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

A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens: a summary of the plot

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” is one of the most famous opening lines in English Literature. The particular time is 1775, and Jarvis Lorry, of Tellson’s Bank, travels from London to Paris to take Lucie Manette, who has lived nearly all her life in England, to find her father, a French doctor who has just been released after eighteen years imprisonment in the infamous Bastille, because an enemy wanted him out of the way.

They find him being looked after by Defarge, his old servant, in a very sorry state and almost out of his mind, absorbed in the shoemaking that he had taught himself whilst in the Bastille. They take him back to London where he makes a slow recovery.

Five years later, Lucie and the doctor are called as witnesses at the trial of a Frenchman, Charles Darnay, who has been falsely accused of spying. At the trial, the defence lawyer, Stryver, is advised by his assistant, Sydney Carton, that there is strong resemblance between Carton and Darnay. This makes any evidence based on identification suspect, and Darnay is acquitted as a result.

Both Darnay and Carton are attracted to Lucie. When Darnay eventually marries Lucie, Carton remains devoted to her.

Darnay is in fact the nephew of a French nobleman, the Marquis St Evrémonde, who holds his tenants in contempt and shows no sympathy when his carriage runs over and kills a young child (illustrated above). Darnay visits the Marquis and declares his opposition to the oppressive monarchist government. The Marquis is murdered. It is later revealed that the “lettre de cachet” that had placed Dr Manette in the Bastille had been issued by the Marquis.

A year later, Lucie urges Carton to abandon his dissolute ways. Jerry Cruncher, who supplements his income as a messenger for Tellson’s Bank by grave robbing, digs up the coffin of Roger Cly, a former servant of Darnay who had testified against him at his treason trial. In Paris, John Barsad, the other chief witness against Darnay, visits Defarge and his wife. Dr Manette suffers a relapse and resumes his shoemaking.

The Revolution begins in Paris with the storming of the Bastille, in which the Defarges play leading roles. M Defarge finds the former cell of Dr Manette.

Gabelle, who had formerly worked for the Marquis and acted as agent for Darnay, is imprisoned by the revolutionaries, so Darnay goes to Paris to try to help him, accompanied by Lorry and Cruncher.

However, Darnay is himself arrested and imprisoned. Lucie, plus her child, father, and servant (Miss Pross) go to Paris. Darnay is released but then re-arrested, with the Defarges producing evidence that would seem to seal his fate. Barsad is revealed, by Cruncher, as being Miss Pross’s long-lost brother Solomon.

With Darnay sentenced to death, Carton, still devoted to Lucie, goes to his cell and drugs the man that he so closely resembles, sending him back to London with Lucie and Mr Lorry. Mme Defarge is killed by Miss Pross after the former had threatened Lucie and her child.

Carton goes to the guillotine in Darnay’s place, declaring “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done”.

This summary © John Welford

Goosie Goosie Gander: a familiar nursery rhyme

Goosie goosie gander,
Whither shall I wander?
Upstairs and downstairs
And in my lady’s chamber.
There I met an old man
Who wouldn’t say his prayers;
I took him by the left leg
And threw him down the stairs.

A dangerous time for English Catholics

This English nursery rhyme has its origins in the 16^th century during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The country was now firmly Protestant and being a Catholic was against the law. With England under constant threat from Catholic Europe, a practising Catholic was regarded as a dangerous alien and therefore subject to political as well as religious suspicion, much as Muslims are regarded today by some paranoid westerners.

However, many families, although outwardly going along with the mood of the time, were secretly still Catholic and went to extraordinary lengths to continue to practice their faith.

Being Catholic, they could not remain faithful without the help of a Catholic priest. They believed, for example, that an unbaptised child was condemned to Hell, as was anyone who had not received the last rites before they died. They also needed to hear Mass on a regular basis.

Catholic priests therefore toured the country in disguise, visiting families who needed their services. The authorities had a pretty good idea who the Catholic families were and therefore kept a close eye on comings and goings in the neighbourhood. Elizabeth was served by a network of spies and informers, so there was a constant battle going on between the forces of law and order and the Catholic families as to who could outwit the other.

The rhyme describes a visit to a country house by an officer who suspects that a Catholic priest is on the premises. It is still possible to view houses of the period that contain what are known as “priest holes”, namely hiding places into which a priest could be secreted when there was a knock on the door. These could be under staircases, behind fireplaces, or in cupboards in bedrooms that could only be opened by activating a secret handle.

