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Little Dorrit
Little Dorrit - Group Read 2
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Little Dorrit II: Chapters 1 - 11
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LOL Katy!
I am slowly getting caught up with the rest of you. In the opening chapters of Part II, I like how different the atmospheric tone is. If Part I had so much darkness, and prisons, here at the start of Part II, the sky is wide open, we're in the Alps and the quality of the light is so different. As someone remarked, there is an ironic mention by one of the St Bernard fathers that Mr Dorrit could not possibly appreciate a feeling of claustrophobia or something to that effect.
I like how in a few cases, there is mention of the travelers returning to their "cells".
from the Marshalsea
there are passages in the Marshalsea where they mention "cells". Here is a passage from Part II in the Alps,.
It was up the great staircase on the story above. Here and there, the bare white walls were broken by an iron grate, and she thought as she went along that the place was something like a prison. The arched door of the lady’s room, or cell, was not quite shut. After knocking at it two or three times without receiving an answer, she pushed it gently open, and looked in.
Jenny wrote: "I also wonder what Fanny means when she says Arthur demeaned them the day they left? Is she referenceing when Amy fainted, and he brought her out in her old gown?"Yes, I think so. Fanny had been complaining about Amy.
...here is that child Amy disgracing us to the last moment and at the last moment, by being carried out in that dress after all. And by that Mr Clennam too!’
The offence was proved, as she delivered the indictment. Clennam appeared at the carriage-door, bearing the little insensible figure in his arms.
‘She has been forgotten,’ he said, in a tone of pity not free from reproach.
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No, the host does not introduce the subject. I had remembered this as the "insinuating traveller"! But it's actually said by the chief of the party himself, to the host:
"‘But the confinement,’ said the grey-haired gentleman.
There were many days, even in bad weather, when it was possible to walk about outside. It was the custom to beat a little track, and take exercise there.
‘But the space,’ urged the grey-haired gentleman. ‘So small. So—ha—very limited.’
Monsieur would recall to himself that there were the refuges to visit, and that tracks had to be made to them also.
Monsieur still urged, on the other hand, that the space was so—ha—hum—so very contracted. More than that, it was always the same, always the same.
With a deprecating smile, the host gently raised and gently lowered his shoulders ... Monsieur was not used to confinement.
‘I—ha—yes, very true,’ said the grey-haired gentleman. He seemed to receive quite a shock from the force of the argument."
The part in bold is the irony your remember, Mark. And this is all viewed by the insinuating traveller, who no doubt is taking careful note.
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Great observation!
I'm so glad you're able to follow through Mark, as I know you said work was full-on at the moment :)
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I'm chiming in very late about Chapter 4, A Letter from Little Dorrit.Bionic Jean wrote: "This was such a touching, poignant chapter, to close installment 11. It is the first time we have been privy to Amy’s inner thoughts, and perhaps heralds a switch of focus...."
I definitely agree this is a poignant chapter and enjoyed Amy speaking in the first person. I believe this is her second first-person passage, as we were also in a way privy to her thoughts earlier when she tells Maggy the story of the tiny woman with her shadow, but there she is telling of her feelings indirectly. Here I think her voice is quite similar to Esther's in Bleak House.
Her difficulty in coming to terms with her wealth after her impoverished past is something that Dickens would have known in his own life, through the contrast between the days when he was a boy in the blacking factory, and his parents were in the Marshalsea, and his life as a celebrated author.
Good point about Dickens and the transition from poverty to riches. I imagine he also knew from first hand experience that money did not necessarily ensure happiness.
True, Sara. And he also kept completely quiet about his previous experiences just as the Dorrits do about theirs.I've finished this section now and was delighted to glimpse Flora and Mr F's aunt again. I also think Mrs General is a great character, with her airy pronouncements about how nobody should ever take any notice of anything unpleasant - her idea seems to be that, if you don't look at beggars in the street, they will cease to exist.
I do wish we didn't have quite so much of Blandois/Rigaud coming in all over the place, though. I don't think he is one of Dickens's better characters. Dickens clearly enjoyed making him speak in French translated word for word into English, but for me this isn't nearly as amusing as, say, one of Flora's stream of consciousness monologues.
