Martin Chuzzlewit 3: Chapter 21 - 35

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

I think Shirley and Sue were wondering about the time frame, as we seemed to cover a lot of time for Martin and Mark in America. Now we read:

“A year had passed since those same spires and roofs had faded from their eyes. It seemed to them, a dozen years.”

Off-topic, but not a spoiler. (view spoiler)[ I had googled the question: “How long does Martin Chuzzlewit stay in America” for speed the other day, thinking it was either a year or 18 months. So when I got the answer:

“11 years. Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley travel to America in April 1843, and remain there until the end of the novel, when they return to England” I knew that was arrant nonsense.

Today I googled the question again and got:

“The character Martin Chuzzlewit does not travel to America in the novel; instead, the author Charles Dickens visited America from January to June 1842, a trip that inspired the novel’s American scenes.” (hide spoiler)]

Aaargh!! AI should be banned! Would anyone else (who knows the story) like to try?

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

My favourite quotation in this chapter …

has to be the description of Seth Pecksniff:

“Placid, calm, but proud. Honestly proud. Dressed with peculiar care, smiling with even more than usual blandness, pondering on the beauties of his art with a mild abstraction from all sordid thoughts, and gently travelling across the disc, as if he were a figure in a magic lantern.”

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

This is the end of installment 13. We now have a day’s break, to represent the break between the original numbers. Installment 14 will begin with chapter 36 (part i) in a new thread, on Saturday.

[John]

Bionic Jean wrote: "It’s interesting that several found the humour a little tiresome or unsatisfactory in places here. I didn’t find it as witty, but couldn’t put my finger on it. I’m reminded that there was a similar..."

Jean, I think that is true. When Charles, Catherine, and Anne arrived in Boston, there was certainly a sense of elation from the harrowing trip being over with — and he seemed quite taken with Boston. But I noticed his mood slowly changed as he proceeded from there. It was as if the further along he went — New York, Philadelphia, DC— he soured. The abrupt end in Richmond and turn westward was a statement of “I have had enough.” I did find, for instance, the characters of Chollop and Pogram to be too overt. Dickens is usually more nuanced and I think he did not really succeed with that character. Completely one dimensional — he seemed more like a wooden statue that knew a few sentences. Yes, probably best to move on.

[Plateresca]

'Our' Phillip V. Allingham thinks that Chollop was suggestive of 'collop' (slice of beef) and 'chop'.
And this is what he writes about Pogram:
"Pogram", according to Partridge, means "A Dissenter; a <...> formalist; a religious humbug".

'Again, Dickens employs the Old Testament prophet as a direct antithesis to the American who has assumed his name, if not his mantle, in the cause of Republican virtue. The name of the prophet of First Kings derives from the Hebrew “El” (height), and Martin first beholds Pogram with his feet elevated, “as if he were looking at the prospect with his ankles” <...>. He is, in fact, the biblical Elijah inverted. More on that: (view spoiler)[The American Elijah supports the forces of barbarity and violence and the worshippers of Baal (in the person of Hannibal Chollop) rather than confutes them. Whereas the biblical figure journeyed across Sinai to Horeb and thence to Beersheba in order to avoid the repression of government, the American Elijah employs his trip to sound public opinion and contribute to the ignorance of government. His chariot of fire is a steamboat, and the three whom he appoints to office are the Transcendental (and nonsensical) Literary Ladies who repeat the satire implicit in Mrs. Jefferson Brick earlier. The chief of these is Mrs. Hominy, a vehicle for Dickens's "mockery of cultural pretension in literature..." (Wilson 162). But there is more to these Literary Ladies than mere foolery. After an initially unfriendly reception by a Phoenecian widow at Sarepta, the biblical Elijah had revived the woman's son from a coma, moving her to acclaim the prophet's special powers. The comic antitype to the widow of Sarepta is the "Mother of the modern Gracchi," who chides Pogram on a recent vote before forgiving him.' (hide spoiler)]

[Plateresca]

Personally, I think that Chollop is probably the most disgusting character in the whole novel.

Cf. Metz: 'In Hannibal Chollop, Dickens parodies the New World version of Rousseau's Noble Savage. <...> His name connotes aggression: 'Hannibal' recalls the Carthaginian general and military strategist <...> and 'Chollop' suggests 'chop and 'lop', and perhaps 'choler' or 'cholic'. Chollop's physical description, together with the reference to his 'great hickory stick, studded all over with knoes', calls to mind Andrew Jackson, 'Old Hickory' <...>.'


