Please, Fifths, post here from chapter 30.
2 de febrero de 2012
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Wilkie Collins
Quiénes somos
- EOIGoya_Inglés
- El Departamento de Inglés de a Escuela Oficial de Idiomas (EOI) "Goya" se suma con este proyecto de blog, con el blog de teatro y con su página de vídeos en YouTube a la explotación de las nuevas tecnologías como parte de la enseñanza de idiomas en la enseñanza pública en Madrid. Un cálido agradecimiento a CMF, sin cuya colaboración esto no sería posible.
Concurso 2007-08
386 comentarios:
«El más antiguo ‹Más antiguo 201 – 386 de 386In my last comment:
......"Under any circumstances could Fanny bear any Lady in her own family over herself."....
In my comment of 15 de marzo:
….”so, a big problem is about to emerge”....
It is possible that a man as Mr Dorrit, having lived more than twenty years in prison, can become a gentleman completely adapted to the style of a high society overnight? I doubt that it be possible. Don’t you?. Don’t you think that all this is as a great house of cards that can collapse at any moment?
I am not very surprised of seeing Fanny playing a good role in a world in which appearance is the most important thing; she has the strength and the enthusiasm of youth and she also has, by her profession, a theatrical vision of life. But I consider that Mr Dorrit’s performance of a great gentleman completely adapted to a world of luxury and refinement is hardly credible. A man accustomed to live of charity, in the most absolute misery, with very poor living conditions; a man that, immediately after having known that he was the heir of a great fortune, passed all night sleeping with Mr Clennam purse in his hand could not be adapted without any problem to a life of luxury and glamour. Much accustomed as he were to parade in the narrow walls of Marshalsea, he had to feel overwhelmed in the new social atmosphere that he has to cope. So, I think that Mr Clennam perhaps is trying to find in Mrs General the support he need. Don’t you think so? He has always been very selfish; so, he can decide to get an engagement to her without talking previously with his daughters.
I liked very much the celebration of the 200 anniversary of Dickens’s birth by the English Department. The projection of David Lean’s film is magnificent and the subsequent discussion was very interesting.
The film reflects quite faithfully the book, recollecting the essential of it. However, in my view, the final scene distorts the text of Dickens; and I also missed not to see reflected the inner tear of Pip ranging between his friendly proximity to Biddy and Estela’s fatal attraction, nor Estella’s traumatic marriage, whose negative consequences were nor visible enough. In my opinion, the end of the film modifies the message of Dickens. Perhaps, from the point of view of the film, dated in 1946, was more interesting a happy ending; but this was not Dickens view.
The final idea that remains after reading the book is that the price that Pip had to pay for his attempt to be a gentleman was too high; and we could say the same thing of Estella, whose life was a hell in his marriage. Therefore, bitterness and melancholy are the last prevailing feelings in Pip and Estella’s meeting at the end of the novel, because they could never recover the innocence and the emotions, and much less, the genuine passion of a lost time. So, at the end we see the meeting of two broken heart whose scars are still bleeding.
Miss Havisham, being mad and resentful after having being dumped by her boyfriend in her wedding day, had conceived the idea of taking revenge of men, and in order to achieve this target she adopted Estella, who would become the instrument of her revenge. And, in this project, Pip was only a guinea pig that ignored that he had fell in a sinister trap and that he would be used for training Estella. He fell in love with her, and Miss Havisham stimulated his love. Pip was an orphan that lived with his wicked older sister and her husband, Joe, who treated him kindly and affectionately; and Biddy was a dear friend with whom he shared confidences.
One day, an unknown benefactor bequeathed him money to become a gentleman and he thought that Miss Havisham was his benefactress. He went to London with the expectation of became a gentleman and marrying Estella, who had gone to France to complete their training as a lady. Pip learnt good manners, he wore the best clothes, and he ashamed of his low origin. While Estella, after returning from France, rejected Pip and got married with a man that beat her and made her suffer much; thus, Estella, that had been educated to cause suffering to men, and that had become a cold insensible woman, unable of feeling love, suffered in herself the result of her own perversion.
Meanwhile, Pip discovered that his benefactor was not Miss Havisham but a convict whom he had helped being a child; and he experienced traumatically his “awakening” of his romantic dream when, after having dead his benefactor, he was imprisoned by debts and fell serious ill, being nursed by Joe who also paid his debts and got his freedom. When Pip recovered consciousness, he saw Joe besides his bed and he felt ashamed because, after having become a gentleman, he had underestimated him.
Pip’s experience of jail and illness gave him the opportunity to think; and he saw clearly that he had been dazzled by a fantastic dream; he realized that, in his attempt to become a gentleman, he had become a conceited man that felt shame of his origins. And he finally discovered that a man only could become a gentleman through the superiority of heart; he saw that his mistake had been to think that to be a gentleman was enough to have money, to learn good manners and to dress properly. Now, he Knew that he had resigned to the authentic values: generosity, friendship, goodness, loyalty,... ; values that you can find more often in humble people than in high society.
So, he decided to return and to declare his love to Biddy and marry her but, upon arrival, he was very surprised when he saw Joe and Biddy very well dressed; then, he knew that they were getting married that day.
At the end, he wandered thoughtful around Miss Havishan’s house when he met Estella accidentally and they talked friendly of their sad pass, on the old desolate garden, in an atmosphere full of melancholy.
Rosa; what a good comment, I have, however always liked the Meagles, they seem to be honest people, a little susceptible to position,which they do not have, so to say, but honest people.
Isidro, I don´t think that Mr. Dorrit will adapt, one cannot particularly if you don´t accept who you are and what you have suffered, or where you have lived
There is certainly a difference in the end of the film, treachorous to Dickens´idea of it, I totally agree with you about the loss of innocence and that this could not be surmounted happily, as it comes out in the ending of the film where a happy coupleleave satis house leaping out onto a presumably happy life. The novel endas in a more quiet, mature, hurt passige out of the house where the possibility of building a future for themselves exists, but with an unhappier outlook.
I think that Miss havisham made a mistake thinking that women if cold-blooded could never suffer and cause suffering to men, but she underestimated...men they are much better at causing suffering than we are, they are less involved in things of the heart, it takes one out a hundred to find someone like Pip, so determined to love unto "death do us part", the rest are perpetually willing to "part"
the film activity was great, indeed, the host and guests did it very well and entertaining and it was new in the eoi, different, folks we are the BEST department, with the best students!!!!
In a long weekend as we are enjoying now, Madrid becomes quiet and peaceful. You can walk calmly through places that are usually crowded and have an unusual view of the city. Suddenly it seems that life has value in itself and that people enjoy the pleasure of living comfortably without being swept away by the usual maelstrom.
That peace becomes the most absolute solitude in the blog, therefore I decided to stroll here with the characters of Dickens I know, knowing that we can do it without disturbing others.
On Saturday I went to Lavapies and I got very surprised when I saw Mr Scrooger in a little antique shop, before receiving the visit of the spirits; I felt the desire to announce the arrival of the ghosts but I did not dare.
On Sunday I went to the Retiro and I enjoyed of an spring sunny morning walking quietly and taking a beer in a terrace next to the lake; then, when I was eating with my family in a nice restaurant, a young couple arrived and was given a table next to us, and though in principle I didn’t attract my attention, I got amazed when I realized that they were Fanny and Mr Sparkle. Fanny was as showing as the day of his walk in gondola, and her looks and gesture seemed to go directed mainly to a coin of the room that I couldn’t see, so that I thought that there had to be something there that call her attention; and I got perplexed when I saw Mrs Merdle’s bosom with all her display of jewelry coming from that coin, followed by Mr Merdle with a worried air. You can imagine the look that Fanny threw to the bosom when Mrs Merdle passed before her.
Now, I am going for a walk to west’s Park; if I see a Dickens’s Character I’ll tell you.
In my comment of 18 de marzo:
…...”he met Estella accidentally and they talked friendly of their sad PAST,....”
In the one of 19 de marzo:
…..”and though, in principle, THEY didn’t attract my attention”......
Pip was very proud when he went to London to become a gentleman, and so were his sister and her husband, Joe. Pip learned the good manner of a gentleman, he dressed very well and he spent a lot of money. And when he had become a refined man, he received the visit of Joe, who was anxious to see his progress, but Pip felt ashamed of his rough ways and Joe got very disappointed.
Pip wore a high standard of life; he spent money without restraint and he was imprisoned for not paying his debts and he also got very ill, remaining unconscious and with high fever many days. When he recuperated the conscience he saw Joe next to his bed and he knew that he has nursed him all this time and payed his debts.
Pip was very weak and he took some time to recuperate his strength. He now, after having suffered very much, felt ashamed of not having behaved well to Joe and asked him pardon. He had understood that sometimes the people that merited more respect were humble people, and that friendship sincerity, generosity, goodness,....are the authentic values that dignify human existence.
So, Isidro, you liked the film? We are also commenting it in the Film Blog, you will be welcomed if you visit it.
Good nigth.
http://eoigoyainglesfilmclub.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/activities-charles-dickens-on-cinema/#comment-1313
This is the link to the forum about the Dickens Activity.
I don't know if the ending of the film betrays Dickens' book (because I haven't read it), but I like very much this scene, it's very climatic, one of the best in the film. It's powerful: for the first time we see Pip as a true man, who defies adversity, and beats it (because other thing that the film does very well is to tell how Pip failed in becoming a gentelman, but had succes in becoming a snob). A man conjured and haunted by the gosts of the past, and vanquishes them. "I am here, Miss Havisham, and I am going to let the sunshine to go in". And the lines are very good. Perhaps they are not from Dickens, but they sound very Dickensian: "This is a dead house, Estella, and you do not belong to it". Pip thinks that, in spite of all the bad things that Estella has done, there is still hope for her. And him. I think this is the idea of the essential human goodness that Dickens always had in mind. And the photography is spectacular, and both actors are particulary good in this scene. Perhaps Isidro is rigth, after all, and the "happy end" was a concession to the audiences of the period, which, by the way, had the Second World War very close, and needed to think about more hopeful things.
Dickens had a special interest in showing the hard living conditions of the most disadvantaged people; and at the same time he highlighted that much as they suffered all evil associated with poverty, as hunger disease discrimination and all kind of penalties, they had sometimes a good heart and high values; while rich people, who had a privileged situation because they had their material necessities covered, also pretend to hold a moral superiority that in many cases was not real.
Thus, as we have seen in “Little Dorrit”, a woman who was born in jail under the worst possible conditions is a model of good heart and high values; and in “Great expectation”, Dickens shows how Pip, after having become a gentleman, discovered that a smith and a convict could give lesson of morality to many presumed gentlemen.
In “Hard times” we find the same idea. Mr gradgrinds thinks that he has the secret of the good education: facts are the only valid contents; imagination and feeling must be discarded; according to him, education must provide facts and eliminate fancy. Thus, Mr Bounderby is presented as a good model because, starting from nothing, he had become rich, while poor people and the ones that work in the circus are despicable beings. Mr Gradgrinds applied his educational principles to his children but, at the end, they would be unhappy and they would behave worst than the people he had despised.
In “A tale of two cities”, we can see the suffering of the lower class and the atrocities of the high class, in England and in France; but, after French Revolution, we also see the atrocities of the lower classes. So, Dickens shows us barbarism everywhere; poverty, cruelty and turpitude generate anger, revenge and an exacerbated violence, in a vicious circle that only Mr Carton seems to brake, as a new saviour, giving birth a new world of hope.
So, it seems that we must avoid Manicheism, because neither good nor evil can be associated to a kind of human beings. The value and the moral character of people is a particular condition of every person that depend on the use that everyone does of his freedom. But society has still today many prejudices that predetermine values according with old principles.
Dickens was very interested in social problems because, being a child, he suffered all kind of penalties, and he knew that every person is worthy of respect. But many people still allocate values according with old principles, because, though the Illustration opened the door of a new world, the old ideas still nest in many hearts.
Rosa, Thank you very much for putting here the link to the forum about Dickens’s activity. I thought that the debate would take place at the entrance of Little Dorrit, and I imagined that everyone, but me, was enjoying outside Madrid, and that this was the cause why there had no comments.
In spite of being very late, I couldn’t resist the temptation of reading all comments. How interesting debate! Congratulations!
Good night:
I have just seen the Macbeth play by the Madrid Players. Do you want to know what I think about that? Well, if it was intended to be an amateur performance, it was not bad, if it was intended to be a professional one, it was not good. You can't compare it with Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, or Orson Welles' Macbeth, or with The Propelers (who were in Madrid the last year and were fantastic)...but, at less, this Macbeth is better than the Roman Polanski's version (which is terrible, the scene with the witches looks like a hippie orgy with drugs of the sixties...and Lady Macbeth is naked in the sleepwalking scene, I don't know why...).
The actors were not bad (I like very much the guy who played Banquo, and Macduff), the voices were nice, the English was beatiful, the fight scenes (altough some people laughed at them)were actually pretty good...so did the costumes, altough they could have looked like more scottish...I was not bothered by the almost naked scenary (because, in the Ancient Greece, theatre was like that, with a tent in the middle of the scenery which was a palace, or a temple, or a hut, depending on the circunstances, and classic Japanese theatre, the Noh, is like this, without sets or having always the same: a painting of a pine, and because I think that, during the times of Shakespeare, many theatrical performances should have been like this)...but I have disliked many things of it. First, the Macbeths. He was not strong enough, and so did she, who, in addition, was chubby and behaved like a scared schoolgirl. He looked like Saint Joseph. They didn't looked like evil, they didn't seem loathsome, artful and ambitious...just a couple in distress, in their love nest, which, suddenly, starts to behave in a bad way whithout being really bad. Altough I feel they were not bad actors at all, I think they have been terribly miscasted. They were not loathsome,cruel, mean, ambitious... but they were not sympathetic. I did not understand Macbeth's behaviour, slapping his wife first, and, them, kissing her, and touching her butt. I dislike the romantic hint that they had tried to give the couple, lying death together, and all the things...What's the point of that? The are the Macbeths, not Romeo and Juliet or the Lovers from Teruel...This play is about ambition, not love. The dumby king, trying to flirt with Lady Macbeth,and looking her ass, in my opinion, was totally out of the point. We know that the king is weak and stupid (because of that, he is killed), but, even so, is a king, and must behave in a royal way. The moment during the feast scene...was very puzzling to me. I know they intended to represent that they were having fun, but...to play el corro de la patata...In the scene in which Banquo is murdered, one of the dead assasins rises...and goes out! It was not intended to be hilarious, but this is the effect that we get. The music, with the little flutes and the drums, in my opinion, was annoying and innecesary, and made difficult to understand the performers.
