. She writes of an author so seemingly reserved, one who “fear[ed]… releasing too much of himself” yet who “had a pressing autobiographical urge”. Her argument seems to tread the fine line between these two perspectives on Dickens’s life, personality and work; for Ferguson-Carr on the one hand he seems an incredibly private character due to a fear of “losing control of his ‘life’, both the written and lived versions” and yet on the other hand she accuses him of having a “powerful ego” who felt that he was a “public institution”. These two opinions surely need to be reconciled in some way through his works, particular David Copperfield and the posthumously published autobiographical fragment, yet the accounts of Dickens’s early years spent in the blacking factory and the accounts of the eventually-orphaned David Copperfield can be strikingly similar as well as strikingly different.
Perhaps the key aspect of the argument is the fact that David Copperfield was actually finished and published while Dickens was still alive, and yet the autobiographical fragment had to be published by someone else after his death. Though this may have been Dickens’s express wish, perhaps feeling that the mortification of having what he himself describes as a humiliating period of his life made so public given that he was, as Ferguson-Carr rightly asserts, a public institution and known to all, one cannot help but wonder why he was so able to complete David Copperfield, which was based on the intimate details of his early life, and not his own autobiography. Dickens himself admitted, according to Ferguson-Carr, that there was a “connection between David’s life and his own”, yet there was apparently not enough of a connection to treat his own life story the way he treated not only David’s but also the stories of countless other characters in his fiction.
In John Forster’s The Life of Charles Dickens (the handout) the accounts that Forster claims as Dickens’s own are littered with real-life people that he has consumed into his fiction: a boy at the blacking factory accidentally christened ‘Poll’ made his way into Martin Chuzzlewit; Dombey and Son’s Mrs Pipchin arose from an amalgamation of two elderly women that had been his landladies; an orphan girl in the debtors’ prison became the Marchioness from The Old Curiosity Shop and he borrowed the name of another blacking factory co-worker and gave it to Oliver Twist’s Fagin. The fact that he was so willing to borrow from real life experiences, not just for the names of his characters but also, in the case of David Copperfield, for large parts of the plot shows his willingness to share, albeit covertly, aspects of his life with the general public through his fiction. Despite this appropriation of his life experiences into his fiction, however, Dickens appears to blench at actually composing the real thing; Ferguson-Carr speaks of his fear of “dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world” which, unlike the mere hints and suggestions at his own life in his fiction, would perhaps be too much for Dickens to bear. This ‘shadowy world’ of his writing seems to be composed of “floating ideas” according to an account Ferguson cites in her article; perhaps his own real life experiences were just too tangible, too real, to be committed to paper in the way the experiences of his other characters are.
Ferguson-Carr closes are article with the assertion that the biography of Dickens “both revealed [him] and suggested the ominous nature of what still lay concealed”. This seems an appropriate way to conclude. Dickens interwove his work with real-life experiences, and even wrote part of an autobiography on his early life, yet there is always the sense that Dickens seems to be holding back some part of himself from being published, some part to keep personal to himself, his intimate friends and family. The “shadowy world” of the written word could be seen as Dickens’s obsession, given the sheer volume of work that he published in his lifetime yet also, especially when we learn that he burned an account of an adolescent love-interest of his, it could be seen as his greatest fear. To lose himself in the world belonging to his characters was something Dickens seemed desperate to save himself from, though he flirts closely with that danger in the real-life details of David Copperfield, the shadowy world of the written word was something Dickens never let his entire self fall into.
Tuesday 20 October 2009
Steerforth
Did you know that eminent contemporary philosophy Martha Nussbaum has fallen in love ('rushing into the eager volatility of desire') with Steerforth, from David Copperfield? No? Read this essay, 'Steerforth's Arm: Love in the Moral Point of View' from her celebrated collection Love's Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (1990). [If the link doesn't work for you, either type 'Steerforth's Arm' into the 'search this book' box on the left hand side of the page, or else scroll down and click on the 'contents' page at the bottom].
Monday 19 October 2009
Moretti, Wilson
Here are some links on the critical texts we talked about in today's seminar. First, here's the Google books version of Franco Moretti's Way of the World: the Bildungsroman and European Culture (1987; English translation Verso 2000); you can read a good proportion of it there. It's a much fuller, and more complex text than I was, perhaps, giving the impression when we discussed it, but its core thesis -- that the Bildungsroman is essentially the narrative of youth -- is certainly relevant for David Copperfield:
We also discussed Edmund Wilson's long essay 'Dickens: the Two Scrooges', which is definitely worth a browse. This doesn't seem to be online anywhere, but you'll find it in the library; it was collected in a volume called The Wound and the Bow.
