Charles Dickens. 1846-48. (May – September 2013)
Although this is not one of Dickens’ more well-known novels, and it is described as problematic, I found it quite engrossing and rewarding. Certainly, it does not have the lightheartedness of some of Dickens’ other novels, and in the psychological complexity, it reminded me more of Henry James than of Dickens. Chronologically, it comes just before his more mature biographical books, and looks like a step towards those books.
The story
of Paul Dombey junior, who has a sad life and dies early, is sentimental,
although Dickens shows his skill in touching the reader in such a simple story.
The story of Paul Dombey senior is sadder in his (almost) life-long arrogance,
pride and emotional withdrawal. His sentimental turn at the end is undeserved,
merely the contrivance needed to make the Victorian readers buy the next issue.
The story
of Mrs. Dombey, although heavily contrived as well, is the set-up needed to
explore the relationship between Dombey and those around him. She is excluded
from power by the social mores of the time, and escapes only be running away
with her cousin, but the psychological fight between her and her husband is
epic. It makes the pain, fury and frustration of her situation clear, and could
stand as an early look at women’s property and marital rights, much like the
Galsworthy saga did much later.
The story
of Florence, Dombey’s daughter, is the emotional centre of the story, although
a highly idealized one, weakened for a modern audience by her flawless purity
and self-sacrifice. In spite of that, a reader has to sympathize with her as a
lonely, motherless child who wants only to get some recognition from her father
but who is completely ignored by him. When she is used as a tool to poison and
manipulate the life of her step-mother, you have to feel for her emotional
anguish, and feel relief when she is finally able to leave the family home and
find a blissful life with her true love.
The minor
characters, as in the best of Dickens, are droll and entertaining caricatures.
Their sub-plots are not very credible, but they lighten a tone that would
otherwise be very somber, and they also give a social context in which the
psychological drama of the main characters has to be understood.
This was a
long slow read, but I enjoyed coming back to it and felt some sadness as it
came to its final end.