 

A closer look at the rhyme

The “goose” of the opening line could be a reference to a Roman Catholic priest, given the connection between Rome and geese in the legend of ancient Rome being saved by the honking of geese.

The officer searches all over the house, including the “lady’s chamber”. If he has any experience of such matters he will probably know most of the tricks for creating a priest hole, and so finding an “old man” would not be difficult. Many priests would be elderly because the only young priests in the country would be ones who had been smuggled in from aboard – the majority would be priests who had been ordained years before and had “gone underground” when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558.

If a suspected priest was found he would be challenged to recite the prayers prescribed by the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. As a Catholic he would be unable or unwilling to do this.

The punishment of being thrown down the stairs would only be the start of what a captured priest could expect. Since being a Catholic was a treasonable act, for which the penalty was death by the barbarous method of hanging, drawing and quartering, a priest could expect no less and would probably have to undergo many painful tortures as the officers tried to force him to reveal the names of his clients.

However, for a children’s rhyme, a rapid descent of the staircase was no doubt considered sufficient to get the message across!

© John Welford

Ring-a-ring of roses: a misunderstood nursery rhyme

Ring-a-ring of roses,

A pocketful of posies;

A-tishoo! A-tishoo!

We all fall down.

Everyone knows that this nursery rhyme has its origins in the Plague – either the Great Plague that afflicted London in 1665 or the much wider Black Death of the 1340s. The first and third lines describe two of the symptoms of the disease, the second refers to the practice of carrying pockets-full of sweet-smelling flowers to ward off infection, and the final line is a clear reference to the inevitable outcome.

Unfortunately, this is a case of “everyone has got it wrong”! There is no evidence that bubonic plague involved either red rings on the skin or sneezing as early symptoms, nor that anyone believed that they could ward off the disease by smelling flowers.

Another problem with this explanation is that there is no record of the rhyme existing any earlier than the 19^th century, and that would surely not be the case if it had its origins in either plague outbreak mentioned above.

Thirdly, the version quoted above is not the only one that has appeared in print, and various alternatives have completely different offerings for some of the lines that have no connotations to any supposed plague symptoms or results.

The conclusion must therefore be that this is a simple children’s game that uses easily remembered words that children can recite and link to the actions of walking in a circle, sneezing and falling over.

© John Welford

Little Jack Horner: a nursery rhyme explained

Little Jack Horner

Sat in a corner

Eating a Christmas pie.

He put in a thumb

And pulled out a plum

And said “What a good boy am I!”

This familiar nursery rhyme has its origins in the 16^th century and the Dissolution of the Monasteries during the reign of King Henry VIII.

The Abbot of Glastonbury in Somerset, Richard Whyting, was determined to resist the dissolution of his own monastery, which was an extremely wealthy one. He thought that he could get round King Henry by offering him a bribe, in the shape of twelve manor houses that were owned by the abbey.

Whyting therefore sent his steward, Thomas Horner, to Hampton Court Palace with the deeds of the manor houses. The law at the time stipulated that the holder of a deed was the owner of the property, so it was essential that the deeds did not fall into the wrong hands. They were therefore hidden in a large pie.

However, Thomas Horner was not as trustworthy as the abbot had imagined. During the journey Thomas Horner lifted the crust of the pie and removed one of the deeds, namely that of Mells Manor. King Henry was therefore offered eleven deeds, not twelve.

Whether the full bribe would have worked is a matter for conjecture, because the slightly reduced one did not. Glastonbury Abbey was dissolved, along with the rest, and Abbot Whyting was put on trial for having dared to set himself against the will of King Henry. One of the jurors at the trial was Thomas Horner, now the master of Mells Manor. Richard Whyting was found guilty and sentenced to death, being hanged, drawn and quartered at the top of Glastonbury Tor.

Interestingly, the slang word for £1000 in the 16^th century was “plum”, although any sum of money that an ordinary person would regard as being way beyond their reach could also be called a plum. We still use the term “plum job” to describe one that seems to offer a good return for doing very little. Thomas Horner’s plum was the large house that he now occupied.

The Horner family still owns Mells Manor, although they dispute the story of how it came into their possession, preferring to state that Thomas Horner acquired the deeds by purchase or as a gift from the king. However, the story of the pie clearly went the rounds at the time, in the form of the famous rhyme, and everyone prefers a tale of skulduggery to one of honesty, every time!