Achilles, Hector, Ulysses: the hero of the classical epic is a maure man, an adult. Aeneas, carrying away a father by now too old, and a son too young, is the perfect embodiment of the symbolic relevance of the 'middle' stage of life ... but with the first enigmatic hero of modern times, it falls apart. According to the text Hamlet is thirty years old: far from young by Renaissance standards. But our culture, in choosing Hamlet as its first symbolic hero, has 'forgotten' his age, or rather has had to alter it, and picture the Prince of Denmark as a young manTwelve, I think, was Michael's judgement in class today. Moretti goes on to talk more specifically about the novel as a mode:
The decisive thrust in this sense was made by Goethe, and it takes new shape, symptomatically, precisely in the work that codifies the new paradigm and sees youth as the most meaningful part of life: Wilhelm Meister. This novel was simultaneously the birth of the Bildungsroman (the form which will dominate or, more precisely, make possible the Golden Century of Western narrative) and of a new hero: Wilhelm Meister, followed by Elizabeth Bennet and Julien Sorel, Rastignac and Frederic Moreau and Bel-Ami, Waverley and David Copperfield ... [p.3]There's our boy. The 'Golden Century of Western narrative' is the nineteenth-century, of course; Moretti has a theory that the Bildungsroman faltered after the first-world war, although I don't think that's right, personally. Check out the link on Wilhelm Meister if you're interested in those novels.
We also discussed Edmund Wilson's long essay 'Dickens: the Two Scrooges', which is definitely worth a browse. This doesn't seem to be online anywhere, but you'll find it in the library; it was collected in a volume called The Wound and the Bow.
Monday 12 October 2009
Week 4: Copperfield and the 'Autobiographical Fragment'
Today I want to discuss the autobiographical aspects of David Copperfield; and to that end I've given you the 'Autobiographical Fragment' that John Forster published in his Life of Dickens (1870-71). Both the fragment and the whole life (well worth reading) are available in many locations online: the former here, the latter here for instance.
There's also a good deal of criticism on the Autobiogaphical aspect of Dickens's novel. One of the best, I think, is Jean Ferguson Carr's 'Dickens and Autobiography: a Wild Beast and its Keeper' ELH 52:2 (Summer 1985), 447-69.
Also of interest is Barbara Gelpi's 'The Innocent I: Dickens' Influence on Victorian Autobiography' (in Jerome Buckley, The Worlds of Victorian Fiction, Harvard University Press, 1975).
If you're interested in the actual biographical context out of which Dickens wrote this novel, then Graham Storey and K. J. Fielding's edition of The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume Five: 1847-1849 is absolutely invaluable. You'll find a copy of this in the library; and here's a review of that monument of Dickensian scholarship.
See also Annette R. Federico 'David Copperfield and the Pursuit of Happiness', Victorian Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 69-95.
There's also a good deal of criticism on the Autobiogaphical aspect of Dickens's novel. One of the best, I think, is Jean Ferguson Carr's 'Dickens and Autobiography: a Wild Beast and its Keeper' ELH 52:2 (Summer 1985), 447-69.
Also of interest is Barbara Gelpi's 'The Innocent I: Dickens' Influence on Victorian Autobiography' (in Jerome Buckley, The Worlds of Victorian Fiction, Harvard University Press, 1975).
If you're interested in the actual biographical context out of which Dickens wrote this novel, then Graham Storey and K. J. Fielding's edition of The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume Five: 1847-1849 is absolutely invaluable. You'll find a copy of this in the library; and here's a review of that monument of Dickensian scholarship.
See also Annette R. Federico 'David Copperfield and the Pursuit of Happiness', Victorian Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 69-95.
Two responses to 'The Dickens Drama: Mr. Dombey' by Ian Milner
1. Sophia Hussain, ‘Response to "The Dickens Drama: Mr. Dombey" by Ian Milner’
Milner’s 1970 essay attempts to refute the charge that Dickens’ work is ‘theatrical art’ and not concerned with the hidden drama of moral choice. He shows how Dombey’s inner conflict is dramatically articulated at important points in his life and implies that the successful presentation of Dombey’s inner tension overrides the conventionalised character of Florence and Edith’s melodramatic portrayal.
The essay is a direct response to Henry James’ argument that Dickens ‘was incapable of effectively treating the inner life’. James argued that Dickens was unable to see and unable to present what was ‘beneath the surface of things’ and that he added nothing to our understanding of the human character. James’ argument is that Dickens’ art was not ‘serious art’ because he did not dramatise moral choice in the inner life of an individual’s consciousness. Milner accepts that Dickens did not concern himself with ‘intellectual inquiry, self-analysis, and debate’ and that there is a lack of insight to what Mr Dombey is thinking – we don’t see Dombey doing any reflecting, nor does Dickens analyse Dombey’s state of mind. Instead, Milner argues, Dickens exposes Dombey’s personality by ‘providing dramatic intensity and vividness of focus’ at ‘nodal’ points in the action i.e. it is the things that Dombey says and does that reveal his inner self and its motivations. We are not given a linear sense of a development of Dombey’s character: Dickens himself said that Dombey does not undergo ‘violent change… A sense of injustice is within him, all along’; rather we are presented with a series of dramatic elucidations and it is the cumulative effect of this which gives us the insight into Dombey’s inner life. Milner looks at certain instances where Dickens is successful in characterising Dombey without having to reveal his ‘inner life’.