(rest of the last commentary)
But the worst thing of all, in my opinion, were the three witches (I don't know if this is always like this, but I had the feeling that, in this particular performance the actors were better than the actresses). They were not scary (I was thinking in the only witch that we have in Throne of Blood, who chills your blood), they were not tragic, they were not misterious, they were not ugly, they were not grotesque. They were just like characters in a cartoon film!They were irking, not prophetic, or fiendish... And I felt that the apparition scene, in which they produce, I don't know why, a Joker mask, was a little tacky. Even being amateurs with little money, I think they could have done something better. Which is a pity, because, in general, the performances were good, the gestures that make you comprehensible the action, the things that they suggest...In addition, the audience behaved very badly, not helping at all, making a lot of noises, and complaining because they didn't understand nothing. Come on, man, if you don't understand, go to home of to the bar, but do not bother the people who are really interested in the play.
Do I advice to watch this play? Theatre always has something special, that cinema doesn't have. In adition, if you are in the advanced level, you should watch some theatre in English, and Macbeth is one of the best things of Shakespeare (with Julius Cesar, in my opinion). And it is short, and entertaining, this performance doesn't result slow or boring. If you can go to watch this (you are still on time), go, but don't be as stupid as the people who was sit next to me, who didn't bother themselves in read the book or watch the film and did not understood anything, and, therefore, were all the time chatting to each others. And it's better than the Roman Polanski's version, as I said (which is to Macbeth, the same that Dario Argento's version is to The Phantom of the Opera).
Good nigth.
We see in chapter X a new snub of Mrs Clennam to Arthur. I think that it is very strange that, after having heard Arthur’s declaration against Blandois who moreover is a man of vulgar manner and that had the air of having drunk a lot, Mrs Clennam asked Arthur to leave her home. I see the most dark omen hovering around Mrs Clennam. Don’t you?
In my opinion, Blandois has found an easy victim in this handicapped woman whose only defense is Mr Flintwinch, an old man that Blandois can control easily with a bottle of brandy. We know that Blandois has been looking for the way of living at expense of someone, and after discovering Mr Gowan’s limited resources, he seems to have found the best possibility of achieving his target with the least effort. Don’t you think so?
Good morning:
I think it's quite probable what you say, Isidro. Blandois and Flintwich have a sort of strange and dirty commernce between them, and they are going to take advance on Mrs Clennam's situation. And it's very strange her making him to leave the room. She doesn't trust him, or she doesn't want to trust. I dont't know if she is resented to him because he didn't want to go on with the familiar bussiness... or because he is not her real son.
Isidro, Rosa, I totally agree with you that Fanny wants to marry out of spite for Mrs. Merdle, marriage´s occur for trivial reasons as well, whenever there is an interest, we know that Sparkler is a good catch for Fanny, more so as we learn, during Mr. Merdle´s dinner, that all this lot know about the way of life the Dorrits have led up to the present moment. If no daughter would marry Mr. Gowan imagine whose would marry the Dorrits!!! it is true that now they were rich..but still, prison is quite something.
Isidro I have absolutely enjoyed your post from the 19th march about Dickens at large in lavapiés and el Retiro!!!! you are quite a writer!!! haven´t I said that Dickens breeds writers?
Rosa, your comment your review is absolutelly brilliant!!! You certainly understand the value of Shakespeare and show interest in theatre and knowledge both of performance and text. you are even better with films. And in English, very good. i will copy it in the theatre blog section, I haven´t done it!! with all I have I forgot to double check that it was included.
I glad you have liked it, but I am not an expert in theatre, in fact, I go very seldom to it. It is just what I felt about the play.
This afternoon I will not be able to go to class, because I have other thing that I can't miss (something conected with unemployment) and I couldn't go to both.
Last week I was sick with flu, and when I was almost recovered, I had to go to a village of Zamora for a burial. And, as the house where I stayed the night was frozen for having been closed all winter, I caught a bad cold with high fever. Today, I feel a little better and I hope that tomorrow I’ll be well enough to go to class.
I liked very much Amy’s letter of chapter XI. We see in it that she has an accurate vision of reality. She depicts very well Mrs Gowan’s unhappiness and loneliness; Mr Gowan’s flippancy and his mocking way, which provoke Mr Meagle’s anger,....
Amy tells Mr Clennam Pet’s unhappiness but at the same time she highlights the fact that she gave her love to her husband forever, and that there was no possibility of reversing; so, Amy shows him that Pet is a lost possibility to him; and at the same time she shows him her availability, but she does it in a subtle way, which it is not enough so that he dares to steps forward. In my view, he needs a strong push, because Mr Clennam is blind; he has fear to women, he underestimates himself and he continues thinking that he is too old. In consequence, he is weak, pusillanimous and a little coward; so, he adopts a passive and defensive position in relation with women and at the first difficulty he undertakes the withdrawal.
Oh, my goodness! Take care of yourself!
In my opinion, the behavior of Mrs Clennam to Arthur could had marked the way in which he behaves with women. I think that both Arthur anD Amy are put in a circle without ending, because they can not overpass their fears and insecurities.
Oh, my goodness! Take care of yourself!
In my opinion, the behavior of Mrs Clennam to Arthur could had marked the way in which he behaves with women. I think that both Arthur anD Amy are put in a circle without ending, because they can not overpass their fears and insecurities.
After Mr Sparkler having become one of the Lords of the Circumlocution Office, Fanny was very nervous because she saw very near the moment of her entry in society through the front door, but at the same time she was very worried because Mr Sparkler’s clumsiness was increasingly evident.
So nervous was Fanny that she had a conversation with Amy, with the intention of unburdening herself and at the same time in order to achieve Amys support. We see that Fanny has a clear idea of her possibilities and she set a realistic goal, because she knows that she can’t aim higher. She knows that Mrs Merdle never would accept her as a daughter in law if Mr Sparkler were an intelligent man; so, she knows that she has no choice but to accept Mr Sparkler if she wants to enter in Society.
And so nervous is Fanny that she had a conversation with Amy to seek her understanding and support. And, after having seen her playing the role of a great lady, it is very surprising to see her putting the feet on the ground and showing Amy the harsh reality of their family: Pa is a man full of complexes about the past; uncle is unpresentable, Edward is frightfully expensive and dissipated, and if this were not enough Mr General will be our mother in law. So, such is the negative vision that she depicts that the possibility of marrying Mr Sparkler is seen as a liberation. And moreover this way she has the possibility of taking vengeance of Mrs Merdles, which is her real interest.
Amy is desolated before the idea of Fanny getting married without love, but Funny is not looking for any advice, because she has very clear her ideas, she is only looking for Amy’s support.
Good morning:
Fanny is not perhaps really inteligent, but she has the spirits and the nerve, as she says, and she is going to get what she wanted, to marry Mr Sparkler, with or without Mrs Genarel and Mrs Merdle's aprobation. And I can foresee that this one is not going to be a happy one. A stupid husband, a mother in law who is going to put her nose in all the matters, and a wife's family which is, as Fanny herself quite lucidly says "hardly presentable". Taking advice on Fanny's wedding, I would want to say why I do not like weddings, and I prefer funerals. First, weddings are not beautiful. They are slushy, tacky and lousy. Even if it is a very posh and fancy party. Second, they are expensive. You have to buy a nice dress to go, or get one from a relative or friend, a dress that hardly ever fits you. And you have to spend money in the present, and the wedding presents usualy are not cheap at all. Third, you need a car, and be able of driving, if not, you need to be taken to the place, because wedding parties usually are not in Madrid. Fourth, you arrive there...there is a lot of people...and you know not anybody, or almost anybody...This is so embarassing. I have lived that, and it's extremelly awkward, especially, if you are sit in the last place, far away from the bride and groom, who are the people who have invited you and the only people in the wedding that you know well. Fifth, the food. I usually don't like the kind of food that it's put in the wedding parties. Sixth, and not less important, if the bride or groom were friends of you, you can say her, or him, or both, goodbye, because you are not going to see them again, or go out with them. You are not going to be part of their lifes any longer.
Therefore, I prefer funerals. They are more elegant. You don't have to spend a lot of money in dresses or presents. The Morgue of Madrid is quite near to my home. You can see people that you haven't seen in years. You can listen lots of interesting gossips. And, if the deceased was a badass...then ,they are the best things in the world!
Let's go back to Little Dorrit. It seems that the Plornishes and Maggy, and Mr Cavaletto, and Pancks have improved slightly their lives, but they are not happy, and their respectives bussiness don't work as they should. And the Italian guy is very worried...indeed, he has seen the hated Rigaud.
Arthur is still lonely and unconfident, and he is looking for Pancks' support.
Fanny knows that she can’t continue performing her role of a great woman long time, because her father is so overwhelmed by the past that to hide it is becoming increasingly difficult for him, and he is becoming like a clown playing the role of a great gentleman; his uncle is completely nuts, and Edward entertains himself spending money without sense like a monkey eating peanuts. So, she knows that she can’t go very far with this company. Fanny would like that her family shined like the sun, but she knows that she loses shine because her relatives look like the members of a circus of scarce resources which give more pity than glory.
In consequence, Fanny needs to marry Mr Sparkler immediately because he is going to London to take up his post in the Circumlocution Office, and Fanny has decided to accompany him as his wife, knowing that this is the best way of ensuring her future and achieving freedom and power.
Fanny had taken a decision when she asked for advice to Amy, therefore she showed her angry to Amy when her answer didn’t agree with what she wanted to hear. Amy doesn’t understand that Fanny should marry Mr Sparkler without love, but Fanny doesn’t look for love in her marriage.; she only wants to enjoy humiliating Mrs Merdle.
What a sad fate for a lifetime! Don’t you think so?
Of course. As I said, in my last post, Fanny, in my opinion, is not going to have a happy marriage. The mother in law, in spite all Fanny's tricks, is going to be a pain in the ass. Mr Sparkler is a total fool. But, what can Fanny do with such family? Amy is slushy and dull (because, altough she is the main character, let's face it, she is slushy and doll, and not very clever). The uncle...well, I wouldn't put my hand on the fire about the uncle Frederick's sanity. Mr Dorrit, the father, is more ridiculous than ever: a man without any merit or talent, and in adition, not nice. Mrs General is unnice and stern, and I wouldn't want to have her as step mother. And Tip is good for nothing, except for going out with not recommendable acquintances and spend money that he has not earn with his effort. Not surpringsly enough, she is anxious of getting rid of all of them. She was willing to marry Edmond not only to be a pain in Mrs Merdle's ass, but to say goodbye her not very presentable family. But I have a bad feeling about her schemes, I think that something is going to go wrong. By the way, I think that this, Fanny's marriage and her conversation with his father about Mrs General, togheter with the strange and unsolved misteries about Arthur's house and family, are the most interesting things that we have had in the book to the present.
Yes Rosa, Fanny is not good; she is an insincere person who never accepted reality and never faced the problems, therefore Amy had to assume the full responsibility of the family. Fanny, being a little girl, learnt to mask reality; she had in her father a master of the art of prestidigitation. She was not the daughter of a wretched prisoner, she was the daughter of the Father of the Marshalsea, a legendary figure worthy of respect. And when she became a dancer, she discovered a new world full of light and glamour in which the most important thing was to charm the viewer and to turn fiction into reality during the time of action.
For everybody theatre is only a parenthesis in the reality. People goes there to forget the problems for a while, but when they go out they come back to reality and assume their problems; they know that they can’t stay locked up in fantasy.
But the case of Fanny is different, she decided long ago to reject reality because she didn’t like suffer; she was a selfish girl that only thought of her happiness; and now she remains the same pampered and useless girl of always. She learnt to suppress her real feeling and to live her life as a performance; the most important thing to her is the mask; she considers herself the best in the art of Prunes and Prism, therefore she can’t accept Mrs General’s authority, nor Mrs Merdle.
The only person that achieves to awake her from her ideal dream, from time to time, is Amy. And she achieves it without doing nothing, because she never dares to confront her sister; Amy only dares to insinuate her disagreement, but her naivety and goodness drives Fanny crazy and she always reacts scorning or even insulting her; but she feels immediately a deep anger against herself and she cries inconsolably. Her tears are the prove of her inner frustration; so, in my opinion, she has chosen a a fiction life which is going to cause her many tears because reality will impose its rule sometimes.
I saw you in class, Isidro, so you have recovered, I´m glad to say. I agree with you that Clennam is very insecure and needs a push to get on, in fact parents with strong personalities often issue into this "world of woe" unfit children to get on; syblings that never believe in themselves: Mr. Dorrit; on the contrary, by having been had little character himself seems to have prduced children with strength of character, at least where his daughters are concerned.
Here am I; in Santander, where I arrived late last night. The sun is shining, bright and the sea is calm. I have left behind my house, totally derelict, and have forgotten,almost, what awaits me when I return...another move...God help me! to think that I will have to organize all those wardrobes and to do all that cleaning...folks, travel lightly, buy few things...the happiest man as the story was did not have a shirt...
Rosa, you are very right in what you say about weddings, they are expensive, inconvenient, embarrassing, you have to pretend all the time to be very happy and you have to be extemely polite, and listen very attentively to your next door neighbour, whom you have just meet about some boring issue you are not at all interested in...and this from the first course. BUT, weddings are happy events for women, since we are little girls we have been brought up with the idea of marriage, of getting to the altar where "the prince" waits for us to sweep us away to a world of eternal bliss, and this is inherent in us, thus all women are always excited by this sort of event. yours is a rare case. However I have to admit that as I grow older I find them more and more boring, and sad events, i think that when my daughter marries I will be very sad...but I will certainly keep it to myself.
Yes, Isidro. But I am not totally sure if Fanny is a girl who doesn't face the real world. Mr Dorrit does such thing. But the way in which Fanny dissects her family in her reflexions, and the schemes that she has in mind, suggest me that, altough perhaps pampered and foolish, she is not entirely useless and isolated from the world. She has certain wits, she has the guts, she has made her mind and she achieved what she wanted. But the said says "Be careful with the things that you desire, because they could come true". So, if I were her, I would started to be worry.
Have nice holidays!
Yes, Isidro. But I am not totally sure if Fanny is a girl who doesn't face the real world. Mr Dorrit does such thing. But the way in which Fanny dissects her family in her reflexions, and the schemes that she has in mind, suggest me that, altough perhaps pampered and foolish, she is not entirely useless and isolated from the world. She has certain wits, she has the guts, she has made her mind and she achieved what she wanted. But the said says "Be careful with the things that you desire, because they could come true". So, if I were her, I would started to be worry.
Have nice holidays!
Well...not for me. I must be the exception. When I was a little girl, I never played with my dolls to weddings, or baptizing, or things like that. I prefer to made funerals with them...Let's face it, everybody likes happy stories...but the sad (or the horrific ones)usually are more interesting. Surely, you wouldn't believe me if I tell you that, when the Prince and Doña Letizia got married, and more recently, when Prince William and Kate Middleton did the same...I didn't bother myself in switching on the TV. Seriously, I think I have never been interested in weddings, and now that I am growing old, as you say, my interest is becoming even lesser. And I am not against marriage in general...
Well, have a nice time in Santander, and don't get tired very much...
I think that the capacity Fanny has of analysing her family is quite remarkable, in fact I think she is very good at seeing how the case stands and to act according to her wishes. She is good at getting what she wants, and afraid to contradict her father on the issue of Mrs. general, Amy would have accepted her guidance for the wedding, but not so Fanny. I think she pretends but she knows what her family are really like.
Carmen, I am glad that you are enjoying yourself in Santander.
Rosa, I agree with you that wedding sometimes are a bore, above all, in case you don’t know anyone but the groom or the bride. In the same case, that is, if you only knows the dead, it is better a burial because, you can not go and no one misses you. Je, je, je,...
Taking it seriously, I think that a wedding is better than a burial, though if you consider the economic point of view and the other aspects that Carmen comments, a wedding can be a pain in the neck. However from the point the view of the act in itself and the feeling implied it is much better a wedding.
Carmen, when your daughter will marry your predominant feeling will be of joy; you will be happy seeing her happiness. The real trauma for the parents is that the children don’t mature, that they can’t take charge of their own lives. You must not think that you will lose a daughter but you will gain a son. If you adopt this attitude you will not be very sad, and your relationship with your son in law will be very good.
The great trauma of the human existence is the death, therefore the cult of dead is very important in all civilizations. And the death of a loved one always produces an inner tear and a feeling of sadness.
However, Rosa, I understand what you say, and I agree with you. If you have to go to a wedding or a burial by duty, and there are not feelings implied, the burial requires you less involvement.
Yes...what an interesting comentary, Isidro! I don't know, what's going on in other families, but, personaly, my dad doesn't want to hear about me being married...With my sister, he doesn't have that problem...
I only have been in three funerals conected with people in my family, and I was truly sad only in two. In the others, I was even happy! Oh, my goodness! Am I a monster? Or will it be what I said before, happy stories are always nice, but the tragic and the terrifying ones are usually more interesting? The last nigth I was reading a book, and in it it was put into the question the same issue...It said that we like sometimes horror, like the horror in horror films, specially if we know that we are not going to suffer it...
What do you feel about that? I am sorry, I know this is not very conected with the book, but I would like very much to know what other people think about it.
Oh! Thank God! At last, I can write on the blog. I had a lot of things to do, a lot of work, some trips... I couldn´t read your comments on my phone (not those from the 200th ahead), and I haven´t got enough time to read all the comments in the job, where I have internet in which I can see all the comments.
So, I´m going to comment a lot of things:
First of all, I want to wish all of you good holidays. Carmen enjoy your time in the North (and with good weather!!!) I will go to Coruña next wednesday, but there is everything burning!! What a pity!
I went to the theatre to see MacBeth and I agree with Rosa when she says that neither MacBeth nor Lady MacBeth transmited me this sense of power, frightening, crazyness... that are supposed to have these characters. And, as everybody in the theatre commented, it was not very easy to understand; but, even when I didn´t understand anything, I enjoyed the film, I have no idea about theatre, but they seemed me to be very good actors and actress (taking into account that they are not professionals). I was on the second row and the music doesn´t bother me and neither the people around me.
Regarding your last comments, I see the point of view of Rosa, but I can´t agree with you (neither in this subject). I prefer weddings than funerals, and the most important reason is that I prefer happiness than sadness. I admit the issue of the money, to look for a suitable dress, the make up (which I hates, because I feel myself as if I were an indian, because I´m not used to it and I´m very uncomfortable)... but more than these things, I hate to see other peolpe suffering, I can´t stand it, even if they are not closed related with me I, think in their situation, in their feelings and I pass so bad a moment that I undoubtedly prefer weddings.
I´m nearer the point of view of Camen than Isidro´s I see the sadness of a wedding when you know that you are losing some of your family, because they are starting a new live. Since this moment, they have their own live and their own family and at the moment in which they have children it is even worst. You aren´t the most important "thing" in their lives no longer.
Now, I want to say something about the novel, something that got my attention. It is the fact Fanny has so strong a character that she is going to marry without loving him, but there is another thing that surprises me more, and that´s the fact that she convinced her family saying that she made it because of the improving of the family, when her real intention is to get rid of them!!! Isn´t it amazing? She is a bitchy!! I don´t doubt that she is really intelligent, probably the most wise character of the novel, because she does whatever she wants to and besides, she convinced the other that she is a victim and she is doing a favor to her family!!!
I hope I will write soon!
Fanny is a domineering woman. She doesn’t accept anyone above her with the only exception of her father. Do you remember her conversation with Mrs Merdle when she went to see her accompanied of Amy? Do you remember her talking of the superiority of her family? Do you remember her saying to Mrs Merdle that her brother wouldn’t consider her connexion with Mr Sparkle any honor? Fanny’s impudence in that moment was amazing, taking into account the situation of her family. A woman that is able to cope with a situation like that is capable to face any difficulty; so, I agree with you Rosa that she has guts. But her negative side is that she goes through life with anger and spirit of revenge; she sees life as a competition in which she ever has to achieve the preeminent place; she thinks that everybody must to bend to her will. And though it can be good in some cases, for example, when you meet someone that wants to take illegitimate advantage of you; as a general rule, I think that you must not going always with the battle ax in hand.
Otherwise, Funny is fantastic deploying her irony. Thus, after her father having formally informed Mrs General of her wedding, and she having received Mrs General congratulations, Fanny said:
“The relief of finding that you have no objection to make, Mrs General, quite takes a load off my mind...... I hardly know what I should have done if you had interposed any objection........(....)..... The merit of having consulted you on the subject.... it is wholly papa’s...... I have to thank you, Mrs General, for relieving my breast of a great weight by so handsomely giving your consent to my engagement,....”
So, Fanny yielded at her father requisition of informing Mrs General, but at the end she took the opportunity to show clearly her position. Is this not fantastic?
In my last comment:
…..“she thinks that everybody must bend to her will”...
It's is true that, saying that all what she wants is to improve the position of the family, what Fanny really wants is to get rid of them. Even of Amy. Fanny usually says she loves her, but she is all the time treating her with disdain.
And she doesn't like Mrs General, and she says, even knowing that as soon as she get married, she will stop of seeing her. But not always the things result as we plan them, and perhaps Fanny's schemes are not going to be as succesfull as she thinks. And...do you really think, Isidro, that Fanny only accepts her father orders? I don't think so, I think that she knows her father is weak and can do with him as she pleases. I think she would marry Sparkler even if her father hadn't agreed.
Have a nice holidays! I am going to the countryside, and I don't have Internet there, so I don't know if I will be able of writing til the next week.
Rosa, I think that though, talking in general, we can say that wedding are happier than burials, the reality is very complex. Thus, I think that there are a great diversity of nuances and that in extreme cases we can find wedding sadder than burial. For example, I know a case in which such was the upset and the disagreement of the parents with the groom of their daughter that they were not to the wedding; and I am sure that there are many cases in which the parent go to the wedding only to keep up appearances; so, in these cases I don’t doubt that they are very sad in the wedding. And, otherwise, when a person is very old and is suffering without hope of recovery and the family is also suffering, the death is a release for everybody; so, in this case the burial is not sad. An example of this kind could be, in “Great Expectations”, the death of Pip’s daughter after becoming disabled; moreover, she was a bitch that hit both, Pip and Joe. And do you think that would have anyone sad in Mr Blandois’s burial, in case he should die? Perhaps, in this case, only the undertaker would be present, unless Dickens should decide to introduce Mr Cruncher’s son as a new character of this novel. Don’t you think so, Carmen?
In consequence, we can’t generalize, because the feeling of people depends on the circumstances.
In my opinion, the horror of books or films is different because, as you say, Rosa, this horror doesn’t affect us personally.
Did Pip have a daughter who was a badass, and died? How interesting! I didn't know, I tink I should get the book.
Well, I must say that I have known funeral in which the children of the deceased , and the wife, were happy, because he was a bad egg, and they were happy because they got rid of him. The priest asked them for some good qualities of the late father and husband, to praise him in the mass...and they couldn't say anyone...
And, of course, when the person is in very bad condition, a sadly familiar case, is a relief.
Not just in horror stories, or films, but in general, in litterature, I feel that sad and horrific stories usually are more interesting. Would we remember, for one, Hamlet if he would have had success in revenging his father, inheriting the kingdom and marrying Ofelia, and, of course, surviving in the whole process, and dying at a very old age? Would we like today a films like Brief Encounter or Casablanca if the lovers would have been reunited at the ending? Would we like Macbeth if he had been a nice fellow? I think that the answer, in all the cases, is definivetly, no.
Oh Rosa, I’m very sorry; I wrote Pip’s daughter when I wanted to write Pip’s sister.
Pip was an orphan that lived with his sister which was married with Joe Gargery, the blacksmith. She was a bitter and authoritarian woman that hit Pip frequently. And Pip tell us that his sister “had a great reputation ….....because she had brought him “by hand”.......and she had a hard and heavy hand”
And Pip says that she supposed that Joe was also brought “by hand” because she had the habit of laying her hand upon her husband as well.
Such is the bad temper of Mrs Gargery that when, after dinner, she was working in her needlework, Joe and Pip talked very softly in order to not disturb her; and the scene is comic because because after every answer of Joe, Pip asks a new question, until Mrs Gargery got tired of so many question and she sent him to bed.
And the questions were very innocents!!
What are that great guns, Joe?
There is another convict off.
What does that mean, Joe?
Escaped
Joe put his mouth into the form of saying to Joe, What is a convict ?
Who is firing?...............
You have this dialogue in the leaves that Carmen gave us, corresponding to the theatre that will take place on the school, on April 11.
Rosa, I do not Nike horror films!!! I haber to soy Soraya for año spelling mistares! I'm using an I pad that my husband has lent meand bedeles to say I can not word it out!!!! Needless is what I Walter and not that funjo word above? It is vera an nomina but I jeep reading what I nave not written, and web léase expected tus funjo tinglado written unaided and undirected, I mean it written on it son, by itself as it were!!
Why is it so popular ??? It isanightmare follas, donot use it. By the way follas is folks !!!
Yes Fanny achieves what she wants; but in the case of her marriage, the problems is if her happiness will be durable. She is going to find a certain satisfaction imposing her will and exhibiting her youth before Mrs Merdle, but at the same time she is going to tie herself to a man that not only she doesn’t love but she can’t stand.
We see in chapter XIV that Fanny is very annoying with Mr Sparkler’s conversation with Amy, and she doesn’t permit him to talk with her, because Fanny objects nearly everything that Mr Sparkler says, what is very strange because he only looked for being friendly to Amy, in the moment in which they were announcing her their marriage.
In my opinion, Fanny’s relationships with his husband will be similar to Mrs Merdle’s relationships with hers; that is, they are not going to have anything in common. Do you remember Mr Merdle’s answer to Mrs Mrdles’s complain:
…..... “If you were not an ornament to Society, and I was not a benefactor of Society, you and I would never have come together....(...).... You supply manner, and I supply money.”
So, while Fanny should have money to carry a high standard of living, there will be not any problem, but if one they she had not enough money for her whims, her life would be hell. Don’t you think so?
Yes, Rosa, you are right; in literature sad, horrific, bizarre, diabolic, crazy,.... stories are more interesting for many people than stories without strong emotion or passions implied. Writers know that the success of a story is assured if they achieve to keep the readers in suspense; therefore they frequently introduce in their stories at least one character or a certain degree of incertitude in order to achieve this target.
But one thing is literature and other very different thing is real life. In literature we are trapped easily by a story that depicts implausible situations, but in real life we need that things occur in a predictable sequence. We can bear a certain degree of incertitude but beyond a certain point we get confused and sometimes traumatized.
Do you have noticed that many children’s stories are awkward, violent or even truculent stories? In my opinion, the world of children is not a paradise; little by little, children are knowing the negative side of reality and many of them are going to suffer the consequences of an unjust world. So, children’s stories are useful to develop children’s fantasy and to help them to face problems in a fictional world, which is less harmful to them than to suffer this problems in real life. Moreover, when a little child attends for the first time to the evils of a story, he or her is sat on the lap of his dear father or her dear mother and she or he feels secure and loved; so, none of the evils of the story can affect him or her.
And adult can enjoy reading terrifying stories because we know that we are out of the story; we know that the maniac murderer of the story we are reading is closed in the book and that he will not be able to act against us.
Rosa but their marriage is the perfect one, there being an interest on both sides it will be a happy one!! When there is just love..that is normally worse.
I think; Isidro that most of the things that ocurr in novels have ocurred in real life, my live, simple as it is is a novel..or perhaps I make it so..
Sorry about my previous post! I used an I Pad and look at the result!!
Rosa, in my opinion, it is very strange that you liked to play to make funerals when you were a little child. Perhaps you heard in more than one occasion that when people die they go to heaven and that in heaven people are very happy; so, it is possible that you played to make funerals, because you had a positive idea of the death.
In the childhood sometimes some ideas are very strongly associated in a strange way; and this association sometimes remains long time in our minds, and many times we don’t remember the cause of the association. I am going to tell you a personal anecdote that reflects an association of this kind.
When I was a child I liked very much Chistmas, and to hear carols made me very happy, and still now I like Chistmas Carols; but there is an exception to this rule, because whenever that I hear “Campana sobre campana” I become sad; so, I hate this carol. The explanation of this fact is this:
When I was six years old, more or less, I lived in a little village; and a Sunday morning, in Christmas, after the mass, all the children were in the church with the priest singing carols, and I remember that I was happy. But when we were singing “Campana sobre Campana” a man got into the church and whispered something in the priest’s ear, and immediately, the priest asked us to stop singing and the man began to ring the bell to death. And meanwhile the priest asked us to kneel and pray for the dead. I have never heard a sound so sad as the one of those bells sounding over our heads!
When I arrived home my parent were very sad and they commented the event with great regret, because the dead person was a young daughter of friends of my parents. Later when my parent went to the burial I got at home very sad hearing the monotonous ringing of the bells during the procession with the dead to the cemetery; and as the procession passed next to my home, I went upstairs to look through a window facing the street where the funeral passed. And, when I looked through the window, I saw the dead woman directly because the coffin was uncovered, and I got very impressed.
