Dickensians! discussion

It's similar, by the sound of things. Postgraduate degrees here (after the 3 year undergraduate Bachelor degrees) were only traditionally followed at universities, but now everywhere is designated a university, I doubt whether they all offer them. And as in the USA, some universities get a reputation for excellence in different areas. Those which used to be polytechnics offer "softer" subjects such as media studies, photography, theatre studies and the like, but if you want to do a Classics degree, or PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) you're better to try for Oxbridge, or at least one of the older ones such as Durham.

I have been lurking on your conversation and have found it fascinating. I have been out of the system for a long time, but it does seem to me that "university" used to have a distinct meaning and now has very little.

Employers here frequently make the same objection, Sara.

My favourite Dickens character is Jenny Wren from Our Mutual Friend, this character oozes with themes and motifs, and she has a psychology, and character

The story of Jenny Wren is a story within a story, but it’s also a critique on parent alcoholism and its effect on children. One consequence of parent alcoholics is that it tends to reverse the role of parent and children, and often results the children becoming isolated from their peers: and it’s the same with disability - in the Victorian period disability and blindness were associated with disease and bad genetics - so in reality Jenny is doubly effected.

Dickens seems well aware of the epidemic of alcoholism (not exclusively male) and its effect on children, and he clearly wants us to understand that before we consider Jenny a ‘scold’ we need to be aware of her condition and environment, and that such children never have a childhood. In spite of this, Jenny’s coping strategy results in her being without equal among Dickens’ minor characters

Jenny Wren (pseudonym of Fanny Cleaver), one of Dickens’ inverted child-mothers, a child-woman with dolls, but unlike her peers she works with them, not plays with them. She doesn’t even play with children: "Don't talk of children. I can't bear children. I know their tricks and their manners"

She’s a so called minor character, but, unlike, say, Bumble, she has a personality, and psychology, and Dickens, aeons ahead of his time, gave the young, physically disabled girl an unambiguous sexuality - a radical leap in the Victorian period, probably starting from the moment she changed her name from Cleaver (and its associated meanings) to Wren - a bird:

The singing voice (trilling) sounds like a bird (Sloppy would rather hear her sing than be paid money); henpecking (the bad child) displaying her blonde hair (plumage - as in the peacock’s feathers) was an alluring act in this period, and the more hair (plumage) the greater the sexuality; she’s a domestically skilled home maker (nest building), and motherly - all this challenges the myth that disabled women should be doomed to asexuality and left outside of marriage.

She’s a small-business woman, proactive in her work, resourceful and creative - adapting the clergyman’s surplice for her ‘marriage dolls range’ - so resourceful and artistic. She’s independent and proves herself to be a reliable, trusting, companion to Lizzie

She holds her own when conversing with adults, and is even able to speak on equal terms with the old, experienced and kindly Jew Riah

(view spoiler)[ Her astute mind and ‘philosophy’ bring about a rethink for Eugene (after Jenny’s discerning bedside comment ‘Wife’, actually saves his life) on his hitherto indolent existence and his new desire to earn his living (hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[ Jenny is altruistic and non-resentful in strengthening the Lizzie-Eugene relationship - compare with Mr F’s Aunt in Little Dorrit who verbally abuses Arthur, the potential rival for the affections of her companion Flora - I wonder if her an Sloppy ever married … (hide spoiler)]

Hi Sean,

I too like "Jenny Wren" very much, and don't think she's a minor character at all! Along with (view spoiler)[ Mr. Riah (hide spoiler)] she is one of the strongest, most intelligent, astute and wisest ones. Unlike anyone else, she sees exactly what is going on - even eavesdropping at one point - and actually influences the course of the story, much as (view spoiler)[ Miss Mowcher (hide spoiler)] does in David Copperfield.

Great post!

(Edited)

Bionic Jean wrote: "Hi Sean,

First PLEASE put your final 2 paragraphs under spoiler tags. They reveal important points nearing the end of the novel.

I too like "Jenny Wren" very much, and don't think she's a minor c..."

apologies - a silly oversight on my part

It's fine - thanks! All edited and sorted out :)

With background in linguistics I’ve come to appreciate Dickens’ methods of association of objects that match character: for example, in Little Dorrit when he describes Mrs Clennam’s house, or furniture, you can swap any of the nouns and substitute Mrs Clennam ie old, decrepit, faded etc. His personifying inanimate objects is hilarious - but he’s also without equal when he does the opposite - take this summing up of ‘Wooden’ Silas Wegg from Our Mutual Friend

It would seem that Dickens portrays Silas Wegg as a man of many parts, but all wooden parts, that often rebel, or at least act autonomously

”[A] man with a wooden leg had sat for some years, with his remaining foot in a basket in cold weather,” who was at his post (literally - and wooden) in all weathers, as he “contrived a back to his wooden stool,” and equipped his wooden stall with a “little wooden measure” (to weigh a penn’worth), and he being so wooden had “taken on his wooden leg naturally”, appearing to any observer that, within six months, he may develop a second wooden leg naturally.