In the opening chapter of the novel we are given minimal descriptive information about Dombey and it is his actions that suggest the kind of person he is. Milner quotes the sentence about Dombey with his ‘heavy gold watch-chain’ and shows how it has a metonymic quality where it focuses our attention on Dombey’s euphoric pride. Milner shows that even though little has been authorially said about him, his personality has still been exposed. This, he argues, is how Dickens is not just responsible for ‘theatrical art’: Dickens is not a ringmaster standing in between the audience and the character; rather Dombey is at centre-stage from the very beginning. It is his actions and words that show us the man.
Chapter 18 is a key chapter where we see Dickens’ skill in using scene to ‘suggest inner qualities’. At the funeral, we do not get any indication of Dombey’s thoughts but the inscription on the grave: ‘beloved and only child’ gives away so much in the sense of pathos about his obsessive pride in his son and his heir. There is also significance when Florence goes to visit her father on the night when she has been told he is to leave the next morning and his door is slightly open. On her previous nightly visits, ‘the door was ever closed and he shut up within’. This leads to Florence being afraid of the ‘something’ in her father’s face and significantly Dickens does not offer any analysis and interpretation. This indicates that Dombey himself is not aware of his new darker feelings towards his daughter and shows his conflicting impulses and genuine suffering. Milner argues that this chapter is shows the ‘hand not of any ‘theatrical’ manipulator of externalised characters but that of the born dramatist who matches control of stage and scene with searching insight into basic human motivations’.
Dickens uses the dramatic mode to show Dombey’s inner workings: in chapter 47 when he strikes Florence after Edith’s elopement, his suddenly unleashed violence dramatically reveal his ‘interlocked sexual frustration, jealousy, and rage’. But as Milner points out Dickens does not just rely on the dramatic mode. In Chapter 40, he points out the natural shift from the authorial stance to free indirect speech has the ‘advantages of dramatic immediacy and authentic expression of Dombey’s tortured rationalizing’. The same chapter also allows us to see how important narration is in the presentation of character: the passage he uses as an example shows how the atmospheric and suggestive power of the narration presents the conflict between husband and wife. The visual detail Dickens uses complements the narrative and brings the issue into sharper focus. Finally, Dickens’ denouement concentrates on the inner life of Dombey’s self-conflict and its resolution, rather than the social framework. Milner concludes that Dickens vividly catches the ‘felt life’ of the human journey that breaks Dombey’s pride ‘not as theatrical manipulation but as the objective revelation of great art’.
I found this to be quite an interesting approach to Dombey and Son, especially as when I read it, I noticed the lack of ‘depth’ in Dombey, so to speak. Until I read this essay, I was inclined to side with Henry James’ conclusion that the lack of insight into Dombey’s interiority was a negative thing. However, after reading Milner’s essay it is easy to see how through the use of rhetoric and its metonymic quality, scenes which suggest phases of character and motivation, dramatising without analysis, free indirect style, narration with visual detail and a focus on the individual in the closing scenes create the insight into Dombey we crave. I think Dickens does provide some interior insight when he uses free indirect speech as Dombey’s thoughts slip into the narration. I agree with the assertion that a character is better presented through their actions, what they do and say defines them. This seems to be true in real life – our subconscious actions tend to reflect our true personalities and feelings: ‘Character is shown in action; the mode is kinetic’.
2. Sarah Anstee ‘The Dickens Drama: Mr. Dombey’: A Response
The principle argument for Milner‘s essay is that the character of Mr Dombey is successfully created through Dickens’s use of scene and action, as opposed to the creation of a character that relies on our insight into their ’inner life’. Milner, therefore, describes Dombey as a ‘test case for Dickens’s art’. As persuasive as Milner’s argument is, one cannot help but question his thesis that a successful character can be built on their scenes and actions alone. For a reader to fully engage with and understand a character, especially one like Mr. Dombey, surely an insight into their inner life is crucial?
Milner starts then by quoting both Henry James and G. H. Lewes, who argue that ’Dickens was incapable of effectively treating the inner life’ and that ’ Dickens sees and feels, but the logic of feeling seems the only logic he can manage. Thought is strangely absent from his works’. Like Milner, one can agree that ’thought’ is a tricky word and that it is not completely void in Dickens’s characters, but, there still remains the tension of: ’How will Dombey’s character develop if the reader is given no insight into these thoughts?’.