But the change that Martin undergoes in Chapter 33 is one of my favourite things in all of the American chapters.

Do we believe in this change, though? I mean, do we find it possible and convincing?


I am breathless at Pecksniff's appropriating Martin's design. I mean, one might think, 'What, could a student really produce anything worthy? Mr Pecksniff probably spent hours on improving the stupid design'. Believe it or not, but when I was a student, my professor did something very similar, only the thing in question was a translation and commentary to the text. I was hurt.

But, you see, in an article called 'Construing the Inimitable's Silence: Pecksniff's Grammar School and International Copyright', Gerhard Joseph argues that Pecksniff's appropriation of the design was, and probably would be now, legal: (view spoiler)[: 'And indeed we (or at least I) believe him and am tempted to come to his defense, if only because his "theft" of Martin's design raises again, in a comic register, to be sure questions of serious import to intellectual property rights in general and to the authorship of architectural and literary texts in particular. As Peter Jaszi has pointed out to me in correspondence, a strictly legal analysis of the competing claims to the architectural work in question between master and apprentice would in the nineteenth century have supported Pecksniff's claim to ownership: he is arguably the intellectual "owner" of the grammar school twice over, by virtue of his status as Martin's master and by the addition of those marginal windows which by contemporary standards would have absolved him from any charge of plagiarism, a charge which has always been more common in a literary than in an architectural craft anyway. Indeed, it was not until 1990 that changes in American copyright law for the first time embraced architectural designs (as distinct from plans and drawings) as copyrightable subject matter." (hide spoiler)]

[John]

Plateresca wrote: "'Our' Phillip V. Allingham thinks that Chollop was suggestive of 'collop' (slice of beef) and 'chop'.
And this is what he writes about Pogram:
"Pogram", according to Partridge, means "A Dissenter..."

Ah, thanks for that. I had wondered if my memory of steaming collops on the HMS Brittania was a bridge too far with the name Chollop. And I did not think of the chop possibility.

[Peter]

Bionic Jean wrote: "I think Shirley and Sue were wondering about the time frame, as we seemed to cover a lot of time for Martin and Mark in America. Now we read:

“A year had passed since those same spires and roofs h..."
Jean Perhaps AI doesn’t like Dickens. I used it to double check a quotation from ‘David Copperfield’ only to read the quotation in yesterday’s chapter of MC! Strange coincidence, rather eerie indeed, but a caution nevertheless to question AI’s knowledge of Dickens. ;-)

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Peter - Never never never - not even as a quick reminder! I've resisted AI for so long, and now I'm convinced it's plain dangerous misinformation!

John - after you'd said here how you looked up "chollop" during our read of American Notes for General Circulation, and found it was a slab of meat, I found the same in Patricia Ingram's Penguin notes for Martin Chuzzlewit, so obviously did not need to say anything, thank you. 🙂Thanks also for confirming my memory of our group conclusions about the slight "wobble" in Charles Dickens's writing at the same time in both texts.

Plateresca - there's also been discussion about the word pogram being a possible association, but as Peter pointed out, the meaning we all know dates from later than this novel LINK HERE

But your third research point is very interesting! Gerhard Joseph's argument need looking at for sure! It seems a bit of a legal loophole nowadays in American law.

My first thought at Pecksniff's adding the windows was about window tax, which has been a big issue in England and other countries over the years, but we are talking about England. Large country houses, (and schools presumably) had their windows boarded up, to avoid paying tax, but this led to an increase in bad nutrition, because those inside did not get enough light. This was particularly bad in London's tenement houses, inhabited by the poor. I may have written a post about this elsewhere in the group; it was repealed in 1851, so would be relevant, and was very much the kind of social issue that Charles Dickens cared about.

But I could not figure out why Pecksniff would add windows. It would mean extra expense for whoever ran the school. And also I cannot see him being bothered about the children's welfare ... it does not fit with his personality, so I decided it must be a red herring, even though windows seemed to be a big clue! 🙂

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax

(I'm sorry about your experience 🥹and know another friend whose extensive research was not credited in the resulting academic book by his post-grad tutor, and he was very angry.)

[Peter]

The first part of this brief chapter is very comfortable. After the wilds, illnesses, disease and fetid world of Eden (what a great name for the place) we are now back in England. Mark and Martin are snug in a tavern looking out at a familiar English street scape and not at a turgid muddy river.