© John Welford

Darkness and light in A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities” is a story about contrasts, as is evident from the very title. We are shown the two cities, namely London and Paris, in very different lights, with Paris being the city of revolution and danger and London as the place of peace and sanctuary. Along with this contrast are the themes of night and day, darkness and light, running through the book.

The tale begins at night, with Mr Lorry making his journey to Dover to catch the ferry to France, where he is to rescue Dr Manette. It ends in daylight, with the death by guillotine of the hero, Sydney Carton. However, to equate darkness with evil and light with good is to make too facile a judgment, and Dickens is far too clever a writer to make so obvious a distinction. In the examples given above, a good deed is performed at night and an evil one in daylight.

That said, Dickens is happy to make use of the conventional approach when it suits him. At the end of Chapter 16, darkness falls in Paris just before the Revolution starts. He writes:

“Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of church bells and the distant beating of the military drums in the Palace Courtyard, as the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness encompassed them. Another darkness was closing in as surely, when the church bells, then ringing pleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should be melted into thunder cannon …”

The chapter that follows is entitled “One Night”, but it describes a peaceful moonlit evening in London, with Lucy Manette receiving reassurance from her father on the eve of her wedding day. Here, darkness and light are intermingled, as the full moon reminds Dr Manette of the sad times spent looking out of his former prison cell and thinking of the wife and daughter he believed he had lost forever.

The cover of darkness is used to perform deeds that are secret, sometimes they are evil, sometimes not. Jerry Cruncher robs graves at night, but Jerry is on the “good” side in the story, and his activities lead to the unravelling of one of the mysteries.

Sydney Carton is dissolute by day but works hard at night, producing brilliant legal defences that make the reputation of his employer, including the acquittal of the man who will become Lucy’s husband and for whom Sydney will sacrifice his life.

Charles Darney’s evil uncle, the Marquis St Evremonde, is murdered at night. However, the destruction of a cynical aristocrat who cares nothing for the peasants is a deed that we regard as good, although it also has evil consequences.

The focus of much of the action in Paris is the Bastille prison, which is a place of darkness at all times. When it is stormed by the revolutionaries, Dickens gives us the following:

“Through gloomy vaults where the light of day had never shone, past hideous doors of dark dens and cages …”

The mob is described as a “sea of black and threatening waters”, and light is only supplied by the fires of burning chateaux and other property seized from the aristocrats.

The metaphor of darkness and light also appears in the creation of shadows, which are of course the result of light that is prevented from shining by obstacles placed in its way. The dark figures of the mob, particularly Madame Defarge, are often described in terms of shadow, and as being the creators of shadow. Lucy remarks at one point that “that dreadful woman seems to throw a shadow on me and on all my hopes”.

As the story approaches its close, the reason for Dr Manette’s imprisonment is recounted in a chapter entitled “The Substance of the Shadow”, with the next two chapters entitled “Dusk” and “Darkness”. In the second of these, the darkness of Madame Defarge’s cruelty is contrasted with the light of Carton’s resolve to save his rival in love, Charles Darnay, and thus, through self-sacrifice, to end his life in service to Lucy Manette.

The interplay of darkness, light and shadow are therefore constant, and Dickens’s choice of chapter titles shows that this is no accident. However, the chaos of revolution is reflected in the uncertainties introduced by Dickens as good and evil deeds are associated sometimes with light and sometimes with darkness.

A Tale of Two Cities is not regarded by most critics as being one of Dickens’s greatest novels, but we know that he was very pleased with it. Perhaps later readers have misjudged it by not being aware of many of the subtleties that the author introduced, with darkness and light being one of the mechanisms used to great effect.

© John Welford

Pip in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Pip is the central character of “Great Expectations”, to the extent that all the events of the novel are seen through his eyes, he being the narrator throughout.

“Great Expectations” was Dickens’s 13^th novel, published in serial form between November 1860 and August 1861. Parallels can be drawn between this novel and his 8^th, “David Copperfield”, which appeared in 1849-50.  Both novels are first-person retrospective narratives that follow the main character from childhood to adulthood, but whereas David’s life can be matched to some of the actual events of that of Dickens, Pip’s progress can be regarded more in the light of an intimate spiritual autobiography.

Although both novels are among Dickens’s greatest achievements, the portrayal of Pip is more psychologically complex than that of David, with Pip being forced to deal with a wider-ranging set of moral dilemmas than David.

Pip is Dickens’s first working-class hero (even Oliver Twist had middle-class roots), which is central to the plot involving the “great expectations” of the title. The theme that runs through the novel is Pip’s consideration of self-worth at being raised up the social ladder, and whether the reader shares his opinion.

