The Pickwick Club discussion
The Old Curiosity Shop
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TOCS chapters 71-The End
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Well!!!!!! Grandpa is up there with the great villains if all times!! One of best worst ones. Even when he laments on the journey and the horrors he missed, he is still glorifying himself. He NEVER says why didn't i ..... I could have stopped or left her with mrs jarley or heck! Married her off to dick. But no. Look what she did for me. Awwwwe how cute. Jackass. I will allow Scrooge his druthers here. To eliminate him for the betterment of decent society
OMG. I just read the last chapter again and noted that the " people" were throwing eggs and kitten carcasses at brass!!!!! Makes it hard to distinguish the bad guys. Suddenly Sammy is not so bad.
At Rest
Chapter 71
This has got to be one of the best known illustration from a Dickens novel.
And many thank to Kim for uploading all these wonderful illustrations :) I hope somebody's doing it for the current read - and for the other reads I haven't got to yet :DYou know, I ended up enjoying this time through far more than I'd thought I would! It's far more complex than I'd remembered, for a start, and not as mawkish as I'd feared. Once I'd twigged the parallels with fairytales it just seemed to flow naturally.
And I think it was very wise of Dickens not to have an actual deathbed scene for Little Nell. We had quite enough pathos with the little scholar. Given Dickens's fragility regarding Mary Hogarth's death three years earlier, he probably wouldn't have been able to pull off an emotional scene which we could tolerate at all through our cynical 21st century eyes. Not that I think for a moment he'd still expect us to be reading these novels now :)
Here's a link to my review
Here is part of a letter that Dickens wrote to John Forster about the death of Nell. Forster said:Fast shortening as the life of little Nell was now, the dying year might have seen it pass away; but I never knew him wind up any tale with such a sorrowful reluctance as this.
"Done!" he wrote back to me on Friday, the 7th; "Done!!! Why, bless you, I shall not be done till Wednesday night. I only began yesterday, and this part of the story is not to be galloped over, I can tell you. I think it will come famously—but I am the wretchedest of the wretched. It casts the most horrible[210] shadow upon me, and it is as much as I can do to keep moving at all. I tremble to approach the place a great deal more than Kit; a great deal more than Mr. Garland; a great deal more than the Single Gentleman. I sha'n't recover it for a long time. Nobody will miss her like I shall. It is such a very painful thing to me, that I really cannot express my sorrow. Old wounds bleed afresh when I only think of the way of doing it: what the actual doing it will be, God knows. I can't preach to myself the schoolmaster's consolation, though I try. Dear Mary died yesterday, when I think of this sad story. I don't know what to say about dining to-morrow—perhaps you'll send up to-morrow morning for news? That'll be the best way. I have refused several invitations for this week and next, determining to go nowhere till I had done. I am afraid of disturbing the state I have been trying to get into, and having to fetch it all back again."
This letter he wrote to George Cattermole:December 22nd, 1840.
Dear George,
The child lying dead in the little sleeping-room, which is behind the open screen. It is winter time, so there are no flowers; but upon her breast and pillow, and about her bed, there may be strips of holly and berries, and such free green things. Window overgrown with ivy. The little boy who had that talk with her about angels may be by the bedside, if you like it so; but I think it will be quieter and more peaceful if she is quite alone. I want it to express the most beautiful repose and tranquillity, and to have something of a happy look, if death can.
2.
The child has been buried inside the church, and the old man, who cannot be made to understand that she is dead, repairs to the grave and sits there all day long,[36] waiting for her arrival, to begin another journey. His staff and knapsack, her little bonnet and basket, etc., lie beside him. "She'll come to-morrow," he says when it gets dark, and goes sorrowfully home. I think an hourglass running out would help the notion; perhaps her little tilings upon his knee, or in his hand.
I am breaking my heart over this story, and cannot bear to finish it.
Love to Missis.
Thanks for posting those, Kim. I actually quoted a part of the first one, to his friend John Forster, in my review :)What with you choosing these quotations, and Peter choosing one I used by Wilkie Collins in the previous thread, I feel as if you two are looking over my shoulder!
Or as Dickens said in A Christmas Carol "I am standing in the spirit at your elbow."
Obviously, very sad about Nell and now I understand Grandpa much better now. However, I still believe him a very selfish and deceitful man, using Nell's future as an excuse for gambling when clearly he has known her fate all along. But in saying that, I feel sorry for him that he knows he cannot do anything. He's seen it all before, hence why he appears to do very little when the audience is urging him to act. It think it was very apt that Grandpa died soon after, on Nell's grave. Although I felt a bit confused about his commitment to Nell throughout the novel, this final act showed his true character.
Although it's a coming of age story which ends tragically, Dickens, once again, has created a number of kind and loveable characters to feel content with. Although Nell is gone, I feel that her spirit will live through Kit.