Milner argues that ‘Character is shown in action’ and that Dickens is only truly concerned with Dombey’s motivation and the different elements that dominate it. Milner contends that:
Another small point to think about in Milner’s essay is his constant reference to the ’suggestiveness’ of Dombey’s character. Should we question Milner’s analysis of Dombey as a successful character, whose characteristics are only ever suggested at and never clearly shown to the reader? Or, should we take on board Milner’s argument and acknowledge that a lot can be gained about Dombey through mere suggestions? Milner cites the passage in the novel where Florence is outside her father’s door, where ‘the door was ever closed, and he shut up within’. Here, this particular scene is very suggestive of Dombey’s character and images of immurement are constantly recurring throughout the novel. But, does this scene tell us anything new about Dombey that allows the reader to see a growth or development in his character? It seems that Dickens is hiding something from the reader that suggestiveness cannot tell. Like Florence, is not arguable that they are both longing for a sense of Dombey’s inner life?
Milner’s argument can be seen from many different perspectives depending on what a reader expects from an author. Some readers, such as Milner, are content with the fact that Dickens does not give us an insight or a sense of Dombey’s inner life and that a lot of his character is dependant on suggestiveness and a close attention to scene and action. For example, when Milner argues that the watch has a metonymic quality and is thereby standing in for the character of Mr. Dombey himself. Suggestiveness, however, can never be for certain, cannot something also suggest something else? On the other hand, other readers may find that a closer and deeper sense of Dombey’s inner life would have made his secretive and reclusive character more understandable. As such, I contend that after reading Dombey and Son, the reader resorts to empathising with Florence and cannot help feeling just like her, in that they were always left standing on the other side of a locked door, longing to be let in.
Milner’s 1970 essay attempts to refute the charge that Dickens’ work is ‘theatrical art’ and not concerned with the hidden drama of moral choice. He shows how Dombey’s inner conflict is dramatically articulated at important points in his life and implies that the successful presentation of Dombey’s inner tension overrides the conventionalised character of Florence and Edith’s melodramatic portrayal.
The essay is a direct response to Henry James’ argument that Dickens ‘was incapable of effectively treating the inner life’. James argued that Dickens was unable to see and unable to present what was ‘beneath the surface of things’ and that he added nothing to our understanding of the human character. James’ argument is that Dickens’ art was not ‘serious art’ because he did not dramatise moral choice in the inner life of an individual’s consciousness. Milner accepts that Dickens did not concern himself with ‘intellectual inquiry, self-analysis, and debate’ and that there is a lack of insight to what Mr Dombey is thinking – we don’t see Dombey doing any reflecting, nor does Dickens analyse Dombey’s state of mind. Instead, Milner argues, Dickens exposes Dombey’s personality by ‘providing dramatic intensity and vividness of focus’ at ‘nodal’ points in the action i.e. it is the things that Dombey says and does that reveal his inner self and its motivations. We are not given a linear sense of a development of Dombey’s character: Dickens himself said that Dombey does not undergo ‘violent change… A sense of injustice is within him, all along’; rather we are presented with a series of dramatic elucidations and it is the cumulative effect of this which gives us the insight into Dombey’s inner life. Milner looks at certain instances where Dickens is successful in characterising Dombey without having to reveal his ‘inner life’.
In the opening chapter of the novel we are given minimal descriptive information about Dombey and it is his actions that suggest the kind of person he is. Milner quotes the sentence about Dombey with his ‘heavy gold watch-chain’ and shows how it has a metonymic quality where it focuses our attention on Dombey’s euphoric pride. Milner shows that even though little has been authorially said about him, his personality has still been exposed. This, he argues, is how Dickens is not just responsible for ‘theatrical art’: Dickens is not a ringmaster standing in between the audience and the character; rather Dombey is at centre-stage from the very beginning. It is his actions and words that show us the man.
Chapter 18 is a key chapter where we see Dickens’ skill in using scene to ‘suggest inner qualities’. At the funeral, we do not get any indication of Dombey’s thoughts but the inscription on the grave: ‘beloved and only child’ gives away so much in the sense of pathos about his obsessive pride in his son and his heir. There is also significance when Florence goes to visit her father on the night when she has been told he is to leave the next morning and his door is slightly open. On her previous nightly visits, ‘the door was ever closed and he shut up within’. This leads to Florence being afraid of the ‘something’ in her father’s face and significantly Dickens does not offer any analysis and interpretation. This indicates that Dombey himself is not aware of his new darker feelings towards his daughter and shows his conflicting impulses and genuine suffering. Milner argues that this chapter is shows the ‘hand not of any ‘theatrical’ manipulator of externalised characters but that of the born dramatist who matches control of stage and scene with searching insight into basic human motivations’.
Dickens uses the dramatic mode to show Dombey’s inner workings: in chapter 47 when he strikes Florence after Edith’s elopement, his suddenly unleashed violence dramatically reveal his ‘interlocked sexual frustration, jealousy, and rage’. But as Milner points out Dickens does not just rely on the dramatic mode. In Chapter 40, he points out the natural shift from the authorial stance to free indirect speech has the ‘advantages of dramatic immediacy and authentic expression of Dombey’s tortured rationalizing’. The same chapter also allows us to see how important narration is in the presentation of character: the passage he uses as an example shows how the atmospheric and suggestive power of the narration presents the conflict between husband and wife. The visual detail Dickens uses complements the narrative and brings the issue into sharper focus. Finally, Dickens’ denouement concentrates on the inner life of Dombey’s self-conflict and its resolution, rather than the social framework. Milner concludes that Dickens vividly catches the ‘felt life’ of the human journey that breaks Dombey’s pride ‘not as theatrical manipulation but as the objective revelation of great art’.