Pip consistently misunderstands his situation throughout the novel, not out of lack of intelligence but because the circumstances in which he finds himself are confusing and difficult to set in their proper context, mainly because Pip, and the reader, do not know what that context is.

The dramatic opening scene, in which Pip is accosted in a churchyard by Magwitch, the escaped convict, is a mixture of horror and comedy in which the young boy has little idea of what is going on, other than that a rough man is making demands of him and, at one point, holding him upside down by the ankles. However, Pip’s abiding memory is of how the church steeple suddenly points at the ground rather than the sky.

A vivid imagination

The verbal misunderstandings of childhood, which begin in the churchyard and which Dickens introduces as comic touches, set the scene for Pip’s much more serious miscalculations later in the book. Coupled with this theme is Pip’s vivid imagination, which takes every situation a stage beyond that which is initially presented. For example, he has no idea what the source of his “great expectations” might be, so he imagines that his benefactor must be the reclusive and eccentric Miss Havisham, who has befriended him and invited him to her house on many occasions, but with a very different motive.

Dreams

The portrayal of Pip, as a character of recurrent low self-esteem and guilt, is well presented by Dickens who at this stage of his writing career was a master in exploring the psychology of a character. It is interesting to note how Dickens uses Pip’s dreams to reveal aspects of his developing character, albeit in a different manner to that used, some 40 years later, by Sigmund Freud. Pip’s dreams bring his guilt home to him, and also multiply his fears, such as when he is harbouring Magwitch in London and the burden is becoming too much for him.

There is an interesting contrast between Pip’s daydreams of what being a gentleman will be like and his nightmares, some of which relate to his guilt at having turned his back on the honest people who brought him up but are now “beneath” him in his new snobbish persona.

Pip’s “doubles”

The psychological complexities of the book are partly worked through by Dickens’s use of “doubles” to draw attention to aspects of Pip’s character. Pip’s personality consists of conflicting elements, and these doubles often appear in pairs that contrast with each other. They also interact with Pip and thus provide symbolic representations of what is going on within the central character.

Several such pairs have been indicated by critics and analysts, but the most striking must surely be Orlick and Herbert Pocket. Orlick is the rough apprentice blacksmith whose response to Pip is always hostile and who eventually gives way to his violent nature by attacking (and essentially causing the death of) Pip’s sister and carer, Mrs Joe. As she had always been very stern in her treatment of Pip, Orlick’s attack on her could be seen as something that Pip might have been driven to, had the evil side of his personality been allowed to dominate.

On the other hand, Herbert can be seen as the “good angel” aspect of Pip who never allows himself to be turned aside from following the right course. Unlike Pip, Herbert appreciates the need for hard work in order to succeed, and also knows how to treat people of all classes with respect. He therefore gains the happiness that eludes Pip. However, he also stands by Pip in the latter’s lowest moments and, at the end of the book, provides the security that Pip had been unable to find for himself.

  

The fact that Herbert can be seen as a reflection of Pip is hinted at when they first meet, with the two looking at each other from either side of a window pane at Satis House (Miss Havisham’s home). The final realization of this joint nature is indicated at the end of the book when Pip says:

“… I often wondered how I had conceived that old idea of his [Herbert’s] inaptitude, until I was one day enlightened by the reflection that perhaps the inaptitude had never been in him at all, but had been in me.”

Pip’s earlier miscalculations and selfishness must, however, have long-term consequences, and these manifest themselves in the contrast between Herbert’s happy marriage and Pip’s failure to find a wife. Having treated his true benefactors so badly, he cannot expect to be rewarded with true happiness and the novel ends with Pip realising that his life is still a work in progress.

“Great Expectations” is a flawed masterpiece in several respects, but it is also one of Dickens’s most interesting works from the psychological aspect, especially as it concerns the central character. Dickens had achieved a “great expectation” of his own shortly before writing this novel, by moving into his house at Gad’s Hill, a fairly large mansion which, since his childhood in north Kent where that of Pip is also set, he had dreamt would one day be his.

However, it was also not long since he had abandoned his wife Catherine, preferring the society of an actress, Ellen Ternan. Catherine had borne him ten children and stood by him throughout their marriage of 22 years, so he might have had some lingering feelings of guilt for how he had treated her, although he would have denied this at the time. One wonders if Dickens preferred to let his character Pip deal with these emotions when he was unable to express them himself.

© John Welford

See also

Estella in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens