Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens: a summary of the plot

The Chuzzlewit family is introduced at a gathering at the home of Seth Pecksniff, an architect, in a village near Salisbury in Wiltshire.

The head of the family is “Old Martin”, believed by all the other family members to be incredibly rich and whose fortune most of them are scheming to acquire as large a chunk of as possible. Old Martin, a widower, has taken as his companion a penniless orphan girl, Mary Graham, on the understanding that she will be well looked after as long as he lives, but turned out in the street when he dies, thus guaranteeing his own well-being, especially as he suspects that most of the people around him would prefer him to die as soon as possible.

Old Martin’s grandson is Young Martin, the “hero” of the novel, whose interest in the fortune is outweighed by his attraction to Mary.

Far more interested in the fortune is Jonas Chuzzlewit, the son of Old Martin’s brother Anthony. Jonas also has his eyes on his father’s fortune. We gather early on that Jonas will stop at nothing to advance himself.

The other co-villain of the novel is Pecksniff, the architect, who is also a Chuzzlewit relation. Pecksniff is one of Dickens’s greatest creations, whose name has become a byword for platitudinous humbug and hypocrisy. Although his house bears a large brass plate announcing his profession, Pecksniff has never designed or built anything in his life. Instead, he takes in pupils at high tuition rates, teaches them virtually nothing, and steals their work to claim it as his own.

Pecksniff, another widower, has two daughters, Mercy and Charity (or Merry and Cherry). They share their father’s character traits and are also vain and unfeeling to boot. Also in his household is a meek and much put-upon assistant, Tom Pinch, who had originally been a pupil of Pecksniff but who now acts as his drudge, the money to pay for his tuition having long run out. Despite his situation, Tom will not hear a bad word said about Pecksniff, whom he still admires.

Pecksniff agrees to take Young Martin on as a pupil, with the idea that ingratiating himself with Old Martin might get him included in the latter’s will. However, when the two Martins quarrel, over Young Martin’s paying court to Mary Graham, Old Martin demands that Pecksniff ejects Young Martin from his practice, which Pecksniff promptly does.

(As is often the case with Dickens’s novels, various actions take place in parallel, so their timing in “reality” does not necessarily follow the order of their presentation in the novel. It is therefore easier to describe them in their logical sequence, as follows, than as they may be given in the book’s pages.)

Having been dismissed, Martin departs, accompanied by cheerful Mark Tapley of the Blue Dragon Inn in the village where Pecksniff lives, for America to seek his fortune there. Dickens had himself returned from a visit to the United States not long before beginning to write “Martin Chuzzlewit” (in 1842). Much of what he saw there disgusted and alarmed him, and provided plenty of material for satire, particularly in terms of American customs, manners and practices. The “American” pages of Chuzzlewit caused him considerable unpopularity in the States, which not only led to difficulties when he went back for a reading tour in 1867-8, but are echoed even in the present day.

In the novel, Martin is appalled by the brashness and vulgarity of the people he meets, and is swindled out of his (actually, mainly Mark’s) money when the land he invests in turns out to be a malarial swamp. Martin nearly dies of malaria but is nursed back to health by the ever-optimistic and selfless Mark. When he is well enough, the two return to England.

Although the American episode is sometimes regarded as an unnecessary interlude in the novel, and these scenes are sometimes omitted from abridged versions, Martin’s experience is life-changing and fundamental to his character development. Whereas previously he had been happy to exploit the goodwill and generosity of others (such as Mark Tapley) to suit his own ends, he now resolves to be less proud and to seek to reconcile himself with anyone he has wronged.

During his absence in America, Old Martin has fallen under the influence of Pecksniff and is now living in the latter’s home. Young Martin’s attempts to make things right with his grandfather are therefore rejected, with the firm backing of Pecksniff. Pecksniff, in the meantime, has set his eye on Mary Graham and now makes unwanted advances to her. Mary turns to Tom Pinch for protection, thus finally persuading Tom that Pecksniff is not the paragon of virtue he had imagined. Pecksniff overhears the conversation and turns Tom out.

Jonas Chuzzlewit has also appeared in the Pecksniff household. He pays court to Charity Pecksniff, which causes a breach between the sisters. This becomes even worse, later in the novel, when he ditches Charity and marries Mercy instead. The marriage is far from happy, with Jonas constantly abusing Mercy in revenge for the taunts that she had aimed at Jonas during his courtship of Charity.

Anthony Chuzzlewit dies suddenly in somewhat mysterious circumstances. Jonas has become involved in the business schemes of a petty criminal called Montague Tigg, and Tigg becomes suspicious of Jonas’s actions regarding Anthony’s death.

Dickens introduces one of his greatest comic creations in the person of Mrs Sarah (Sairey) Gamp, a nurse who arrives to lay out Anthony’s body. She is constantly drunk and talks non-stop, particularly about her imaginary friend, Mrs Harris, who never fails to shower Sarah with compliments. Mrs Gamp is never without her umbrella, and, so popular did her character become among Victorian readers, that the word “gamp” entered the language as a slang term for “umbrella”.

Montague Tigg, having changed his name to Tigg Montague, has devised a fraudulent investment scheme that would be recognised today as a “Ponzi” fraud. Investors would only get returns if later investors could be persuaded to part with their money, which would be encouraged by seeing the large profits that others were apparently making. Such a scheme must eventually collapse, although the perpetrators would hope to have fled with the cash before this happens.

In Tigg’s case, he is in a position to blackmail Jonas, because of what he knows or guesses about the death of Anthony, and Jonas is forced to seek a new investor in Pecksniff (thus causing his eventual financial ruin). However, this is not enough to save the business, and Jonas’s way out of the situation is to murder Tigg.

In the denouement, Jonas is tracked down as the murderer of Tigg, but commits suicide before he can be arrested. Old Martin reveals himself as having only pretended to fall under Pecksniff’s control, his aim being to reveal the latter for what he had always known him to be. It also turns out that he had always intended Young Martin to marry Mary Graham, and his anger had been because Young Martin had jumped the gun.

It is also revealed that Anthony had died of a broken heart at the realisation that his son wanted him dead. However, Jonas had indeed been planning to poison his father and clearly believed that he had succeeded, hence his response to Tigg’s blackmail.

At the end of the book, evil is punished, hypocrisy is undone and virtue rewarded. Nearly everyone gets their just desserts, although Tom Pinch is left alone on the last page, playing the organ to himself.

© John Welford