I found this to be quite an interesting approach to Dombey and Son, especially as when I read it, I noticed the lack of ‘depth’ in Dombey, so to speak. Until I read this essay, I was inclined to side with Henry James’ conclusion that the lack of insight into Dombey’s interiority was a negative thing. However, after reading Milner’s essay it is easy to see how through the use of rhetoric and its metonymic quality, scenes which suggest phases of character and motivation, dramatising without analysis, free indirect style, narration with visual detail and a focus on the individual in the closing scenes create the insight into Dombey we crave. I think Dickens does provide some interior insight when he uses free indirect speech as Dombey’s thoughts slip into the narration. I agree with the assertion that a character is better presented through their actions, what they do and say defines them. This seems to be true in real life – our subconscious actions tend to reflect our true personalities and feelings: ‘Character is shown in action; the mode is kinetic’.
2. Sarah Anstee ‘The Dickens Drama: Mr. Dombey’: A Response
The principle argument for Milner‘s essay is that the character of Mr Dombey is successfully created through Dickens’s use of scene and action, as opposed to the creation of a character that relies on our insight into their ’inner life’. Milner, therefore, describes Dombey as a ‘test case for Dickens’s art’. As persuasive as Milner’s argument is, one cannot help but question his thesis that a successful character can be built on their scenes and actions alone. For a reader to fully engage with and understand a character, especially one like Mr. Dombey, surely an insight into their inner life is crucial?
Milner starts then by quoting both Henry James and G. H. Lewes, who argue that ’Dickens was incapable of effectively treating the inner life’ and that ’ Dickens sees and feels, but the logic of feeling seems the only logic he can manage. Thought is strangely absent from his works’. Like Milner, one can agree that ’thought’ is a tricky word and that it is not completely void in Dickens’s characters, but, there still remains the tension of: ’How will Dombey’s character develop if the reader is given no insight into these thoughts?’.
Milner argues that ‘Character is shown in action’ and that Dickens is only truly concerned with Dombey’s motivation and the different elements that dominate it. Milner contends that:
Dickens’s primary mode is to show us Dombey […] at a series of nodal points in the action.He then develops this by asserting:
Character, and inner growth, is evoked and suggested by the discontinuous, selective “picturing” of high points of experience. There is not the linear sense of character development depending on the knowledge and insights derived from continuous authorial or other mediation. Rather an intermittent series of dramatic illuminations imply and suggest instead of interpreting and defining.With the lack of any authorial input into Dombey’s inner life, one is again faced with the predicament of how to successfully create a character that a reader can fully understand and connect with. Milner does come up with a convincing method by focusing on the nodal points throughout the novel that allow Dombey’s character to grow. However, one of the only reserves with this method is that one could argue that it makes Dombey’s character seem like a playing piece in a board game. Dickens is moving this particular character (Dombey) along to different nodal points throughout the novel, but just because a character is moving does that necessarily mean they are growing and developing? Dickens needs to get Dombey to the final ‘square’ on the board, the reconciliation of his relationship with Florence, and Milner’s method of characterisation through nodal points sees him arrive there, but again, the successfulness is questionable. One is not arguing that every thought and emotion Dombey feels needs to be accounted for, but a deeper insight into his inner life, that goes beyond his actions, could have made his character more successful (meaning in this case, the ability of the reader to be able to understand, identify and sympathise with).
Another small point to think about in Milner’s essay is his constant reference to the ’suggestiveness’ of Dombey’s character. Should we question Milner’s analysis of Dombey as a successful character, whose characteristics are only ever suggested at and never clearly shown to the reader? Or, should we take on board Milner’s argument and acknowledge that a lot can be gained about Dombey through mere suggestions? Milner cites the passage in the novel where Florence is outside her father’s door, where ‘the door was ever closed, and he shut up within’. Here, this particular scene is very suggestive of Dombey’s character and images of immurement are constantly recurring throughout the novel. But, does this scene tell us anything new about Dombey that allows the reader to see a growth or development in his character? It seems that Dickens is hiding something from the reader that suggestiveness cannot tell. Like Florence, is not arguable that they are both longing for a sense of Dombey’s inner life?
Milner’s argument can be seen from many different perspectives depending on what a reader expects from an author. Some readers, such as Milner, are content with the fact that Dickens does not give us an insight or a sense of Dombey’s inner life and that a lot of his character is dependant on suggestiveness and a close attention to scene and action. For example, when Milner argues that the watch has a metonymic quality and is thereby standing in for the character of Mr. Dombey himself. Suggestiveness, however, can never be for certain, cannot something also suggest something else? On the other hand, other readers may find that a closer and deeper sense of Dombey’s inner life would have made his secretive and reclusive character more understandable. As such, I contend that after reading Dombey and Son, the reader resorts to empathising with Florence and cannot help feeling just like her, in that they were always left standing on the other side of a locked door, longing to be let in.