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Good point! I hadn't really thought of it like that, but in a way it's like adults talking in a foreign language in front of the children, so they don't understand. We know it's a sort of allegory, but (at this point in the book at least) it doesn't seem that Maggy would be likely to understand it as anything but literal.
I think Charles Dickens knew that although Edward Dorrit was largely his father, there was bit of him in there too. The flamboyance and bluster, the secrecy and shame: hiding his past for as long as he could.
Bionic Jean wrote: "Good point! I hadn't really thought of it like that, but in a way it's like adults talking in a foreign language in front of the children, so they don't understand. ..."Yes, I think that's a good way to put it - she wants to tell of her feelings, but does it in a way that she knows Maggy won't understand. It's good to have her speaking for herself in the letters.
I slowly made it to chapter 11 and read Jean’s summaries with the help of Nisa’s links. What a great job you two did! :)Amy’s letters to Arthur are such an insight into Amy’s mind. I thought she was a bit too saintly, but I like her now. And her wanting to be called what Arthur called her, is so revealing of her feelings.
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I'm so pleased you're still reading Milena! And yes, I am very grateful to Nisa, as putting links in is time-consuming, but helps us all a lot :)
"Amy’s letters to Arthur are such an insight into Amy’s mind ..."
It's a nice touch, isn't it, that Amy still wants to be called "Little Dorrit"? It could have seemed patronising, or over-sentimental by the author, but I think this rings true. It is how Arthur Clennam first thought of her, and so it is her "special" name. She shows him by this that Arthur is very important to her; virtually her only friend, and that they have a bond. Others may call her Miss Dorrit, or Amy, but nobody else would call her "Little Dorrit" to her face.
Bionic Jean wrote: "She shows him by this that Arthur is very important to her; virtually her only friend, and that they have a bond. "Yes, that’s what I think too, Jean. This is the first time I read the novel, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I really hope those two will end up together.
The name rather bothered me the first time I read it, as though it more patronizing than anything else, but I viewed it quite differently this time, a sort of pet name or endearment, like "my darling".
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I remember you were annoyed with Charles Dickens for this at first, and knew what you meant Sara. It could have been twee: Victorian sentimentality. Perhaps it is in a way, but I think it is right, as the story moves along :)
In his excellent essay on Dickens, George Orwell said that when Dickens describes an image it ‘stays with you forever’. In chapter 2, what with lock down and all that, Dickens moves right across the spectrum of emotions. So, after quarantine ‘goodbyes’, ‘farewells’ and ‘good speeds (had to look that up, thought is was a misprint of Godspeed - it’s not) are said.
In his au refoir, Mr Clennam, alluding to Mr Meagles’s daughter ‘Pet’ and the possibility of another sibling, unwittingly causes Mr Meagles an apparent sadness, “I am afraid I have inadvertently touched upon a tender theme.” Says Clennam. It’s the loss of ‘Pet’s’ twin sister, the Meagles’ dead child.
The infant and child mortality rate in the 19c was horrendously high, and just about every family at the time was in one way or another effected. Many authors, giants like, Hugo, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Zola have written beautifully about it, but sometimes the descriptions are protracted. Not with Dickens, here, though:
“Never mind,” Says Mr Meagles, giving some assurance to Mr Clennam. “If I am grave about it, I am not at all sorrowful. It quiets me for a moment, but does not make me unhappy. Pet had a twin sister who died when we could just see her eyes—exactly like Pet’s—above the table, as she stood on tiptoe holding by it.”
There’s only about 20 or so words in the last sentence of Meagles's reply, but the imagery of a child on tiptoe, clinging fingers to edge of table, and her eyes wide open peek-a-booing over the table is, as Orwell says, eternal. Bravo, Dickens
Dickens is indeed a master at evoking emotion. Nice commentary, Sean
Bionic Jean wrote: "Book II: Chapter 1:Book II begins, as did book 1, with a lengthy description of our new location. ..“In the autumn of the year, Darkness and Night were creeping up to the highest ridges of the Alps.”.."
Message 3.