Since then, “Campana sobre campana” has always been sad to me, because the monotonous and sad ring of those bells and the idea of the death is always present in my mind while I hear this carol.
If I had forgotten this memory, I could not explain why I have a feeling of sadness whenever I hear “Campana sobre campana”. So, Rosa, if being a little girl you played to make funerals, it was because you had a positive idea of the death; therefore, you were a fortunate girl, because you had not the prejudices and fears that usually people have.
Carmen I agree with you. I also think that we can meet in real life people as crazy, ruthless and monstrous as the characters of the novels of maximum suspense.
What I meant when I wrote about this subject is that what is good for a novel not always is good in real life. Thus, we can have our home library full of crazy characters and we can enjoy reading their foolish stories, but we don’t want to have a real person of this kind at home.
For example, we like very much reading Don Quijote’s crazy stories; and when we read a quiet passage we are wishing that he begins a new battle; and the more extravagant the adventure is the more fun. However, we wouldn’t want to have a brother in real life that suffer frequent crisis and that should produce conflicts like the ones of Don Quijote; and had we the misfortune of having a relative with a problem of this type, we wouldn’t be happy when he had a crisis.
In the same manner, though Rosa says that she likes very much terrific stories, I am sure that she would not sleep quiet in the cottage where she is spending Easter holidays, if she should had a phone call tonight advising her not to open the door to strange people, because it is suspected that the dangerous murderer of women that the police is looking for is in the zone.
Carmen, the comment of your iPad was very funny. It is clear that technology can not completely replace people.
Good nigth, I am here again.
You are very rigth, Isidro! And the story you told about Campana sobre Campana...it's amazing... I know it is not a nice one...but you remember it because it's an extraordinary one. That proves what I said!
I was raised in a nun's school, but I am not particulary religious, and, in fact, I think that many of my problems are because I have a religious education (and it was a not very good one, I mean, it was not good just because of its being religious, but because of other things). And I am not against religions, but I think it's better to kept it away from certain things.
There is lot of people who don't like horror! I don't know why. It doesn't have, in general good reputation. I don't know why, because I think that films reflect society better than other artistic or cultural products, and horror films, better than other films (we had the First World War, and, in Europe we have filmes like Caligari, or Nosferatu, we had the 29 Depression, and we have Dracula and Frankesntein, we had the Cold War, and we have The incredible Shrinking Man and The Forbidden Planet...we had the AIDS and the cancer, and we had Alien...). And it's true that there are very bad (very bad!)horror filmes, but other are masterpieces. It's sometimes easier to face monsters or vampires than to face the problems or the world...or our inner demons, many of them, represented by characters in horror stories. It's a matter of taste, of course, I don't like romantic comedies, for one.
Well, I was not afraid at all and I could be because the house in which I spent the Eastern... is almost in the middle of the countryside, and, once, we have a terrible fear...because a cow came into the garden!But a bit bored...
Let's go back to civilitation and Dickens...
Hi!
First of all, good return to everyone!!
Regarding horror films, I have to say that I can´t stand them. They make me feel bad, nervous... I mean uncomfortable. So, I prefer any other kind of story even romantic ones, I´m not fond of them thought. And it would be related with the fact that I hate funerals and I prefer weddings, I don´t know!
Isidro your story is great and you´ve told it so good that I could imagine it, the priest, the sound of the bells, even the procession with the dead girl!! It would be really horrible to you! And you were very young.
With reference to the novel, I think that much as Fanny wanted to marry Mr. Sparkler she is not going to achieve her goal, because Mrs. Merdel is not a fool and she is going to fight not to fall in the trap Fanny will prepare to her and, furthermore, she would be prepared for it. Fanny escape from her home because she doesn´t want to stand Mrs. General and I think that the same would be made for Mrs. Merdel so as to avoid Fanny´s mokery.
And that why I think that Fanny will not be happy, taking into account that she´ll stand her husband!!
Isidro, what a sad stoy but how well described, you have quite moved me. you are so right, when we associate something with something good we like it.
Isidro, if you have not cured Rosa of her admiration for strange things nothing will. Rosa would you like to meet these sort of "friends"?? Je, je.
Now Isidro it is not my I Pad but my husband¨s! I am; as you all know very bad with all these computer trinkets, but, that device is mosntruous, first of all it doesn´t keep still, so you keep losing your page, then words start to crop up unwanted, and worried as you are about not losing what you are writing you write what IT wants an suggests and not what you want..I´m positively scared of it!!!!
rosa, afraid of a cow???? you will not make a very good ghost hunter!!!
In chapter XVI we see Mr Dorrit enjoying his new status in London; he has been seen arm in arm with Mr Merdle and this simple fact has been enough for all leading figures in politics, clergy, finance...want to talk to him because they consider that Mr Dorrit has become a warranty of direct access to the Great Merdle. So he is parading as in the old times but with the difference that if before he was playing his role before the poor devils of Marshalsea, he is now between bishops, bankers, public officials, and a swarm of people, as flies around a cake.
Only does the Chief Butler dare to look at him with a disquieting air. And there is no scaping from this inquisitive provocative gaze!!!! So, Mr Dorrit decides to ignore the danger; and to strengthen his severity with his subordinate, and to increase the distance to all people to reinforce his authority, let anyone should venture to defy his authority .
But, do you think that Mr Dorrit will achieve to maintain the fiction for a long time? I don’t think so. Do you think that Mr Dorrit, having been a beggar for most of his adult life, will be able to play his new role without problems? In my view, it is the same that to think that a person with problem of vertigo could become a circus acrobat. So, in my view, something important is going to happen.
Well, I am not a ghost hunter, and I have never tried to be that...in fact, I am pretty coward, but, if you would hear some strange noises in the nigth, in the middle of the countriside, I think you would be pretty scared...Knowing that it was only a cow, it 's easy not to be afraid (even given the fact that a cow in the garden is not funny at all, because we didn't know how to take it out there, and it could be dngerous...), but, to be honest, the first think that you would think in circumstances like that, it would be "Thieves!", or something like that. Do I would like to know some of these "strange people"? Well, I don't know, but I am sure it would be neither boring nor uninteresting. In the film The Beauty and the Beast (the Jean Cocteau's version, not the Disney one), there is one of the best quotes about love that I have ever heard: "When I am with you, I like to be afraid". And Oscar Wilde conected love with the uncertain!
Coming back to Dickens, Mr Dorrit's adventures in London are quite strange and interesting. We have seen his interview with Flora: quite embarassing, Mr Dorrit realized, against his will, he is still haunted by his past. And look his conversation with Mr Merdle: a lunatic and a mooncalve. I have a bad feeling about these strange bussiness that they have.
I wouldn't let my bussiness into the hands of a man like Mr Merdle. Sure, he is famous and well respected, but seriously, what had he done, but marry Mrs Merdle and taking his son as a foster son? Not always the most famous people are the better or more effective in their staffs. Do you remember the film Forest Gump? You don't need to be intelligent or respectable to have sucess if you have luck, and you are able of taking advance of the opportunities. In adition, if your family is well situated and conected, you have almost the whole thing solve. It's strange, but now I have the feeling that the whole book is about the importance of having money and to be well situated in society.
Mr Dorrit playing the private investigator! This is so strange...Why is he doing that? And indeed, the house he goes to is even stranger... A dead man walled in the cellars.. This sounds promising...but, is Blandois really dead? Why Mrs Clennam and Jeremiah are so reluctant to talk about the visitor? Why so impatient to get rid of him? I am almost sure he has done what they deny: to take something of the house...something that they don't want to tell the police. It must have been something terrible, or very compromising... The proofs of another crime, comited years ago for someone of Arthur's family? I always felt that this guy, Rigaud, Bladois, whatever, had the intention of blackmailing someone...
If embarasing to Mr Dorrit was Flora's visit, the visit of Young John has been even worse...
Good nigth:
I have just seen the Reading of Dickens at the school, by the Lewisjones Comapny. Carmen said it was the best thing in theatre that they have seen this year. I don't know, because I have seen only Macbeth (check my commentaries below this part). Well, I also seen El perro del Hortelano, but it was not in English, and I didn't like it, so it doesn't count.
This one, at less, doesn't pretend to be better than it actually is. The voices were beautiful, and the English, nice. We have a slightly better organization than the one we had in the Elisa Tavern. They made several voices and characters without being ridiculous, which is not easy, in my opinion. Mar said that she felt the woman were better than the men: one of them looked like a real English housekeeper, and she was fine acting as the Aunt Bessie and Mrs Bardell. But I think the men were also very good, specially the one who played Mr Pickwick, who really recalled Mr Pickwick. The parts that I like the most were Great Expectations (perhaps because this is one of Dickens' stories more familiar to me), and the one about David Copperfield (I like very much when the aunt menaces Mrs Mursdtone with cracking her hat along with her head). The Pickwick Papers was also nice. The one that I liked the less is the one about A Christmas Carol, because I don't like this story, and also nothing happens during this part of the theatre.
It's very curious we had had this one, beacuse Dickens was very famous not only by his books, but for dramatizing readings of them. They were made mainly for economic reasons, they were a way of raising money, much in the way in which today they write the book, and, then, if it is successful, they make the film (this was common during XIX th Century, to make the famous novels into theatrical plays). But also, Dickens considered himself a frustrated actor, so, they liked to do that. And it was said he was very good.
Good nigth.
(I have already posted that in the Theatre blog, but I don't know why, it doesn't appear there).
I liked very much the lecture of texts of Dickens. I felt within the stories from the beginning to the end, less in the last one; and to see Dickens’s characters in the assembly hall of the School was to me a fantastic experience. So, Carmen, thank you very much for organizing this activity.
When I read the sheets with the texts that Carmen gave us, I felt the desire of knowing a little more about “The posthumous paper of the Pickwick Club” and I began to read the full text in internet; and as I liked the story very much, I bought the book and I am reading it. I advise you to read this book because it is full of funny extravagant adventures; the plop grips you immediately, and the vocabulary, at least until now (chapter XV), is not so difficult as in Little Dorrit; moreover, if you listen it in “librivox.org” you can enjoy very much. I liked especially the passage of chapter twelve in which Mr Pinckwick’s landlady thought that Mr Pinckwick was making her a proposal of marriage.
I also liked very much and I understood very well the texts of Great Expectation. Perhaps the fact of having seen the film recently and that I had read the book contributed to my understanding. Finally, I also understood very well and I liked very much the texts of David Copperfield.
Thank you for the links, Isidro. I remeber have seen a cartoon adaptation of Mr Pickwick many years ago, when I was a little girl, and the only things that I remember was Mr Pickwick's extravagant looks, two ghosts stories inserted in the rest of the plot (one concerning an undertaker kidnaped by the goblins, very much in the way of A Christmas Carol and another about a girl who was going to marry with the devil, but she didn't know), and a scene in which all the Pickwickians went to a hunting and a lot of nonsenses happened to them (they were pursuited by a wild boar, they got their breeches broken...). Years later, I tried to read the book (but in Spanish), altough I couldn't finish it. I knew that it was the first book that Dickens wrote, and it was supposed to be just a series of sort descriptions for a series of ilustrations about the crazy adventures of a wacky hunting club.
Chapter XVIII begins with Mr Dorrit’s thoughts about the convenience or no of passing near Marshalsea and looking at the old gate. It would be a great satisfaction to him if he had been able to take a sincere decision; it would have been a great relief for his heart, but his high position doesn’t permit him to take this liberty; he has to take caution to safeguard his good name.
What would think the First Butler if he knew that he was thinking about the possibility of making this visit? Mr Dorrit’s obsession in keeping secret his past before a butler is unhealthy; and it is the most clear test of his low condition and of his inferiority complex that he always attempt to conceal. If he is in this state of nervousness before a butler, though this is the First Butler, what do you think that his state will be during his meetings with bishops bankers and politicians? I think that he is about to explode with tension. Don’t you think so?
In my view, Mr Dorrit needs go away to Italy or to any place where nobody knows him and he can live and enjoy his wealth peaceful. Therefore after the banquet of farewell and after having been overwhelming by Mr Merdle attention, he go away and scarcely could he breath easy and recover his calm until he was across the Channel.
Flora has decided to play the role of Mr Watson. She worships Mr Clennam and she knows that Arthur is worried about the strange relationship between Blandois and his mother. So, it wouldn’t be a fantastic thing if she could discover the mystery and that she could provide this extraordinary service to him.
Don’t you think it interesting to her? It would be amazing that she achieved to give this gift to Mr Clennam; Flora is already enjoying the moment when she would splain, with all kind of details, the mystery to Mr Clennam. She has imagined Mr Clennam’s look; she has imagined his loving and grateful eyes, and she has seen him encircling her waist with his caressing hand embracing her tenderly. So, she could not resist the temptation of running away as fast as possible; she could not wait for her aunt in law or anyone else to accompany her; she could not waste a single minute; she felt herself attracted by an irresistible force. Oh!!!! what a whirlwind!!!!! How exciting!!! What wonderful madness!!!! It is the power of love breaking all barriers!!!!!
It is not marvelous?
He, he...Isidro... I think this is not going to happen. Mr Clennam is all the time in his world...It's very curious, but we have also Mr Dorrit in his world and Little Dorrit in her world and Young John in his world. We have a lot of autistic characters in this book.
Mr Dorrit is willing to come back to Italy, because there, he is not the Father of Marshalesea, but an English Gentelman. Nobody knows him there, so he can do as many castles in the air as he would want. Exaggerating a little it's like all these English and American teenager tourist, who come to Spain to get drunk and party, because nobody knows them there, and they can do everething whitout fear the consecuences, or being recognized, and labeled as stupid, drunkard or fresh. In their own villages, they don't dare, because everybody knows them.
Mr Dorrit listened to Flora astonished by his uncontrollable verbal stream; and he was bewildered by her confused discourse. First of all, he wanted to know who was “Clennam and Co”, with whom Blandois had had a certain relationship, and if there was any connexion between this company and the Mr Clennam he knew slightly.
Only after having seen the police handbill with the description of Blandois did Mr Dorrit get interested in this issue, because he remembered that this man had been in his own house accompanying Mr Gowan, and he also had seen him at Mr Gowan home; so, it could be very convenient to him to recollect all possible information about this strange case, because it could be very useful in the case that he met Blandois in Rome.
If he discovered something wrong related with Blandois, Mr Gowan could be exposed to a great danger without knowing it. So, thinking of the possibility of doing a favour to Mr Gowan, he visits Mrs Clennam with the idea of recollecting information about Blandois.