Thursday 8 October 2009
Gender and Juvenile Criminality in Oliver Twist: Response
Alice Gayle, 'Response to Larry Wolff article: Gender and Juvenile Criminality in Oliver Twist.'
The premise for Wolff’s sometimes outlandish assertions about the precise nature of crime in Oliver Twist is the idea of ‘cryptic delinquency’. That is, rather than reading only the obvious crimes that Dickens portrays in the novel, largely thievery and prostitution, one might guess at what is more obliquely inferred, and that more mysterious, and certainly disturbing criminal activity is also present. Wolff initially cites Dickens’s 1841 preface to Oliver Twist, highlighting what he feels might exist surreptitiously in Dickens’s language as he talks of ‘unavoidable inference’. Yet while Wolff pushes the point that the censure of more than just swearing is present in the novel, it seems hard to believe Dickens is also suggesting the idea of the ‘boys…as prostitutes’. After all, Dickens seems to find it shocking enough to break it to the reader the obvious natures of his criminal characters:
An important textual reference for Wolff is in Nancy’s words, following her kidnap of Oliver from Brownlow and his return to Fagin. In an outburst, she cries that Oliver will be ‘a thief, a liar, a devil, all that’s bad’ from that day on, in the company of Fagin, Sikes and co. Wolff takes this breakdown of specificity of description, from ‘thief’ to ‘all that’s bad’ as evidence for some other, unutterable vice. Yet this may be attributed simply to her loss of articulation in her passion, rather than hinting at something worse than devilish. There is scope for the idea that vice cannot help but associated with sexuality after a point, yet there is something unashamedly comforting in the idea that while Fagin may be crooked, greedy, bullying, even violent, he would never stoop to a level of indecency which if it were widely broadcast, would make sinister, even inappropriate reading. Wolff further uses some historical material to show the contextual presence of the boy-prostitute, yet it is undeniable that this was not as commonly regarded as the woman or girl prostitute.
After again quibbling some specific ‘language of criminality’ which might give some clue as to what type of juvenile crime Oliver is really caught up in, Wolff picks up on the emphasis on Oliver’s looks in the text. Fagin favours Oliver for his looks, this is true, yet it is more persuasive that Oliver’s beautiful, innocent looks (as his register of speech) are a symptom of his true place in a better society than the one he is dragged into, rather than as a some obscure means of sexual allurement. After all, it is not only Fagin who comments on Oliver’s looks; he is used as a mourner by Mr Sowerberry early on in the novel in consequence of them. In addition, Wolff suggests that Oliver’s particular ‘spiritual agony’, according with his looks and character, at being made a thief, also implies ‘that there is more at stake than stealing’.
Following this, Wolff discusses various contextual testaments to houses of corruption that existed in the 1830s, in which ‘diabolical practices’ took place, involving both males and females. He links this to further evidence about the ‘illicit sexual lives of Victorian men’, and more broadly to relationships between gentlemen and young boys both contextually and specifically in Oliver Twist. Again, Wolff implies the possibility of untoward relations taking place, yet the idea is dependent on the ‘if’ clause, i.e. this can only be the case ‘if’ criminal inferences extend to sexual vices. Therefore it seems that even Wolff is hesitant to suggest that Brownlow, if not Fagin’s, interest in Oliver in any way oversteps the paternal. It cannot be denied that a deliberate depiction of such crime written in by a philanthropic, gentleman-like author fond of children is somewhat grotesque.
Wolff’s final point in his defence of ‘cryptic delinquency’ regards the ‘sexualisation of Oliver’s innocence’. He draws on the imagery of Oliver asleep, for example, and the significance of the older, male eyes upon him (Fagin and Monks at the window in a memorable scene). Yet as even Wolff points out, the interpretation of Oliver as an object of titillation to the ‘respectable gentlemen within the text’ is only secondary to what this must force the reader to do, i.e. engage in ‘a possibly pornographic relation to the innocent child’ – abject and unlikely.
As such, the article uses some persuasive arguments regarding the nature of the criminal world Dickens portrays in Oliver Twist. However, despite the use of historical documents to bolster his hypotheses on this issue, it seems that there is little concrete evidence in the text to fully support such ideas. While it is true that Dickens is often vague about the gritty details (as well as the swearing) that actually take place in the criminal underworld of the novel, it is difficult to believe that he is hinting at such sexual vice in a text that already exposes what he considered ‘shocking circumstance and ‘degraded aspect’.
[Comments please: what do you think of Wolff's argument, and Alice's response?]