Their viewing of Pecksniff may seem to be coincidental (but it is Dickens) so we now have them not only in an English tavern but in a place where they get to view Pecksniff.

Pecksniff’s award is the confirmation us readers needed. Pecksniff is nothing more than a thief, a thief of another’s intellectual property. Not only has he stolen another's ideas but he is making a profit from someone else’s work and imagination.

It seems to me that the second part of this chapter is a reflection of, and a comment upon, a main reason Dickens came to North America in 1842. His intellectual property, his writings, were not covered by copyright so anyone could steal his intellectual property. The plots of all his early novels were stolen, bastardized, and turned into plays that came out prior to his completion of a novel. Thus, an unscrupulous playwrite would guess or formulate their end to the novel and present it on stage. Dickens was powerless.

I see more and more links within MC to Dickens’s travelogue ‘American Notes’ as we read our novel together.

[Cindy]

Plateresca wrote: "I am breathless at Pecksniff's appropriating Martin's design. I mean, one might think, 'What, could a student really produce anything worthy? Mr Pecksniff probably spent hours on improving the stupid design'. ..."

I was annoyed but not surprised to read that Pecksniff has stolen Martin's designs. The notion that he improved the younger man's designs in any way did not, alas, cross my mind. Based on how he was described at the beginning of the book, I'd bet that I have more talent for architecture than he does (and I know NOTHING about it)! We were told that "of his architectural doings, nothing was clearly known, except that he had never designed or built anything . . . his genius lay in ensnaring parents and guardians, and pocketing premiums" (24). He probably only added windows because he did not have the skill to make any more complex changes than that. I am sure you are right, Plateresca, that he would have been legally entitled to claim ownership of the design, but he probably couldn't have recreated it from scratch to save his life!

I do hope that Mark is right and Martin eventually gets credit for his work. Like Jean points out, no sooner do our intrepid adventurers set foot in their native land than we are faced with evidence of arrogance and chicanery that rivals any they experience in America. I just hope that Pecksniff has not succeeded in forcing poor Mary into marriage with him! We haven't heard anything about her in a while . . .

[John]

Peter, that is very interesting about playwrights completing his work. I thought it was only the pirating of completed works that was happening in the United States. Can anyone blame him for being outraged? His works were not only being pirated, but his novels were being completed before he completed them. I don’t blame him for the feelings he directed at America through his writing.

[Sue]

Pete thanks for your information about “pogrom”. I never think about Wikipedia as a resource for some reason until I’m reminded.

[Sue]

I think I do read too many mysteries. As soon as we learned Pecksniff was involved with the dedication of a new building, I figured it had to be Martin’s school. Now I’m looking forward to the next chapter. Of course Martin and Mark have no idea they won’t find Tom nearby when they reach the Dragon. I hope he isn’t too far away. The buildup is really growing now.

[John]

Sue and Peter, your comments about Pogram resonated with me. When I started thinking about his character, I did wonder if the word pogrom was a source. But as Peter pointed out, the word pogrom came later.

I also wondered if Dickens had in mind the word program. The word program has many modern meanings (software program, for instance), but the original meaning of the word, apparently Greek, means to proclaim, or as a noun — an edict. Verb and noun seem to describe Elijah Pogram to me.

[Julie]

Cindy wrote: "My heart broke for the family that Mark was reunited with, and I hoped to the last word of the chapter that somehow, Mark and Martin would be able to take the poor, bereaved parents with them."

I was kind of shocked by how underplayed the deaths of those children were. Dickens is certainly capable of playing up vulnerable children, but these ones just disappear in the background.

[Julie]

Bionic Jean wrote: "Chapter 34:

In Which the Travellers Move Homeward, and Encounter Some Distinguished Characters Upon Their Way

Martin and Mark are on a steamboat going away from Eden. A tall gentleman approaches ..."

Since we are leaving America, I will confess my admiration for the endless inventiveness with which Dickens spins out the tobacco descriptions.

He was about five and thirty; was crushed and jammed up in a heap, under the shade of a large green cotton umbrella; and ruminated over his tobacco-plug like a cow.
*
In course of time, however, Mr Pogram rose; and having ejected certain plugging consequences which would have impeded his articulation...
*
Sitting opposite to them was a gentleman in a high state of tobacco, who wore quite a little beard, composed of the overflowing of that weed, as they had dried about his mouth and chin; so common an ornament that it would scarcely have attracted Martin’s observation, but that this good citizen, burning to assert his equality against all comers, sucked his knife for some moments, and made a cut with it at the butter, just as Martin was in the act of taking some. There was a juiciness about the deed that might have sickened a scavenger.