Dickens goes on to tell us that, he, “The wooden Wegg”, has a ‘meditative eye’. But all is not so bad, for even though he has a wooden leg print is open to him, whereas Boffin has no wooden leg yet print is shut out to him.

More evenly balanced (than Wegg’s single wooden leg) is Boffins fire place with two wooden settles, which now brings about Wegg’s ‘wooden conceit’. Luckily for Wooden Wegg there’s the ‘lopsided wooden jumble’ windows that keep company with the crazy wooden verandah at the Six Jolly Porters.

The ‘literary man with the wooden leg’ is ‘liable to jealousy’ - and Wegg is not the only incomplete wooden being, as a gentleman of tender years angles for mud with a ‘headless wooden horse’. Wegg, with an oratorical flush’ has both pipe and wooden leg working in unison. He’s pegging at Boffin while poking his wooden leg under the table along with the other wooden table legs.

Whilst Wegg is perched on the wooden box he posses a ‘hard-grained (wooden?) knotty (wooden?) face, not unlike a ‘German wooden toy’, but also stumps out of it (piano and forte) into an expression of a ‘watchman’s rattle’ (all parts of rattles were wooden). Wegg and his leg can no longer bear it, which is apparent when observing his ‘wooden countenance’ as he disapprovingly 'screws' and 'shakes' his ‘wooden head’ a little after he gives us a ‘wooden wink’

I'd have to say my "favorite" Dickens character would be Betsey Trotwood. However, since I encountered the name Mister Turveydrop many years ago, it has stuck in my mind like some sort of literary earworm!

Aunt Betsey is a wonderful choice for favorite character! I think you are in good company with that sentiment, John. Many of us here feel the same. To quote Mrs. Gummidge, if every “lost and lorn creature” had an Aunt Betsey the world would be a much happier place.

Sean - I've long considered Charles Dickens to be a master of personification - and uniquely using domestic items of furniture! Great examples, though since we haven't yet read the wonderful work Our Mutual Friend as a group, I won't comment in more detail :)

John - Ah, yes! When we had David Copperfield as our very first group read, quite a few of us formed an Aunt Betsey fan club. So you're in good company - isn't she priceless, John and Bridget?!

And something to look forward to, everyone, ... we will meet Mr. Turveydrop in our next group read :)

What a fun thread, and reminds me how many Dickens characters I've yet to meet!

I love almost every one of the David Copperfield characters and names. Betsey Trotwood is high on my list of all-time favorite characters generally, and just saying the name Peggoty is comforting, isn't it?

I suppose I feel Scrooge is the best, when it comes to encapsulating a character in a name. It's such common parlance now that we forget how brilliant it is.

But Hard Times' Thomas Gradgrind is a personal favorite.

That's so true Kathleen, when a character becomes familiar, we sometimes forget the brilliant creativity of its conception!

My favorite Dickens' character so far is Mr. Jarvis Lorry. Early in the book, A Tale of Two Cities, Mr. Lorry is described in great detail which I found so entertaining and I underlined the whole thing when I first read it. No matter what was happening in the book, I always found comfort when Mr. Lorry was present. He says, "I am a man of business," and yet his responses and his actions demonstrate a much fuller picture of this dependable man with a great caring heart for those in his care and for the bank in which he works. I can't find the passage in the book right now, but somewhere there is an entertaining description of the ancient bank itself and "the ancient men who preside there," which I enjoyed reading very much. And this description, for me, ties in with the character of Mr. Jarvis Lorry, adding depth, since he, too, works at the bank.

Mr Jarvis Lorry? What an unusual choice, Gia, but I know what you mean :)

We can forget these dependable and caring characters, and be drawn to the more entertaining ones sometimes. Let's hear it for Jo Gargery, Dan Peggotty, Newman Noggs and Jarvis Lorry!

I wonder if this is the passage you mean, from Book 2 ch 1:

"Tellson's Bank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place, even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. It was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious. It was an old-fashioned place, moreover, in the moral attribute that the partners in the House were proud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of its incommodiousness. They were even boastful of its eminence in those particulars, and were fired by an express conviction that, if it were less objectionable, it would be less respectable.

This was no passive belief, but an active weapon which they flashed at more convenient places of business. Tellson's (they said) wanted no elbow-room, Tellson's wanted no light, Tellson's wanted no embellishment. Noakes and Co.'s might, or Snooks Brothers' might; but Tellson's, thank Heaven!-Any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on the question of rebuilding Tellson's. In this respect the House was much on a par with the Country; which did very often disinherit its sons for suggesting improvements in laws and customs that had long been highly objectionable, but were only the more respectable.

Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson's was the triumphant perfection of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic obstinacy with a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson's down two steps, and came to your senses in a miserable little shop, with two little counters, where the oldest of men made your cheque shake as if the wind rustled it, while they examined the signature by the dingiest of windows, which were always under a shower-bath of mud from Fleet-street, and which were made the dingier by their own iron bars proper, and the heavy shadow of Temple Bar. If your business necessitated your seeing "the House," you were put into a species of Condemned Hold at the back, where you meditated on a misspent life, until the House came with its hands in its pockets, and you could hardly blink at it in the dismal twilight. Your money came out of, or went into, wormy old wooden drawers, particles of which flew up your nose and down your throat when they were opened and shut. Your bank-notes had a musty odour, as if they were fast decomposing into rags again. Your plate was stowed away among the neighbouring cesspools, and evil communications corrupted its good polish in a day or two. Your deeds got into extemporised strong-rooms made of kitchens and sculleries, and fretted all the fat out of their parchments into the banking-house air. Your lighter boxes of family papers went up-stairs into a Barmecide room, that always had a great dining-table in it and never had a dinner, and where, even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty, the first letters written to you by your old love, or by your little children, were but newly released from the horror of being ogled through the windows, by the heads exposed on Temple Bar with an insensate brutality and ferocity worthy of Abyssinia or Ashantee."

It is wonderful :)

Oh and I should let you all know that this is the only Dickens book I've read so far (Tale of Two Cities). I have yet to meet all of his other characters (including all the ones you mentioned above, Jean) which may help to explain my unusual choice here. But, I think he'll stay a favorite of mine even when I meet all the others.

Also I think Mr. Lorry provided some much-needed comic relief for me during some of the heavier moments and chapters in this book. And the comic relief brought by Mr. Lorry and his bank was something I could depend on because he appears so frequently in the story line. In the dangerous parts of the book and the through the various upheavals it was actually Mr. Lorry that I worried about the most being safe. I think this is because his character is the one who most helped me get through the reading of the book, lol!

Thank you so much, Jean, you have made my day! That's it! That's the quote:) It's made me laugh all over again reading this today.

This is such a wonderful topic! I'm looking forward to reading much more of Charles Dickens! :)

Oh you are welcome Gia :) I laughed too!

These are all "salt of the earth" types of characters - good-hearted, level-headed and kind souls, who are overlooked when we think of the main characters in Charles Dickens's stories :)

I do hope you'll join us for Bleak House!

Jean, and so they are! Well said. Glad you got a laugh too! Yes, I will be joining you all for Bleak House and I'm looking forward! :)

That's great to hear :)

So many characters that I love in Dickens books, but my favorites are Sydney Carter, Oliver Twist, Pip and Estella and Amy Dorrit.

Yes, the characters are always the best part of most any Dickens book, and even just their names are often so delightful, let alone their little peculiarities and memorable ways.
I'd have to say my top favorite, for quite some time, has been Mr. Micawber from David Copperfield. He's always running from some sort of trouble, but still always feels "something will turn up", and I love his eternal optimism.
After him, I think I'd go with The Fezziwigs, for their good hearts and happy ways, and then for some reason, to go the other way, I'd go with Fagin, and Miss Havisham. I also love Miss Flite from Bleak House (which I reread last year, or I'd try to join in) for her loyalty and patience. There are others, of course, from each piece I read, but those are my main favorites (for now). So many to chose from, and really, all worthy of being a favorite!

I really like your choices here Lois :) All are such colourful characters! Mr Micawber had his fans here too, although most plumped for Aunt Betsey as a favourite from David Copperfield.

And I do hope you pop into our Bleak House read now and then. It will last for about 3 months or so. Plus it's actually an advantage that you read it so recently, and you'll easily be able to tell where we are, and how to orient yourself, because of the daily summaries and links.

It's quite an experience :)

Bionic Jean wrote: "I really like your choices here Lois :) All are such colourful characters! Mr Micawber had his fans here too, although most plumped for Aunt Betsey as a favourite from [book:David Copperfield|58696..."

Hi Jean! If my list was a little longer, I'm sure Aunt Betsey would also be on it! And yes, I was thinking the same, that I'll have to pop in and see how the conversation about Bleak House is going. Will do!

Bionic Jean wrote: "Many people, when asked what they love about Charles Dickens, will answer, "the characters!"

I really liked Nicholas Nickleby, he rescued Smike, the horribly abused student of Dotheby Hall. I detested Wackford Squeers, the man was sadistic, with the heart of an animal.

Nicholas, though, was caring, insightful, and loving.

Wackford Squeers, now there’s a name that befits the character. He just couldn’t be a hero!

That's brilliant Lois! I think you'll really enjoy it :)

LOL spot on Sue - Charles Dickens's names are quite often spoilers!

Nancy wrote: "Bionic Jean wrote: "Many people, when asked what they love about Charles Dickens, will answer, "the characters!"

I really liked Nicholas Nickleby, he rescued Smike, the horribly ab..."

I agree on those two characters. Nicholas is great. Boo and humbug to Squeers!

I've been reading The Old Curiosity Shop this month. Reading very slowly, to really absorb it all this time. And now I must add The Marchioness to my list of favored characters. She's another gem.

Ah yes! It's a lovely - and terrifying - fairy tale! And the Marchioness is just so quirky! I wonder what you think to the goblin ...

Do you mean Great Expectations, Stephanie? I'm wondering, as the characters of David and Pip are quite similar.