The premise for Wolff’s sometimes outlandish assertions about the precise nature of crime in Oliver Twist is the idea of ‘cryptic delinquency’. That is, rather than reading only the obvious crimes that Dickens portrays in the novel, largely thievery and prostitution, one might guess at what is more obliquely inferred, and that more mysterious, and certainly disturbing criminal activity is also present. Wolff initially cites Dickens’s 1841 preface to Oliver Twist, highlighting what he feels might exist surreptitiously in Dickens’s language as he talks of ‘unavoidable inference’. Yet while Wolff pushes the point that the censure of more than just swearing is present in the novel, it seems hard to believe Dickens is also suggesting the idea of the ‘boys…as prostitutes’. After all, Dickens seems to find it shocking enough to break it to the reader the obvious natures of his criminal characters:
It is, it seems, a very shocking circumstance, that some of the characters in these pages are chosen from the most criminal and degraded of London’s population; that Sikes is a thief, and Fagin a receiver of stolen goods; that the boys are pick-pockets, and the girl is a prostitute.Dickens seems to save the worst confession, regarding Nancy, until last, as if to break it to the reader gravely and gently. The idea of his going beyond what he already feels is ‘vilest evil’ to crime that may well cause mass offence and disgust in readers (Wolff suggests pederasty, involving Fagin himself), seems far-fetched. Wolff indicates that Dickens’s reliance on inference amounts to a freedom of interpretation in the novel, yet what he seems to imply is that anything may then be possible, regardless of little evidence.
An important textual reference for Wolff is in Nancy’s words, following her kidnap of Oliver from Brownlow and his return to Fagin. In an outburst, she cries that Oliver will be ‘a thief, a liar, a devil, all that’s bad’ from that day on, in the company of Fagin, Sikes and co. Wolff takes this breakdown of specificity of description, from ‘thief’ to ‘all that’s bad’ as evidence for some other, unutterable vice. Yet this may be attributed simply to her loss of articulation in her passion, rather than hinting at something worse than devilish. There is scope for the idea that vice cannot help but associated with sexuality after a point, yet there is something unashamedly comforting in the idea that while Fagin may be crooked, greedy, bullying, even violent, he would never stoop to a level of indecency which if it were widely broadcast, would make sinister, even inappropriate reading. Wolff further uses some historical material to show the contextual presence of the boy-prostitute, yet it is undeniable that this was not as commonly regarded as the woman or girl prostitute.
After again quibbling some specific ‘language of criminality’ which might give some clue as to what type of juvenile crime Oliver is really caught up in, Wolff picks up on the emphasis on Oliver’s looks in the text. Fagin favours Oliver for his looks, this is true, yet it is more persuasive that Oliver’s beautiful, innocent looks (as his register of speech) are a symptom of his true place in a better society than the one he is dragged into, rather than as a some obscure means of sexual allurement. After all, it is not only Fagin who comments on Oliver’s looks; he is used as a mourner by Mr Sowerberry early on in the novel in consequence of them. In addition, Wolff suggests that Oliver’s particular ‘spiritual agony’, according with his looks and character, at being made a thief, also implies ‘that there is more at stake than stealing’.
Following this, Wolff discusses various contextual testaments to houses of corruption that existed in the 1830s, in which ‘diabolical practices’ took place, involving both males and females. He links this to further evidence about the ‘illicit sexual lives of Victorian men’, and more broadly to relationships between gentlemen and young boys both contextually and specifically in Oliver Twist. Again, Wolff implies the possibility of untoward relations taking place, yet the idea is dependent on the ‘if’ clause, i.e. this can only be the case ‘if’ criminal inferences extend to sexual vices. Therefore it seems that even Wolff is hesitant to suggest that Brownlow, if not Fagin’s, interest in Oliver in any way oversteps the paternal. It cannot be denied that a deliberate depiction of such crime written in by a philanthropic, gentleman-like author fond of children is somewhat grotesque.
Wolff’s final point in his defence of ‘cryptic delinquency’ regards the ‘sexualisation of Oliver’s innocence’. He draws on the imagery of Oliver asleep, for example, and the significance of the older, male eyes upon him (Fagin and Monks at the window in a memorable scene). Yet as even Wolff points out, the interpretation of Oliver as an object of titillation to the ‘respectable gentlemen within the text’ is only secondary to what this must force the reader to do, i.e. engage in ‘a possibly pornographic relation to the innocent child’ – abject and unlikely.
As such, the article uses some persuasive arguments regarding the nature of the criminal world Dickens portrays in Oliver Twist. However, despite the use of historical documents to bolster his hypotheses on this issue, it seems that there is little concrete evidence in the text to fully support such ideas. While it is true that Dickens is often vague about the gritty details (as well as the swearing) that actually take place in the criminal underworld of the novel, it is difficult to believe that he is hinting at such sexual vice in a text that already exposes what he considered ‘shocking circumstance and ‘degraded aspect’.
[Comments please: what do you think of Wolff's argument, and Alice's response?]