Mr Dorrit would feel very proud if he could release Mr Gowan from any possible danger. We can’t forget that Mr Gowan belongs to a good family, and nobody knows better than Mr Dorrit the importance of reinforcing his good relationships to ensure his status.
So, at the end, Mr Dorrit’s target in this case is not totally altruistic; however, we saw that he could not obtain any information about Blandois in his visit to Mrs Dorrit; the only consequence of his visit was to increase the mystery around him.
Oh dear! Young John visit Mr Dorrit in his hotel! What an audacity! What an insult! How does he dare to affront Mr Dorrit this way?
Poor Mr Dorrit! He doesn’t want to go to Marshalsea, let the First Butler, with his ever watchful eye, should get aware of his past; and Marshalsea has the temerity of coming to his hotel!!!
What a disgrace! He is very nervous and very angry with Young John, because his presence in the hotel is a great menace against his reputation; and so vile and despicable is his behaviour with John Chivery that himself was ashamed. But what could we hope when he, still being a wretched beggar disguised with his aura of fantasy, became so angry with Amy when she accompanied Mrs Plornish’ father to Marshalsea?
Mr Dorrit ever was a selfish hypocritical man; all his life in prison was a flight of reality, but being his situation so wretched and miserable, his behaviour was comprehensible and forgivable. However, never did I think that becoming a rich man he would also become so ungrateful and insensitive.
Mr Dorrit tries to maintain himself far of Marshalsea, but he can’t do it because his past is inside himself and it will persecute him wherever he goes. And if one day when he wakes up in the morning he had achieved to forget completely the past, he would live as a permanent sleepwalker; he would be condemned to live without roots and without sense, he would live a fantastic life in his imaginary castle. So, he would have reached an hallucinatory state of impossible return.
What a tragic destiny! Mr Dorrit is condemned to live always escaping anxiously from himself, or to reach this hallucinatory state which there is no escaping.
Mr Dorrit's behaviout to Young John is totally irking. What does he belive he is? John has no reason to have such details to him, and look the way in which Mr Dorrit gives him thanks. Even when he was nobody, John was there and was nice to them. Now we have seen the kind of person that Mr Dorrit is. And look the use he gives to the cigars! He gives them away to one of the servants!
Rosa, in my view, neither Little Dorrit nor Young John flee from anything, they don’t pretend to forget the past; they don’t try to create a fantastic world; they are normal people with their dissatisfactions and frustrations but without trying to mask reality. However, Mr Dorrit is a clown because he think that he can mislead the other but everybody knows who he is. Mrs Merdle knows his real personality and she remains silent because she is looking for the interest of his son; Mr Merdle also knows the secret but he is not interested in the problems of Society; he is only interested in money without taking care of its origin; the Circumlocution Office and, in consequence, Mr Gowan is aware as well, and so Mrs Gowan to whom Amy has open his heart; and even Blandois knows all about him. So, Mr Dorrit only can go unnoticed if he restrict his activity to walk to the parks of Roma and throw bread crumbs to the doves and even to talk to them. And if we could hear his speech to the doves, we would hear him talking about his glorious life in Marshalsea, because he needs, to vent in some way to avoid become crazy.
Otherwise, Rosa, I think that English tourist don’t come here fleeing from nothing; they are not interested in hiding their personality; if they wanted to hide their personality they wouldn’t need to come here, they only would have to go to a different neighbourhood. If they come here is because they take advantage of tourist packages with accommodation, food and drinking at a bargain price; and moreover, at the same time they enjoy of a good weather.
Of course, the teenager tourists don't come here running away of anything (except, perhaps, their boring rutines), but I am sure that many of them come here because nobody knows here, and, therefore, they can do things that, otherwise, they couldn't, because their neighbors would say: "Oh, my goodness, look at Jane Done, she is a hurlot..." and things like that. In Rome, nobody can say: "Oh, look, he is the Father of Marshalsea...". In any case, I think that both of them, Mr Dorrit and the drunk teenagers try to go to other world...something that, in some way, it's not their real life...I am afraid I can not say it better. Except that, sometimes, is nice to go to a place in which nobody knows you, and, therefor, you reputation will not suffer. It is not as much as running away, as to live in other world, a world not real, disconected of the true facts and the people around...
Well...the cases of Mr Clennam and John I think they are more complicated...Young John is a dreamer. Perhaps, a bit fool (but not at all as much as Mr Dorrit, because he knows what he is and doesn't try to be something different), but he is in a world of dreams... always remembering Amy and doesn't accepting she is not going to come back. It's a bit the same case as Flora with Arthur...only that, in this occasion, I think that she, in fact, is aware of the fact that Arthur is not going to come back, but she acts as if he were...Arthur is not very active, he seems musing and worried all the time, but, if we don't count his association with Mr Doyce, he does nothing. Who helped Amy's family? Pancks, by finding out the whole thing about the inheritance. Not Arthur, who is very busy being disturbed about his impossible relation with Pet and the dificult treat with his mother, a woman who seems to be living in the past. And look at the poor Affery: she is really traped in a world of spirits and ghosts, but we have a doubt about that: are they real? Mr Gowan is resentful to his family and the high society wich rejected him, and he seems unable to accept that he never would be like Mr Sparkler...And Amy...her problem is just the opposite, that she is trapped in her past, and she is awkward with her present. She is still in her own world, an imaginarian Marshalsea, in which the things would seem better than actually were...I think that the only realistic people in the book, the people who knows their real place are the Plornwishes, Doyce, Flora (with some reservations), Maggy, Jean Baptiste, Uncle Frederick and Blandois. The poor, the evil or the ones who are rejected by the others or considered little inteligent.
Hi Rosa, it is fantastic to disagree, because it is the best way of having any topic to write.
First of all, I think that English young people, as young in general, don’t care about what other people think of them. Nowadays, young people think that they can do whatever they want and if an adult attempt to correct their behaviour, they react abruptly blatantly and without any regard. Young Spanish people are not different from English ones; the only difference is that Spanish people can’t go to London because the cost of a weekend there is too expensive, therefore they do the “botellón” here.
In relation with Dickens’s Characters, in my opinion, we could make different classifications depending on the criterion we use. But for not doing my comment too long I am only going to say that I think that you are not right when you say that “the only realistic people....the people who knows their real place …..are the poor, the evil or the ones who are rejected by the others or considered little intelligent.”
I think that this is not a problem of being rich or poor, smart or short, good or bad,.... It is a problem self-esteem and self-acceptance; it is a problem of everyone with himself. I believe that everyone knows his deficiencies and try to show his more positive side; nobody likes to show his defaults to the others; this is a general rule that is valuable in real life as well. But one thing is not to go everywhere showing your negative side, and a different one is to hate and to be ashamed of a part of yourself so intensely that it becomes an obsession for you. In this case, that is, when the concealment of the own personality becomes an obsession, you can suffer a serious psychologic trastorn. In my view, this is the case of Mr Dorrit.
We have seen Mr Dorrit getting very nervous and staying stunned and speechless, in the convent of the Great Saint Bernard, when the host told him that he could not put himself in the place of a man that has no the power to choose and that has to accommodate to a limited space; we have seen him in London peering suspiciously the others trying to guess if they knew something about his previous life; for example, he shivered only by thinking of the possibility that the First Butler could glimpse his meditations about the possibility of going near marshalsea to see the old gate; we have seen him scolding Amy and treating her harshly; and finally we have seen him in his imaginary castle, a castle greater than the higher cathedral....
Rosa, don’t you really see Mr Dorrit out of reality? I do. Before chapter XVIII, there were only vague clues, but in this chapter we can see clear symptoms that he is off his head.
Of course, Mr Dorrit is out the reality, haven't I said that? This is the reason of his making "castles in the air all the time". Perhaps I didn't express it well.
In my opinion, Spanish teenagers are not like British, or American, in the same way in which Spanish adults are not like British or American ones. You say that they don't care about reputation, and this is not true. Precisely, when you are a teenager, you feel more insecure, and you are all the time worried about your reputation and thinking what the other people could say about you, because they could ruin your social life. Everybody wants to go with the popular boys and girls in the high school, and nobody likes jerks and nerdies and geekies. I can say this, because I have lived. When you were young...did you like to go with the cool people or did you prefer to be a friend of one of the freaks? If you say yes to the second, or you are lying, or you were one of the freaks...
Of course, the self esteem and self acceptance are important, but, don't you have the feeling that the simple, common people in this book are usually the most sensible?
Rosa, I think that adolescence is a difficult stage in which the gang is very important. Sometimes, an isolate tenageer is a lovely person, but when he is with the group he can have a different personality; therefore, the parents with children of this age are very worried with their relationships.
You are right when you say that tenageers are worried about their reputation; but they are worried by their reputation, above all, before their group. At this age, tenageers need to affirm their personality; thus, good and obedient boys in his childhood, can become rebel and protester in the adolescence; and, if being young children they accepted the authority of parents professors and adults in general, they can give more importance to the criteria, values and rules of their gang in the adolescence, because they need to win the admiration and respect of friends and therefore they have very dangerous behaviours.
Otherwise, I don’t think that the simple common people in this book be the most sensible. For example, I would place in a similar level of reasonableness Mr Doyce, Mr Clennam, Mr Rug, Mr Plornish, Little Dorrit,.....
When I talked of self-esteem, self-confidence, and even I also would say self-control, it was to highlight that the loss of sense of reality and the possibility of falling into madness depends on oneself; that is, this is an issue that is resolved in the internal struggle that takes place in the own mind. And in my view, the only character that has risk of imbalance in the novel is Mr Dorrit, and perhaps Affery, but in this case because of Mr Flintwinch’s brutality.
Rosa, this is only my personal opinion; I don’t have any certainty of what I say. My only objective was to write a new comment, and you have helped me to achieve it; so, thank you very much.
Yes. But, you see, for me, in my opinion, you can not put in the same group Mr Doyce and Amy, for example, because they are not the same kind of person. Mr Doyce is a sort of man of bussiness. He is a common man, but he has done himself, and now he has a business along with Mr Clennam. And Amy... she came from a good family (suposedly)...and what has she done, but mourning all the time, and think about how much happier she was when she was poor, and go with Maggy, and everibody needed her (dad, Maggy, Tip, Fanny...) even if they treated her as a carpet? All ritgh, she has done more than her father or Tip, because she was a seamstress...but even so...And it's the same with the Plornwishes, they are from other social class....
Rosa, in my view, we can do different classifications of the characters of the novel, and every character could be in different groups, depending on the criterion used to do the classification. Thus, I did a classification using the criterion you had mentioned in one of your previous comments; in my view, if we take into account if people are sensible or not, that is, from the point of view of the reasonableness, I consider that all people I mentioned can be considered sensible. I think that Amy is so sensible as Mr Doyce, though from a different point of view they can be very different.
I pretended to show that not only poor people are sensible in the novel as you had said. I think that the reasonableness of a person doesn’t depend of his money. I put together Mr Clennam and Doyce with Mr Plornish and Little Dorrit to show that, even if their economic level is very different, they are similar from the point of view of the reasonableness.
Obviously, if we could use different criteria to do the classification; for example, we could classify people from the point of view of the economic level, the type of work they do, the family status, if they are extrovert or introvert people,.... And, in every case, the classification would be different; so, people that would be in the same group, from one point of view, could be in different groups from a different point of view.
Now Mr Dorrit should be happy. He tried to get as much power as he could and currently he is rich, he has a position -he has been arm by arm with Mr Merdle-, he has got a good marriage for his eldest dauother. Althought all these facts there are things that do not let him be happy. He is always afraid of being discovered. not only does he not accept his past bul also he does not want nobady disovers it.
He suffers a lot when chivery comes to visit him. Although he loves the people from the prison, he does not want to be related with them. He has got a position and he does not want to lose it.
Do not you think that when you have got a better poyition in your life you make anything to save it? You do not mindl what you have to do or the price you have to pay.
Well, I didn't considered Mr Doyce as a particullary sensitive fellow (John is a sensitive fellow, so does Arthur...), but, if you say so...Sensitive, not sensible.
In other order of things, Concha told me that they are going to have a lecture in el Círculo de Bellas Artes about Dickens: How Dickens would write today if he lived in our days. I leave you with a link with some information:
http://www.circulobellasartes.com/ag_humanidades.php
Rosa, I never talked of sensitiveness but sensibleness. I tried to answer your question of 15 abril; that is this one: “don't you have the feeling that the simple, common people in this book are usually the most sensible?” Perhaps you thought sensitive and wrote sensible. In my view it is not important if this was or not the source of our dispute, the important is that we have found a reason to write.
When Mr Dorrit says goodbye to Fanny, he is proud and very happy, because he knows that he leaves her in good society and that she manages with ease in this new world.
When he left, Fanny asked him to give her best love to dearest Amy; and Mr Dorrit asked her if she wanted him to convey any message to anybody else, but Fanny doesn’t want to send any other message. So, Mrs General can wait forever Fanny’s good wished; he, he, he, he !!!!!
But Mr Dorrit infatuation to Mrs General is obvious and he shows clearly his intentions when he seized the opportunity of being in Paris to go to the most famous jeweller’s, and he bought a brooch and a ring as a nuptial gift to Mrs General.
So, Fanny was right about the possibility of Mr Dorrit marrying Mrs General; it is clear that she is a witch that doesn’t miss anything. The problem is that she will not be in Rome to show her opposition to the marriage, and in my view, Amy will not dare to oppose to the will of her dear father. Don’t you think so?
Do you imagine the face of Fanny if she had seen his father buying this gift? I am sure that she would have suffered a shock.
And, do you imagine what will be Mrs General’s reaction to Mr Dorrit’s declaration of love? Do you think that it will be similar to the Mr Pickwick’s landlady that we saw, very well performed, in the lecture celebrated on the School the past week? I doubt that Mrs General want to accompany Mr Dorrit to his fantastic castle.
Altough they are very important for the plot, I don't find those chapters, The castle in the air, and the next, entirely satisfactory...There is something here that it doesn't make much sense to me...Is it that I haven't understood well? Is it because they were first published as a serial novel? It's obvious that Mr Dorrit's condition was not good, and that John Chivery's visit has proved to be very disturbing to him, and has stirred not beloved memories in his mind...And suddenly, the entire thing collapses. The whole castle in the air, falls, like the House of Usher, an image of vane grandeur...Altough I haven't enjoy fully those chapters because of the reasons that I already said, I think that the names are very well chosen, and are very significative.