"a high state of tobacco!" And all that after more of the same in American Notes. As much as Dickens loathes the stuff, he seems to relish describing it.

[Plateresca]

Jean, I've also been wondering about the four windows that, according to Martin, spoil his design. This is, indeed, puzzling. No definite answer here, just some thoughts: (view spoiler)[

I've googled photos of Victorian grammar schools, and they usually had enough windows. Here's an example:
https://derbyshirevch.org/2021/10/a-b...

Metz says this whole scene is a reference to the ceremony of the laying of the first stone of the New Royal Exchange building, and that Pecksniff is described in the same words Punch used to mock William Tite, the architect. Dickens himself was not in England when this happened, but it seems he read the accounts in the newspapers. These accounts mocked the pomp and circumstance of the expensive ceremony.

Here is a photo of this building (under 1844):
https://www.theroyalexchange.co.uk/he...
It has an entrance with columns, and windows would look weird in such a façade.

But it's hard to imagine a grammar school in this style %)
(hide spoiler)]

[Sam]

Bionic Jean wrote: "Sam - It’s so good to see you commenting again! Please don’t avoid saying what you think, because (as you say) you think it might be unwelcome for us to hear. Surely it is precisely in this group o..."

I haven't forgotten this, but have not found the time to respond fully. Yes, I am considering what you wrote as well as Plateresca's comments on might might have contributed to Dickens' writing in this novel.

[Sam]

Julie wrote: "I was kind of shocked by how underplayed the deaths of those children were. Dickens is certainly capable of playing up vulnerable children, but these ones just disappear in the background...."

I am curious if anyone has any further thoughts on this? I tend to agree with Julie that Dickens underplayed the children's deaths. I would suggest he underplays all that occurred with the family from our first meeting with them and it seems quite intentional. This is part of the reason I keep wondering about what Dickens is trying to accomplish with this novel. Rather than strongly establishing the family with the reader, developing them a bit more so this tragedy would have more of an emotional impact with us, he seems to do the opposite. This was done similarly with Mary's ring and its sale. The matter was treated more casually than one might think such a matter warranted. With the ring, I noticed Dickens has now returned to add some thoughts, but something feels lost IMO.

I have no explanation for why Dickens is avoiding the opportunity to capitalize on these moments. My first thought is he is trying to employ elision or ellipsis, where the intent is not to reveal things too much for the reader, allowing the reader to discern the elements for themselves. I find this practice is far more prevalent in British fiction than American, at least in my experience, though there are are some great examples from American authors (like Hemingway, for example) I have some difficulty with this device and feel it must be employed with near perfection or it aggravates me. But many readers disagree.
A second possibility may be that Dickens is trying to fend off the idea of sentimentality. I am sure we have all heard sentimentality levelled at Dickens as a criticism. He may have been specifically trying to avoid this habit in his writing because however we judge sentimentality, Dickens seemed to have a knack for it. Personally, I find Dickens's sentimental elements some of what I find most endearing in his writing despite what critics may say.

But I do keep scratching my head in wondering why, in this novel, Dickens keeps minimalizing seemingly important bits while overwriting relatively minor bits.

[Lori]

Add me to the list that did not enjoy the chapter where Mark and Martin leave America. Sam, I like your comments about sentimentality. I think we are looking for those moments and not getting them. I’m not as erudite a reader to be able to put a finger on what is missing but something has been different than all the Dickens I’ve read so far. You may have it figured out.

[Paul]

Sam wrote: "This is part of the reason I keep wondering about what Dickens is trying to accomplish with this novel. Rather than strongly establishing the family with the reader, developing them a bit more so this tragedy would have more of an emotional impact with us, he seems to do the opposite."

Perhaps what he is trying to do is to make underplaying the family tragedy and ignoring the death of their children the very point he is emphasizing. Perhaps by making the children's death nothing more than a passing issue and effectively a near non-event, Dickens is emphasizing his disdain for America's pre-occupation with capitalism, with their willingness to defraud and to indulge in ostensibly legal thievery and its resulting loss for the victims, with the reality that sometimes the ultimate loss of disease and death, even the death of children, is treated as nothing more than collateral damage in the drive for wealth accumulation.