Monday 5 October 2009
Mid-Victorian Railways
Next week, as I mentioned in class, I want to talk about the representation of the railways in Dombey and Son. There's a wealth of material, most of it historical (or economic history) about the mid-century Railway boom -- the 'Railway Mania' that's the immediate background to Dickens's novel. Half an hour in the library will turn up all sorts of things; half an hour trawling google will turn up even more. But here are a couple of specific links:
Check out Ian Carter's Railways and culture in Britain: the epitome of modernity (Studies in popular culture: Manchester University Press, 2001), especially the chapter on Dombey and Son (p.71f.)
Also worth looking at is Michael J. Freeman, Derek H. Aldcroft (eds), Transport in Victorian Britain (Manchester University Press ND, 1991).
Incidentally, the rather splendid image at the head of this post is sourced from the Museum of London website. This is what they say about it:
George Cruikshank, 'The Railway Dragon' [Etching] A steam engine belching steam and smoke has invaded a dining room where a family had gathered to eat a Christmas meal. Its human arms hold forks with which to seize a roast of beef and a plum pudding. Chairs are overturned by fleeing terrified children, a baby lies in an upset highchair and his mother screams 'Oh! the Monster!'. The father clutches his forehead crying 'Oh! my beef! and oh! my babbies!!!' The engine intones 'I come to dine, I come to sup/I come, I come..to eat you up. From 'The Table Book', a part work by G. Cruikshank. This etching alludes to the crash in value of railway stock in 1845/6.Isn't it lovely?
There's also this famous image:
Some Dombey Links
Interesting discussion in the class today about father-son relationships in culture, and the reason why they're so often mediated by death. Please add in the comments below any thoughts you had in seminar but didn't get round to saying, or any thoughts you've had since. (If you're having trouble commenting -- and I think you need a gmail or blogger account to do it -- email me the comments and I shall post them).
Here are a few things of interest re: Dombey and his relationship to his son.
David Lee Miller, 'Charles Dickens: a Dead Hand at a Baby', in Dreams of the Burning Child: Sacrificial Sons and the Father's Witness (Cornell University Press, 2003) Google books has most of this chapter, and some of the rest of the book. This whole monograph is interesting, actually: Miller identifies what he calls 'the formal embarrassment of fatherhood's inability to represent itself' through the frequent and core cultural representation of common sacrifice as the bond between father and son: he looks at the Aeneid, Hamlet, The Winter's Tale and Dombey and Son.
Ian Milner, 'The Dickens Drama: Mr. Dombey', Nineteenth-Century Fiction, (Vol. 24, No. 4, The Charles Dickens Centennial Mar., 1970), pp. 477-487. [JSTOR] Interesting if slightly old fashioned article on the extent to which Dickens can successfully characterise Dombey without giving us any sense of his 'inner life'.
Anne Humpherys, 'Dombey and Son: Carker the Manager' Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Mar., 1980), pp. 397-413. [JSTOR] Reads Carker as 'a Gothic hero-villain.'
And here's a recent (well: 2003) overview of the state of Dickens criticism more generally: some stuff on Dombey and Son although the focus is broader.
Here are a few things of interest re: Dombey and his relationship to his son.
David Lee Miller, 'Charles Dickens: a Dead Hand at a Baby', in Dreams of the Burning Child: Sacrificial Sons and the Father's Witness (Cornell University Press, 2003) Google books has most of this chapter, and some of the rest of the book. This whole monograph is interesting, actually: Miller identifies what he calls 'the formal embarrassment of fatherhood's inability to represent itself' through the frequent and core cultural representation of common sacrifice as the bond between father and son: he looks at the Aeneid, Hamlet, The Winter's Tale and Dombey and Son.
Ian Milner, 'The Dickens Drama: Mr. Dombey', Nineteenth-Century Fiction, (Vol. 24, No. 4, The Charles Dickens Centennial Mar., 1970), pp. 477-487. [JSTOR] Interesting if slightly old fashioned article on the extent to which Dickens can successfully characterise Dombey without giving us any sense of his 'inner life'.
Anne Humpherys, 'Dombey and Son: Carker the Manager' Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Mar., 1980), pp. 397-413. [JSTOR] Reads Carker as 'a Gothic hero-villain.'
And here's a recent (well: 2003) overview of the state of Dickens criticism more generally: some stuff on Dombey and Son although the focus is broader.
Dombey and Daughter
Two contemporary reactions to the big success of Dombey. The first is reprinted in Dickens: the Critical Heritage ... a popular Punch-like magazine called The Man in the Moon published an 'Inquest on the late Master Paul Dombey', which is interesting:
Thou art gone from our counter,And here's something rather different, if related: my account of Renton Nicholson's unauthorised sequel to Dombey and Son, Dombey and Daughter: you'll see, if you click that link, how tangential this book is to Dickens, a desperate attempt to cash-in on the enormous success of the original tale.
Thou are lost to our pocket
Thou hast fallen, brief meteor,
Like spark of a rocket.
New numbers appearing
Fresh interest may borrow,
But we go on "oh dearing,
For Paul there's no morrow!"
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