Mr Dorrit’s megalomania was increasingly growing during his trip along France far of all danger; and the more he relished his freedom the more he enjoyed building wonderful castle in the air. And after much designing, restructuring, building, rebuilding and decorating, his castle was not whatever castle, but the best one; an unique castle loftier than the two tower of Notre Dame; a castle stronger than the strongest cathedral, and which foundations were deeper than the Mediterranean’s.
So, when he was approaching Rome and he advanced “among the dirty white houses and dirtier felons of Civita Vecchia, and thence scrambled on to Rome as they could, through the filth that festered on the way”, he saw himself with his hallucinatory imagination advancing triumphantly toward the most beautiful and magnificent castle; a castle worthy of his dignity; a castle where he would live peacefully and completely happy, in an eternal parading of poultry, potatoes, prunes and prism, with his beautiful Lady Mrs General, rendered before the irresistible glamour of the Parisian jewelry. It is not a fantastic dream?
Perhaps, while the Courier was smoking Young John’s cigars during the trip, Mr Dorrit was sniffing something stronger drug he he he he !!!!!!!!!!
But, in my opinion this hallucinatory process is not the effect of any drug, but the symptom of a serious mental disorder. Don’t you think so?
That's what I thougth, Isidro, but I do not understand why is Mr Dorrit so concerned about the discovery of his being the Father of Marshalesea...and his later behaviour during the dinner. And the ending of that chapter...well this is one of the things that makes Dickens not one of my favourite writers. I like him, when he is ironic and ingenious, or when he describes scenes like the Mrs Bardell and Mr Pickwick's one in The Pickwick Papers, or when he is misterious, when he describes the first meeting between Pip and Magwich in Great Expectations, and all the scenes about misteries about Mrs Clennam's house in this one, or when he describes Ms Betsey menacing with smashing Ms Murdstone horrible hat togheter with her horrible head...but I don't like it when he starts to describe such slushy scenes...the deaths, the poor boy, the poor girl, the infortunately deranged old man, and such kind of things. I mean, and I find very uncoherent Mr Dorrit actions, altough all we know he is not in his wits...Yes, I am tempted to think that such cigars had something which was not just tobacco...
I´ll try to get back to you later in the evening!!
The beggining of chapter XX, Introducing the next, is very good, and it has a great atmosphere of suspense. That's the things of Dickens that I like! I must say what I like, and what I like less.
I mean, those are.
Can you imagine Mr Dorrit’s trip, going through France, passing the Alps and traveling along the Italian roads to Rome? Can you imagine the endless jolting of the carriage on the roads full of holes? Can you imagine Mr Dorrit’s fatigue at the end of the trip?
However, he told his brother that he was strong enough to travel at any hour, and when Amy helped him to put off his wrappers, he told her that he could do it without assistance. He was specially susceptible for anything; thus, he said coldly to Little Dorrit that he didn’t want cause any inconvenience when she offered him a soup; and as she continued looking at him with a look that reflected a certain concern, he told her angrily that he was not tired; however he fell asleep for a moment and awoke with a start.
In my view, Mr Dorrit’s behaviour is very childish; he is exhausted, but he deny this evident fact; however, he told Frederic that he looked ill; that he saw him very weak, and that he was painful to see him so badly. What a way of concern and divert attention!!!!!
Mr Dorrit doesn’t change; he is as hypocritical as ever, but he is now reaching the limit of his strength, and moreover, he can’t mislead anyone. Even Amy, that ever has been prone to see the positive side of his father, can’t avoid to look at him with astonishment.
Poor Amy, she had to hear his father without doing any comment, and without daring to look at him frankly because he was very irritable. And while he told her that his brother was greatly broken, she saw helplessly his growing decline.
Yes! And he says that the exhausted one...is the brother!
Yes! And he says that the exhausted one...is the brother!
Mr Dorrit ever tried to conceal his weaknesses and to show himself as a person without faults. Even in the worst moments of his life he never recognized any weakness. I remember the day in which he told his brother that he was badly and he put himself as the model to follow, because he was a positive and an optimistic person; however he was so depressed that Amy had to stay all night at the head of his bed comforting him. He had then the same attitude that today in Rome; but there is an important difference; Then, in Marshalsea, he recognized the reality, at least, before his daughter and he cried long; so, he unburdened himself with his daughter. However now, in Rome, he is too proud of himself and he doesn’t accept any assistance; he wishes to show himself as a rich powerful man, admired by all; he want to hide any weakness and show his greatness; but in reality he has become a depressed man because of the strain of his high social relationships in London and weakened by the fatigue of a journey too hard for him.
In consequence, he has now a great physical fatigue, and he has too a great psychological stress, and in this circumstances, all the energy strongly repressed until now overflows his capacity of control, and Mr Dorrit’s mind is flooded by the irrepressible stream of the images of his subconscious.
In my view, Mr Dorrit’s collapse is logic. One of the thing that I admire the most in Dickens is the remarkable treatment of characters; he knew very well human nature and therefore his novels show the psychological reaction of people in extreme situation in an admirable way. Carmen remembered Mr Manette psychological collapse, in the “Tale of two cities”, the day of the marriage of his daughter. In that case he achieved to recover with the invaluable help of Mr Lorry that played the role of his personal psychologist. However, Mr Dorrit doesn’t accept anyone’s mediation and therefore, in this case, there is no possible escaping from madness.
I think that Dickens ends Mr Dorrit’s life suddenly; the fact that he loses his mind doesn’t implied forcibly his death, but perhaps he was not interested in prolonging a process of deterioration that had no return. Otherwise, I appreciate very much Dickens’s benevolence for having decided to kill Frederic immediately without making him suffer the hardships of the journey to London.
I haven't enjoy the chapter XIX, but the XX is fantastic. It has everething: great descriptions, an atmosphere of mould and decadence, intriging scenes, passion and wrath. And more mysteries. Arthur is impersonating the missing Blandois in orther to get from information fron the elusive Ms. Wade. And what revelations are we starting to suspect. She has something to do with Mr Gowan, and we suspect that it was nothing good. Arthur is concerned about his mother's strange business. And so did Ms Wade: she had also things in common with the suspicious french, who seems to be missing, but in everywhere, at the same time. And we have again Tatty in scene. And she is not happy, and she doesn't bother herself in concerning it. And Ms Wade is behaving to her even worse than the Meagles. This is like a film noir! I have liked it.
I haven't enjoy the chapter XIX, but the XX is fantastic. It has everething: great descriptions, an atmosphere of mould and decadence, intriging scenes, passion and wrath. And more mysteries. Arthur is impersonating the missing Blandois in orther to get from information fron the elusive Ms. Wade. And what revelations are we starting to suspect. She has something to do with Mr Gowan, and we suspect that it was nothing good. Arthur is concerned about his mother's strange business. And so did Ms Wade: she had also things in common with the suspicious french, who seems to be missing, but in everywhere, at the same time. And we have again Tatty in scene. And she is not happy, and she doesn't bother herself in concerning it. And Ms Wade is behaving to her even worse than the Meagles. This is like a film noir! I have liked it.
I mean, in concealing.
I like very much Dickens’s way of insinuating the future through some clues or omens sometimes nearly imperceptible. Mr Dorrit’s madness was so clearly anticipated that it would have been a great surprise a different end to him. Moreover, he had closed all doors to him and he had not a safe place in the world to hide himself. When he decided to play the role of a strong man of high status; when he decided to break his last attachment with the world cooling his relationship with Amy, he could not find relief for his trouble anywhere. He was not sure in London because the proximity of Marshalsea was a permanent threat to him, and because of the First Butler’s eye that was always watchful; and even, after leaving London, he felt threatened by some dangerous insinuations of the host of the convent of the Great Saint Bernard. Moreover, at the end, he even saw any danger Amy’s eyes, his favourite daughter, his dear Amy that ever had taken care of him and that ever was willing to sacrifice her life for him. So, there was not any safe place in the world to him, therefore he must build a magnificent castle where he could live a new life without any danger.
Finally, he even could sleep peacefully and he awoke with a start, from time to time, haunted by the ghosts of Marshalsea. In consequence, he suffered an hallucinatory fit from which there was no escaping.
Mr Dorrit could not find a calm place to live without danger, because the menace was not outside him, but in the inner of his own mind. He thought that the farther away from London he were the quieter he would be, but he didn’t know that the ghosts travelled with him.
In my last comment:
….....”he even saw some danger in Amy’s eyes”......
…......he even could not sleep peacefully”..........
Mr Dorrit’s madness was anticipated by Dickens through many signs all along the novel. The first time that Dickens presented him to us, just at the beginning of chapter VI of the first book, he said that the prisoner was a shy and retiring man a little effeminate with irresolute hands which he wandered nervously and persistently to his trembling lips.
So if he ever was a shy weak and irresolute man, even when he was young, we can not hope that he could navigate skillfully between bishops, bankers, and officials, after having, passed all his life as a beggar in Marshalsea representing a role so humiliating that Amy got ashamed, although she tried to justify his father before Mr Clennam.
Much as he was used to make juggling in Marshalsea at a height of 50 centimeters, when he became rich the wire was at a height of 50 meters, and it was normal that he suffered an unbearable vertigo. In consequence, he had to suffer great stress playing a role much more difficult than the one he used to play, and his collapse was predictable.
But if Mr Dorrit’s madness was predictable, his dead was a surprise to me, because I don’t remember any anticipation before chapter XIX. However, in this chapter we see a procession of a funeral that can be the dark omen of Mr Dorrit’s imminent death.
Do you think that it was really a funeral or a mental scene inside his hallucinatory process? In my view there are not burial at night; a burial is too gloomy in itself and nobody wants to add to the sadness of the moment the loneliness and helplessness of the shadows of the night. Don’t you think that to do burials at night would be too dismal? Do you imagine the effect of the lurid torches around the coffin and the sounds in the moment of the burial?
Well, in any case, the procession, real or not, could have been a signal of alarm to Mr Dorrit. He could have thought in his future and have done examination of conscience as Mr Scrooge in “Christmas Carol”, but Mr Dorrit’s pride did not let him repent.
When Mr Dorrit arrived home was puzzled, because he saw Amy and Frederic talking quietly, and he remembered a very dear image but with the difference that he occupied the place of his brother next to Amy, and he felt angry and jealous. He had been travelling to reach his dreamed fantastic future, but the first image that he saw on his arrival was a image of the past. He saw himself with Amy in marshalsea and had contradictory feelings.
How much he would have liked to revive those times in which he passed endearing moments with his dear daughter! But so afraid was he to the past that he couldn’t permit himself this weakness. He missed Amy’s tenderness and he couldn’t bear to see Amy’s affection to Frederic.
Amy is a sensitive woman, but she is not silly; she knows his uncle’s weakness, but she want to be kind to him, therefore she told him that he was growing younger again. However, Mr Dorrit was jealous and spoke to him sharply and send him to bed to be alone with his daughter.
Mr Dorrit was exhausted, but he didn’t want to show his weakness to Amy; he needs her support more than ever, but he knows that to open his heart to his daughter would imply to revive old emotions, and he doesn’t want to return to the past; therefore he is so abrupt to her and he doesn’t admit the slightest fatigue, in spite of his hard trip. This way, he did himself an irreversible damage, and Amy became very sad and got shocked and speechless, and she didn’t dare to look at his father.
Hi folks!!
There are some things I want to remark of the last chapters. What most shocked me was the fact that Mr. Dorrit, having said that he was going to be generous when he was told about his fortune, I only see this generosity just after leaving Marshalsea and in these last chapters. He accept young John´s cigarettes and he gave them to one of his slaves!! And, furthermore, he gave some money to young John!!! Is it not surprising?? Maybe, this is one of this little clues that Dickens gives us to find out his destiny.
And what about the thoughts of Mr. Dorrit when he started to be delirious? He returned to his best days, with the companion of Bob. Do you think that we would return to our best days when we´ll be in our last days? I prefer to do it, and to leave happy, don´t you agree with me?
I think that was Isidro who said that Mr. Dorrit behaved in a childish way, but, don´t you think that when you become old you also become a little childish?
Good weekend for everyone!!
Monica I agree with you that Mr Dorrit is a selfish man. However, he showed his generosity before his meeting with Young John in the hotel; he showed his generosity organizing a great banquet of farewell and giving the necessary money to the business of Mr Plornish’s familly. It is true that the banquet was more an occasion to flaunt his wealth and his new status before his poor comrades; and in the case of the Plornish’s family, the money was to compensate the family for taking charge of Maggy. In any case, taking into account his huge fortune, I agree with you that he is not specially generous.
But, in my view, we can see his lack of generosity more clearly in the distribution of his affections. What surprises me most is that he be so ungrateful a man that he doesn’t show the smoller token of appreciation to the people that discovered his fortune. I think that the great difference between Mr Dorrit and Amy is that, while Mr Dorrit is a selfish man that gives value to people depending of what he can obtain with the relationship, Amy takes into account the human person in itself, and establish unselfish relationships.
To Mr Dorrit, people are only the way of obtaining a benefit; Thus, he considered that Mr Clennam was a good relationship while he needed his charity; but, after becoming rich, only people that could allow him something, as Mr Gowan or Mr Gowan, were worthy of his trust.
Amy is very different of her father because she is sincere, she doesn’t hide her emotions, she open her heart to the others, she is really a generous person; she miss her old relationships because in the new world she only see hypocrisy and coldness. So, she is not a weak person but the strongest of the family; she is the only one that dare to look at the past without feeling ashamed; she is the only one worthy of respect.
…..”In my last comment:
….”She only sees..”...
Monica, I think that you also are right when you say that old people always think that the past was a better time, as Jorge Manrique said. However, not all people become mad at the end, as in the case of mr Dorrit; In many cases the remembrance always remains; remember that wonderful poem of William Wordsworth:
…......................................................
…......................................................
“What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.”
….....................................................
….......................................................
Mr Dorrit lost the opportunity of recovering the reasonableness when Young John visited him in the hotel. He could have embraced him and have smoked a cigar and talked to him remembering the old days; he could have organized a dinner with him, his father, Mr Clennam, Mr Plornish, Panks... Had he done this, he would killed all phantoms and this way he would have escaped from madness. But he committed the mistake of many new rich people that consist in trying to hide his past, ignoring that people of rich families have no complex and do what they want, without taking care of what the others think.
There was a moment in which Mr Dorrit was on the verge of taking the good decision; this moment was when he, being with Young John, felt ashamed of himself for having treated him badly. In this moment, Mr Dorrit removed his mask for a moment and he got moved and had to wipe his tears and asked for forgiveness to John; he became interested by the prison life; he asked for his father, and he showed his more human side. However, immediately he recovered his “high dignity” and when he said good bye to John the mask covered his face again.