[Connie]

Thanks for your comments on sentimentality Julie, Sam, and Lori. I have been moved to tears by the sentimentality in some of Dickens' other novels, and that is what I miss in MC. He has the humor, the exposure of how people defraud each other, and the need for social reform which Dickens always does very well. There are a few characters to like (such as Tom Pinch and Mark Tapley), but no one that really touches our hearts like Little Nell, David Copperfield, Florence Dombey, or Oliver Twist.

[Peter]

Paul wrote: "Sam wrote: "This is part of the reason I keep wondering about what Dickens is trying to accomplish with this novel. Rather than strongly establishing the family with the reader, developing them a b..."

Yes Paul I lean towards your explanation. Your phrase ‘collateral damage’ is harsh, but I think that is exactly the tone Dickens was striving for in this instance.

We know Dickens leaned heavily into the support of children, two examples being of course Oliver and the children attending school in NN. In both those cases something should be done to protect the children and, as we know, slowly, too slowly, legislation and broad public sentiment helped turn the wheel of Justice for children.

Is it too harsh to see the casual dismissal of the lives of three children from the same family over a short span of time as Dickens being uncaring? I think not. I think the opposite. Dickens’s condemnation of the ethos of expansion, economics, and politics is loudest because it is almost silent.

[Chris]

I loved the opening 3-4 paragraphs of this chapter. It left me shaking off the fetidness of the swamps of Eden and the depressing life there. Overall, I had not enjoyed much of the chapters set in the U.S. I have not commented for awhile but have certainly enjoyed the comments of the moderator and group as a whole with such wonderful illuminating tidbits and insightful analysi

[Bridget]

I felt the same as Julie, and others, about the deaths of the three children in Eden. I wanted more written about them. Like in Oliver Twist, there is an orphan left behind who is very ill, and there is this fabulous scene where Oliver says goodbye to him. I wanted something like that.

I've got a new question for you all. Where did Martin get his training as an architect? I can't remember, and I thought I would ask you instead of trying to look it up ;-) He certainly didn't get any training from Pecksniff.

[John]

I think Martin’s “training” came solely from Pecksniff, as did the “training” received by Pinch and Westlock.

[Katy]

Didn't Pecksniff leave for London almost as soon as Martin arrived? And Martin left Pecksniff's school right after Pecksniff returned from London. I was under the impression that Martin had no real training and he just designed the school himself while Pecksniff was gone. Yet he seemed pretty confident that he could get a job as an architect in America. And the fact that Pecksniff stole his plan seems to point out that he had some talent.

[Sue]

Paul, I like your summary of why Dickens may have written of that family's horrible time in Eden the way it did. The extreme focus on profit, the almighty dollar to the detriment of the "little person" has been an issue since this country began.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Great observations from everyone here; some real food for thought.

The next thread is LINK HERE

[Sam]

Paul wrote: "Sam wrote: "This is part of the reason I keep wondering about what Dickens is trying to accomplish with this novel. Rather than strongly establishing the family with the reader, developing them a b..."

It is an interesting thought. I have been focused on various aspects that contribute to this being a less popular read by Dickens and have been trying to consider what led to Dickens producing such a work. So the example where he fails to develop minor characters more fully thus maximizing their emotional impact stands out as a poor choice IMO because he had so successfully done so in Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. Here, he has an opportunity and does not take it, though in future novels the practice returns. The idea that he did so intentionally thinking his minimizing the role of victims would give more strength to his negative opinion of the characteristics and behaviors he disdains does not seem to set in my thick skull. I do not understand how that works. It would seem to me that victims more fully developed and thus more important to the reader would make those negative characteristics seem more horrendous to the reader. I will continue to give it thought as we move on though and be looking for more examples to support your thoughts. Looking forward to more of your thoughts.

[Werner]

I finished Chapter 35 on Friday, so I'm caught up to this point! I can definitely say that I'm another enthusiastic member of the Tom Pinch Fan Club. :-)

From what I know of 19th-century America (as an American who's studied and taught American history), I don't think that Dickens' portrayal of common American foibles was unjustified, nor motivated by animus against America and its people. (Martin's parting comment about America as Phoenix rebuts the latter charge.) Every one of the social pathologies the author depicts here were quite solidly grounded in factual reality. No, they weren't the whole story; but they were too often very, very real. (And in some cases, the same attitudes can be found here today.)

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Thanks for your thoughts here Werner! I would (as an English person) not have dared express the final one, although I too have noticed it sometimes!

I look forward to you joining in for the final thread, perhaps live at some point soon 🙂