As an American who has not been to Switzerland and the Alps, it is easy to gloss over the spectacular nature of the setting. Charles Dickens has kept the reader so busy with all the characters in this chapter (and their changed circumstances) that I did not spend adequate time with statements such as:
"Mountain-peaks of great celebrity in the valleys . . . had been since morning plain and near in the blue sky. And now, when it was dark below, though they seemed solemnly to recede, like spectres who were going to vanish, as the red dye of the sunset faded out of them and left them coldly white, they were yet distinctly defined in their loneliness, above the mists and shadows."
This description goes on for 2 1/2 pages, yet until I actually looked up the Wiki reference to the Pass of the Great Saint Bernard, I missed the true magnificence of the setting. And now, going back to the discussion in Dickensians, I am compelled to re-read these passages. I see I was in too much hurry to understand the Poverty to Riches theme and the multitude of the travelers presented, that I missed the beauty of Dickens's writing.
Perhaps his contemporary readers, being more familiar with travel in the continent, would have been immediately impacted with this enormous change from a London prison to the Swiss Alps. In addition, at my current 459 pages, I am ready for this novel to end and have the plots resolved, where in reality I am embarking upon an (almost) entirely new tale, with the old characters re-created.
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Now she feels as if that has been snatched away, and that she is no longer necessary to the others. She is completely bewildered by a world outside the confines she has known all her life, and the new, more superficial ways of behaving that are required of her. It isn't really surprising that she is so quiet.
More plot complications? Yes! As you've pointed out, what is still to come is at least the length of an average novel in itself 😀
I'm so glad you are enjoying the descriptions. Charles Dickens loved this stunningly beautiful area when he was living there, and wrote about it in several places, such as Pictures from Italy and To Be Read at Dusk, both of which we have read as a group.
Bionic Jean wrote: "I always find it difficult to laugh at Mr. Dorrit's self-importance, pomposity and grandeur. AND
He belongs to a world that is beginning to die, as the Industrial Revolution takes hold, and at the very least he is likely to become a lost soul, as so many of the minor gentry did (though the aristocracy usually survived). We have hints that it could be even worse."
Book II, Ch 5, message 86.
I think back to earlier in the novel when I was beginning to feel sorry for Mr. Dorrit, in spite of his selfishness and disregard for Amy's feelings. When he is criticizing Amy, in speech "he had been running down by jerks"; His head "dropped . . . and he began to whimper".
I think Mr. Dorrit is more complicated that we at first were led to believe.
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Sara wrote: "Jean - I had meant to weigh in on the "saintliness" you discussed. .." And then, "So, I am a convert to the view that she is a saint in the sense of what a Victorian Christian society would have valued in sainthood".Dickens is using the character of Little Dorrit to carry the ethics of the New Testament throughout this novel. As such, she is a "little Christ", or if you prefer, a saint.
Where is the human Amy Dorrit?
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I think in her sense of loss at her earlier life, her sense of no longer being needed, and her sense of inadequacy at being able to fulfil the role now demanded of her by Mrs. General and her father. We see that their manners are all for show, but she believes they must be right, because they are her elders, have seen more of the world, and are experienced than her.
The human Amy Dorrit is sad, lonely, and missing her friends at the Marshalsea, where everyone cherished and relied on her. She feels confused, has no purpose in life, and does not know where to turn.
And there's something, or someone else who befriended her, which feeling she is not admitting to herself, although we might see it.
Bionic Jean wrote: "Lee wrote: "Where is the human Amy Dorrit? ..."I think in her sense of loss at her earlier life, her sense of no longer being needed, and her sense of inadequacy at being able to fulfil the role ..." Good point, Jean. Thanks.
Bionic Jean wrote: "When reading Charles Dickens's novel in order, it is clear how much more important the mystery ..."Book II, Chapter 10, Message 175
"When reading Charles Dickens's novel in order, it is clear how much more important the mystery element becomes over time. " WOW. Tis entire comment of yours Jean is one of the most significant to me as I read through all of Dickens's novels. Thanks!
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Pictures from Italy (other topics)To Be Read at Dusk (other topics)
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Bleak House (other topics)
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Charles Dickens (other topics)Charles Dickens (other topics)
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And I had to laugh at her comment about the painting of her father.