Little could Amy imagine that the last person that saw his father in a sincere humble way, though for a little moment, was Young John.
Mental diseases have always affected human people, therefore since ancient times the role of the sorciers has been very important; and not only in primitive culture, nowadays this problem still exist, and there are different professionals involved in helping people affected.
Don’t you think that the confession has played an important role to help Catholic people?
I think that the confession has played an important role during centuries, allowing people to download his consciousness and to eliminate their feeling of guilt. Nowadays the psychologists have assumed in a certain way this role, but their field of action is limited; they can’t resolve some physiologic trouble, but they can’t give people any divine guarantee.
Otherwise, an special characteristic of this kind of diseases is that the key of the cure is not in the healer but in the patient; therefore, many times, the cure does not occurs, despite the correct action of the specialist, because the patient doesn’t open his heart.
In my opinion, had Mr Dorrit been a Catholic believer, he could have taken advantage of his staying in Rome to confess his sin with one of the many priest that always there are in the Vatican.
However, in case he had decided to confess, he only would have been relieved, if he really had been sincere. If he had intended to be forgiven for his previous life as a beggar in Marshalsea, God wouldn’t give him the peace, because nobody can deceive God. So, Only in case he had confessed his great sin of pride, could he have obtained his real cure.
In consequence, we could say that the Catholic rule to obtain forgiveness is: But for confessing sincerely your sins, you can’t be forgiven.
Miss Wade’s mind is very complex; she blames the others of her problems; but, in my opinion, the source of all her troubles is in herself. She says that she has the misfortune of not being a fool, but she is mistaken, because this is not the problem; her problem is that she has a complex for being an orphan, and she analyzes under the microscope the behaviour of all people with her, looking for a sign that confirm his suspicion of being treated as an orphan, and at the end she always find a reason for being unhappy. If she realizes that the others have a sense of superiority in relation to her she is unhappy and she also feels unhappy if she perceives that the others feel pity for her. So, the problem is not that she is intelligent and she captures the intentions of the others, but that she is too exigent with the others that she only considers acceptable behaviours that adapt completely with her criterion.
So, she is very authoritarian and she get angry if things do not go as she wants. She is so inflexible that she has become the eternal unsatisfied, because whatever be the behaviour of the other she always will find a reason for being unhappy.
The problem for this kind of people is that they fall in a dynamic from which they can’t escape, because at the end they enjoys making a victim of themselves. They pass from love to hate very easily; thus, when she was a girl she suffered when she was relegated by her friend, then she accused her of ill-behaviour and provoked the anger of her friend who cried and cried, and at the end Miss Wade held her in her arms till morning.
“loving her as much as ever, and often feeling as if, rather than suffer so, I could so hold her in my arms and plunge to the bottom of a river - where I would still hold her, after we were both death.”
So, Miss Wade knows that she is damned to live a tragic love; she can’t love without doing harm.
You are rigth, Isidro, but don't forget that old people usually are very selfish, and want to be the center of the world. And I am not inventing anything, this is something that I know by my own experience.
I don't agree with you when you say that confession was positive for people, and played the role of a psychiatrist. And I don't believe that if Mr Dorrit had been a Catholic, his life and character could had been different. He is selfish and ridicuolus, and he would have been selfish and ridicuolous being a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew or a Mormon.It's true that religion could improve people, and give them some rules to live under them, and some hopes, which can do things that science or philosophy can do...but look what amaount of horrible things have been done, and are done in world in the name of the religion. Think about the Cruisades, the Wars of the Religion in France, The Inquisition, the islamic terrrorism...The other day I read a piece of news which said that some girls in Afganisthan have been poisoned for going to school...If you go to confess, perhaps you were lucky and have a thoughtful priest who conforted you...but perhaps you got a fanatical one, who told you you are bad and evil and you are going to go direct to hell, as happened to a friend of mine. And when she was fifteen! Seriously, you think that a girl of fifteen could have comited such serious sins?
Coming back to the book, I have enjoyed the chapter about Ms Wade's story, altough it is said the weakest in the book. It's true that it doesn't much to do with the rest of the story, but the portrait of Ms Wade's personality and character is very interesting, altough it's a pity that Dickens didn't go deeper in it. Knowing that story, we can understand better Tatty's behaviour.
I meant, that science or phylosophy can't do...
I meant, that science or phylosophy can't do...
Good morning:
A mate of my class has passed us some informmation about the presentation of a new book about Dickens: Dickens enamorado (Dickens in Love), by Amelia Pérez de Villar, is a new biography about our star writter of this year. It's published by Fórcola. Sadly enough, the presentation was the 18 th of April in Ámbito Cultural de El Corte Inglés (Serrano 52, 7 th Stage), but you are still on time of reading this book:
http://forcolaediciones.com/nbspcolecciones/fuera-de-coleccion/dickens-enamorado-amelia-perez-de-villar/
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PS9M0y1CWYcJ:www.ambitocultural.es/+ambito+cultural+el+corte+ingles&cd=1&hl=es&ct=clnk&gl=es
Miss Wade likes to be in the razor’s edge; she doesn’t enjoy if she has not enough adrenalin; it looks as if she should need to become angry and to make the others feel that she is a victim as a condition to win their affection. But when she has achieved the love of the other she become unsatisfied because a life completely calm has not any alicient to her. She likes a certain level of stress; she would like that his life were a permanent rollercoaster.
Thus, Miss Wade, in her tender nocturnal embrace, loved her friend much as ever; but it was possible because they previously had been very angry with each other; so, the more were their disagreement and disgust, the more satisfaction in their reconciliation. But when the tension is relieved and the calm arrives, she can not stand the dullness and monotony of a bliss without high emotion. Therefore after having been holding lovingly his friend all night she would plunge into a river, and this way, to die hugging her dear friend.
She is as a pendulum that oscillates between hate and love; she is condemned to suffer a great displeasure as a condition to achieve a new emotional rapture. She knows that she can’t reach a permanent fullness, because after every period of calm a new storm arises. Therefore she asks herself if it worths to suffer so much to enjoy as little. It would not be better to die in full apotheosis that to live unhappy?
This idea reminds me John Keats’s beautiful poem:
…....................(...........)............................
“Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.”
I think that perhaps, as Isidro hints, is that something is wrong in Ms. Wade's mind. Perhaps she is a lesbian. But in my opinion her case is more like the case of the character of Nelly the orphan in Dostoievski's Humialated and Offended: both are very proud and they have suffered humiliations. In the case of Ms Wade it's connected with the way in which she has been treated by people: she hates to be pitied, because, as the Tao Te King says, "compassion is humiliating". She is very ambiguous. She is strong and atractive, and doesn't want to depend on nobody, because she wants to be free. But there is also something weird, terryfing and revolting in her.
The quote from Don Juan Tenorio that we comented in class was: "Don Juan no pasa moneda que se ha perdido".
I think that perhaps, as Isidro hints, is that something is wrong in Ms. Wade's mind. Perhaps she is a lesbian. But in my opinion her case is more like the case of the character of Nelly the orphan in Dostoievski's Humialated and Offended: both are very proud and they have suffered humiliations. In the case of Ms Wade it's connected with the way in which she has been treated by people: she hates to be pitied, because, as the Tao Te King says, "compassion is humiliating". She is very ambiguous. She is strong and atractive, and doesn't want to depend on nobody, because she wants to be free. But there is also something weird, terryfing and revolting in her.
The quote from Don Juan Tenorio that we comented in class was: "Don Juan no pasa moneda que se ha perdido".
I liked very much the first part of Little Dorrit’s film. Mrs Dorrit is in the film as I had imagined her; her relationship with Arthur reflect very well the cruelty, the coldness, and even the disgust that I saw in her when I read the book. However, in my view, she shows a sympathy to Amy that in my view only bursts much more ahead in the novel. I remember that I got very surprised when I read that Mrs Dorrit had cherished her hair, because she had been depicted as a cruel woman, unable of feeling pity for the others.
Otherwise, Mr Flintwinch in the film is exactly as I had imagined him. I saw him askew, with the knot of his cravat under his ear, always in a bad mood, and having a detestable behaviour with Affery.
Finally I would like to highlight Mr Dorrit’s way of putting himself on airs, rejecting the possibility that Amy works, because this would be humiliating for him, as the Father of Marshalsea. However, he asks Mr Clennam for money, because he thinks that he deserves to receive a tribute for its imaginary title. I think that it is a clear contradiction, and a sample that he is already out of reality; don’t you think so?
I saw in the film Amy as I had imagined her: humble diligent and attached to the reality; she is embarrassed for his father’s behaviour to Mr Clennam, but she can’t do anything to change him; she has no choice but to accept him as he is. So, while his father is in the clouds she has her feet in the ground.
In my last comment:
......" her relationship with Arthur reflect very well the cruelty"....
....She shows symphaty for Amy.."...
Miss Wade is an authoritarian woman that has a great complex for being an orphan; so obsessed is she by this circumstance that she would like to delete this aspect of her personality. She is so exigent with her relationships than she rejects the others whenever that she realizes that their conducts don’t adapt to her strict criterion; she analyzes meticulously all gestures and glances, and she can’t stand to see in the others any sense of superiority; but, if she detects the slightest feeling of pity in the others, she get angry as well, and break the relationship immediately. So, if there is not a perfect balance, according with her criterion, she breaks the relationship and the result of this strategy is her loneliness and permanent dissatisfaction.
So dominant is Miss Wade that she always tries to impose its rules to others; and although she is very exigent with the others, she doesn’t apply the same criterion with herself; thus, she doesn’t forgive any slip in the others, but she thinks that she can hurt the other and despise them. For example, Miss Wade says that the mother of one of the families treated her with great delicacy, but she snubbed her rejecting every offert she did; thus, if the mother offered wine, she took water, and she ever rejected what she offered. Have you seen a greater insolence?
Miss Wade has a great resentment against Mr Gowan because he is the only person that dared to break with her; he was the only one that took the initiative of the rupture, and therefore she got full disappointing and felt very jealous and deceived.
In my view Miss Wade’s letter is unaccountable; It seems to me that the letter is out of place. If Dickens wanted we to know Miss Wade story, It would have been more reasonable to use other way; for example, he could have made her to write a diary; and she could have lost it or even Blandois could have robbed it, or whatever other way. But, do you think that to write a letter explaining to Mr Clennam all his intimate life has any sense, taking into account that he is a stranger to her? In principle, I thought that she could pretend to damage Mr Gowan’s reputation before Mr Clennam, but the truth is that Mr Gowan doesn’t behave worse with her than she does with others.
Dickens try to show us the suffering of some people that feel themselves excluded from the moment of their birth; they are people that feel a great emptiness inside for having lived without a family. Through Miss Wade and Tattycoram’s characters, Dickens shows us their uprooting and their tormented mind. They are trapped in a wrong conception that consist in thinking that they are victims of the others, but in reality they are victims of themselves. They think that they are doomed to have a miserable life, while the others are happy. But the others have problems as well; for example, Tattycoram is unable to bear the happiness of Mr Meagle’s family while she is unhappy; the problem of Tattycoram is that she doesn’t know the anguish of every member of the family. If she knew Mrs Gowan’s current problems, she didn’t feel so tormented.
Miss Wade and Tattycoram think that, as they share the same problem, they can find any relief living together, but at the end they can’t avoid to hurt each other. So, in my opinion, they are suffering a permanent inner struggle, and living a stormy relationship that can explode at any moment.
Affery lives horrified by Mr Flintwinch’s brutality, therefore she can’t take any initiative nor think about the secret of the family. Mr Clennam wants her to say what is happening in the house, but she can’t say anything because she have no clear ideas and, moreover, she is helpless before the two clever.
Affery tells Arthur that he could not pretend her being more audacious than himself. I remember that she asked him to be strong in front of his mother when he arrived home, after his father’s death, but Arthur didn’t dare to face his mother.
In my view, Affery is right; Arthur adopted a position of weakness before her mother, as if he remained the little child terrified before her that always had been. Otherwise, he also adopted an incomprehensible position of subordination in relation to Mr Flintwinch. Thus, he was pusillanimous and he didn’t assume his responsibility; he was on the defensive, as if he still were the immature and fearful child that trembled with terror before the only presence of his mother.
So, Arthur can’t ask Affery to be stronger than himself; she fears Mr Flintwinch’s retaliations, and we know his brutality; so, Affery reaction is comprehensible.
In my view, Mr Clennam is weak, indecisive, coward and irresponsible, taking into account that he is, at least, the owner of half of the company and he should not have left it in Mr Flintwinch’s hands.
Can you imagine Mr Clennam’s tour through the house with Affery in the vanguard and Mr Flintwinch in the rearguard, and himself with his arm round Flora’s figure tightening and loosening according to the circumstances. Flora is amazing as always, with her spontaneity, showing with transparency her wishes; thus she told Arthur that had he held her a little tighter she shouldn’t consider it intruding.
I think that the hilarity of this passage is similar to the one of many stories of “The Pickwick papers”, whose reading I just finished. Affery goes ahead with the candlestick in his hand fearful of Mr Flintwinch who comes in the back in order to avoid that Affery should talk to Mr Clennam; Mr Clennam wants Mr Flintwinch to go away to speak with Affery, and Flora was all time very attentive to the pressure of Mr Clennam hand to her body. It is not fantastic?
Do you imagine Arthur in the dragon closet, after Mr Flintwinch having gone, in the darkness because he had blown the candle, with his arm round Flora, intending to achieve that Affery answered his questions, while she said that she feared Mr Flintwinch and asked Arthur not to touch her?
I think that it can’t be more bizarre? Don’t you think so?
Isidro, the other day in class Carmen told us that, speaking with the other group about being a man, they recognized you as a man, because of your way of using your tools in English. Carmen want some of us to tell it to you.
Then, the only thing I want to add is: Congratulations!!!!!
And good weekend to everyone!!
Monica, in relation to your last comment, I want to tell the mates that think that my way of being could be a possible example of “being a man”, because of my way of using my tools in English, that although I feel very grateful for their kindness and recognition, I am a little overwhelmed, because I know that I don’t deserve such a distinction.
First of all, I want to say that I can’t think of myself as being an example of anything, and less of all as an example of a human being; and I don’t even accept to be a model as a student of English. In my view, this must be a joke or an eccentric proposals to provoke the discussion, but in any case an statement to be taken seriously.
Sometimes, when we make value judgements, we take the part for the whole and we make a great mistake. In my view, it is what has happened in this case. Thus, the mates of other groups, which only know me through my comments in the blog, make a wrong assessment because they ignore my deficiencies in other aspects.
Moreover, if assessing the mastery of a language by the valuation of an aspect is a mistake, the error can be greater if, taking into account the evaluation of this limited aspect, you make a judgement related to the whole personality. I consider that, for being an example as a human being, is not enough to highlight in a singular skill, but in the entire behaviour of the person as a whole; and I assure you that it is not my case.
Finally, I want to say that, although the term “man” can include women, I prefer to use the concept “human being” because I wish to state clearly that what I say is referred to men and women without distinction.
Poor Fanny! she wishes to shine in society, but she must to stay at home because of the death of her father. She was upset and a little depressed and hysterical, and got very angry with Mr Sparkler when he said that the death of her father was not a motive to stay at home. She talked to him very harshly and scornful and he was puzzled and didn’t know what to say because everything he proposed provoked Fanny’s angry and her undisguised contempt.
Funny treats his husband the same way as she treated Amy when she was angry, but Mr Sparkler is not used to being treated so bad, therefore he is confused and doesn’t know what to do. Fanny is a capricious woman that only is happy if she is the center of attention of society; and so selfish is she that she always judge her relationships depending of the benefit she can obtain; thus, she said that the death of her uncle was a happy release because “if you are not presentable, you had much better die”. And she said it in a way that her husband got very shocked and uncomfortable; she looked at him with such an angry expression that he had the impression that she was referring to him in this moment.
In my opinion, Fanny is already beginning to pay her stupidity; she has just married and she can’t stand her husband. However, by the moment, Mr Sparkler is kind to her, but there will come a time when he will tell her the same words that Mr Merdle told her wife: “you provide manners and I provide money”, which is the same that to say: live as you want and leave me in peace. And from this moment on, she will have to buy a parrot to keep her company, and she will become a copy of her mother in law. Don’t you think so?
In my view, Mr and Mrs Merdles’s marriage shows the future that Mr and Mrs Sparkler can expect for themselves. We see Mrs Merdle alone at the doctor’s party, and Mr Merdle chair is empty. Mr Merdle leads a very independent life completely dedicated to business without taking into account Mrs Merdle’s wishes of appearing in society accompanied by the man of the time. Therefore she always have to try to justify her solitude talking about her husband’s health and speculating about his unknown business.
So, Mrs Merdle activity in life consist in showing his impressive bosom with his full display of jewelry in public, and in venting her frustration with his parrot when she is at home. And while Mrs Merdle’s life is a theatrical performance that hides her deep frustration, Mr Merdle’s is the frustration in itself without any disguise; he is a very strange fellow because it seems that he doesn’t even enjoy his financial success. It seems that he doesn’t take care of anybody; however, he is always rounded from the most important people that try to take advantage of his influence.
In my opinion Mr Merdle and Mr Gasby are the most inhuman and enigmatic characters of this novel, because their lives seem to be reduced to their simple current account balance. Do you think that their lives can have a hidden leitmotif of their existence? I don’t think so?
It is strange, but much of the time we live thoughtlessly without realizing what we do exactly; we are dragged by the daily urgencies and we go from one task to another as if we were automata. Only from time to time, do we stop for a moment to ask ourselves where we go; then, taking a certain distance and disengaging from the events, we reflet about what happens and find time to become conscious and to make value judgements. But immediately, the current events compels us to follow the incessant flow of existence.
That is what we see in Little Dorrit’s novel. We are witnesses of the spectacle of life in itself; we see the characters in their incessant coming and going driven by different interests and having different feeling and emotions. They go through life showing, in different ways, the universal development of nature. So, we assist to the eternal return of the same that we can contemplate today as ever.
In consequence, we see fear, hatred, anxiety, selfishness, hypocrisy, avarice,.…., and also hope, friendship, love, pity, loyalty, … So, nothing new under the sun; the only new and most remarkable thing is the wonderful way in which Dickens tells us the story. Don’t you think so?
Mr Merdle’s death provoked a big social quake, because it was not a natural death but the reaction to the bankruptcy of his business. Therefore, the collapse of Merdle banking brought to downfall many people that had trusted him with their money. I remember a meeting in which bankers, bishops and politician looked at Mr Merdle concerned about his health, because they obtained great benefits of his financial success and they were ready to leave the ship at the slightest sign of weakness. So, I think that the unpredictable collapse of Mr Merdle is going to drag many people to ruin; and Mr Clennam will be one of them .
In consequence, we are going to see some important changes in the story. Thus, Mrs Merdle will lose her preeminence in the social circles; Fanny, who was waiting the end of the time of mourning for her father’s death to shine in society, will be reduced to take the austere life of a woman of an official. So, Fanny will have to forget her dreams of grandeur and to accept the harsh reality. But, if she were realistic, she would have to recognize that at the end her marriage would have been her best business.
And, what do you think that could be the end of Mr Clennam and Little Dorrit? Do you think it possible that they ended their life in Marshalsea? Do you imagine Mr Clennam being the new Father of Marshalsea and Little Dorrit taking care of him, in the same way that she took care of her father?
Mr Clennam’s is one of the many victims of Mr Merdle’s bankruptcy. Mr pancks is very sorry and he feels guilty for having encouraged Mr Clennam to invest his money in Mr Merdle’s business; however, he can do anything but to express his regret and his remorse. Mr Clennam doesn’t accept Pancks and Mr Rugg proposal in order to save a part of his patrimony; he knows that Daniel Doyce didn’t want to participate in financial investments, and therefore he wishes to assume with his money the downfall of the investment, so that the disaster doesn’t affect his friend.
Mr Clennam took a decision according with his principles and he acted with great dignity, but the result was that he got into the jail of Marshalsea. When he arrived there, Mr Chivery and Young John were on the lock of the prison and they got very astonished seeing him entering there as a prisoner. Young John gave him Mr Dorrit’s old room, and Mr Clennam thanked him heartily, but when he stretched out his hand, Young John rejected to shake it, and Mr Clennam got very surprised for his behaviour.
When Young John went away, Mr Clennam remained alone brooding over his sad situation and remembering the times in which Little Dorrit was there, suffering patiently the same penalties that he would have to suffer from now on. So, In my view Little Dorrit is going to be in Mt Clennam’s mind all time. Don’t you think so?
I agree with Carmen when she said the last day in class that the translation of the sonnet XVIII of Shakespeare loses all his original beauty. In my view, it is very difficult, if not impossible, that the translation achieves to transmit the emotion and all the beauty of the poetry, respecting at the same time the metric and the rhyme.
Thus, when you read Shakespeare’s poetry, the language flows sweetly, as a stream of clear and fresh water; you become moved, while the beauty enclosed in the poetry is being released; and you really see that it will be saved in the poem forever without fading, waiting a person that, reading the poetry, achieves to revive it.
However when you read the translation, you get annoyed when you are beaten by the “ramalazo de viento” and, when you have not yet recovered, you feel desolate seeing the “capullos de Mayo despartidos” and that “su tez de oro borrones empañan”; then, you go stumbling through the pitfalls of rhyme, trying to glimpse some of the original emotion.
Indeed, to translate poetry accurately is very difficult, you always loose something. You get something which is the same...but it's not really the same. It's like to compare a Miró's drawing with a drawing made by a little boy: it's very similar, but it's not the same. There was a writer _I can't remember who was_ who said that to read translated poetry was something similar to look a rich piece of cloth by the backside: the colors and pattern and precious materials were there, but not the hue, the subtility, the details of the design. I wonder how would be the poetry of Quevedo or Góngora translated into the English...
Yes Rosa, I agree with you; poetry is something more than the simple materiality which we can measure and count; poetry is an emotion that touches the deepest part of our being, when we are surprised by an ineffable breath of eternity that pervades the atmosphere and makes us quiver; and only a special look can reveal this transcendent side hidden in particular events.
Otherwise, one thing is to feel the beauty hidden in the things, and quite another is to be able to explain the emotion felt. Only the poets are endowed with this privileged eye, and with the necessary ability to convey deep emotions through words; only they achieve to find the eternal dimension of the concrete.
Thus, the beauty of a woman, a field of daffodils, the starry sky, or even a harp covered with dust, as in the case of the famous poem of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, are particular events where a poet can see traces of eternity.
But not only poetry can convey great emotions; there are other ways; for example, painting, music, photography.... Haven’t you ever felt a deep emotion seeing a scene from a movie, or listening a song, or...?
Why, yes, of course, and several times...As a student of Arts, surely I did. But, it's very curious...Not always, when I am impressed by a piece of litterature, or a painting, or a scene in a film, I realize inmediately the much I was impressed by it. And, in my opinion, you don't need to understand it to know if you like or if you don't like it, because, altough the shape is important, real art is about emotions, intuition.
Mr Clennam always had been a pessimistic man; he thought that he was an old declined man that could not enjoy the sweetness of happiness, because he felt that his time had gone the sad day that he saw some red roses being drifted downstream. He felt that he had not a happy future, but at least he had the challenge of achieving his professional target; and the defense of honour of his family, if it were necessary, was another reason of his existence.
However, after his financial collapse, his life was meaningless; he had lost all suddenly: his money, his honour, his appetite and his will of life, his health... He was in Mr Dorrit old room and his mind was haunted by an uncontrollable flow of images that as a carousel went round and round, and in the midst of this incessant flow, the image of Little Dorrit one and other time appeared as an example of dignity, strength, self-denial, fidelity and friendship. She was the example to follow, the only lifeline; if she, being a weak little girl had achieved to adapt to such a negative environment and to go ahead, he also could achieve it, but by the moment, he was totally sunken and he needed a little time to react.
Mr Clennam has a good relationship with men, but before women he feels himself unsafe. Perhaps her mother’s strict education and her hatred has led him to have a feeling of fear toward women. In my view it is clear that he is a little coward and that he is always on the defensive. While Mr Gowan was showing off before Pet as a peacock, he became expectant despite Mr Daniel Doyce frequent advances and commentaries.
Otherwise, not only he is a coward but a man that has no the ability of capture the subtleties of the female soul. I think that it is very surprising that he should read the two letters of Little Dorrit, without seeing her overwhelming emotion; it is inconceivable that she told him that she was suffering of nostalgia in Italy, and that she missed her friends of London, without he didn’t even try to make the slightest approach to her, at least, after her father death.
Mr Clennam’s position in front of women goes from terror, in front of his mother, to shyness before the others.
Otherwise, Mr Clennam has the necessary qualities to be a good friend; and he even can take risky decisions, without any problem; for example, he convinces Daniel Doyce to invest money in financial business, and he also takes the initiative to continue taking actions in the Circumlocution Office, but he is unable to give the first pass in love, because women scare him.
Prison affects deeply all people. We have seen many strong people on TV that, after having been some time in jail, suffer a deep change in their personality; so, we can not be surprised of seeing Mr Clennam very depressed and without will to live; moreover, we know that he is a weak fellow, with low self-esteem and a clear tendency to begin the retreat at the slightest difficulty; therefore, I think that it is normal that his economic downfall and his subsequent imprisonment have provoked his low mood.
We see Mr Clennam brooding bitterly, dropped into his solitary armchair in the loneliness of his empty room, with the four bare walls as the only possible horizont forever. He finds himself suddenly condemned to live a present without any sense and without hope, without any possibility of reverse, and without the capacity of deciding his future. The day is quiet and sunny and the hot noon is striking upon Marshalsea, but Arthur’s mind is saddened by the dark cloud of his hopelessness, and he is overwhelmed by an irrepressible grief.
In these conditions, the only open door to him is to let his mind fly in the search of lost time. So, his sad existence is reduced to revive his memories again and again; and Little Dorrit‘s image is the only star always present in the dark night of his bleakness giving him a little hope.
The next chapter is like a storm menacing in the air. There is a strong, opressive athmosphere. Fanny is not happy with her life as a married woman, with her foolish and boring husband, and her pregnancy has taken her off the oportunity of "going into the society" and being a pain in mommy-in-law's ass. The arriving of Mr Merdle doesn't make think about anything good, and his rejection of the white penknife, taking instead it a black one, is like a bad omen. And there is more: we learn that Tip is ill in Sicily (better not knowing how and where he fell ill), and Amy, playing again the role of the Sister of Charity (she seems to have been born in order to suffer and be the pillow of tears of the others), taking care of it. But Fanny doesn't seem as sad because of the deaths of her uncle and father as sad as she is because her new life didn't result as she planned.
Young John is astonished; he could not believe that Mr Clennam was so ignorant about Miss Dorrit’s feeling. He didn’t want to shake hands with him, because he thought that Arthur acted like the farmer’s dog, that neither eats, nor lets others eat. John knows Miss Dorrit’s feeling and, despite Mr Clennam being his rival, he acts with him as she would act if she had been there.
At the beginning, he was very reticent with Mr Clennam, but he was less reticent when he discovered that Mr Clennam had acted properly with him, talking with his mother and discovering that Miss Dorrit didn’t love him. And finally, seeing Mr Clennam’s ignorance of Miss Dorrit’s feeling, he was able to overcome his resentment and he decided to remove the bandage of Mr Clennam eyes, and to perform an act of supreme generosity. So, I agree with Mr Clennam when he says that Young John is a worthy man. Don’t you think so ?
From now on, Mr Clennam analyzes his relationship with Little Dorrit with a new light, and he discovers the real meaning of some aspects that he had misunderstood. And, if until now, Little Dorrit had been to him an example of strength, spirit of sacrifice, common sense and dignity, now her figure was reinforced, and he felt that he had not acted properly with her. In my view, he acted wrong not with malice, but in some way by ignorance, and above all by cowardice.
Of course, I was rigth. Nobody takes his life with a mother-of-pearl penknife, and the tortoise-shell one was far more suitable.
I like the way in which Dickens tells us Mr Merdle's death. Dignified (he compares the bath tube with a sarcophagus), but also vulgar.
It's curious what happens when a person dies, even if he or she were very evil: everybody praises him or her. Here, they start doing that, but, suddenly, the dirty bussiness of Mr Merdle are revealed, and he is not any longer the hero of the day, but just the opposite. I think that, now, in our days, the society has changed very much. In Great Britain, during the XIX th century, when a financier ruined his bussiness and his partners and his customers, took his life, like a characthet ot the Ancient Age. In Spain, today, when a politician or banker ruins a lot of people and bussinesses, he goes to the retirement with a lot of money, and being praised by everybody. I think we are not better than they were.
Mr Clennam was thinking of Little Dorrit when Mr and Mrs Plornish came to see him. They brought a basket filled with some delicatessen and showed him their affection and their sorry for his situation. Mr Plornish was amiable but he didn’t find the appropriate words to transmit a bit of encouragement to Mr Clennam. Dickens say that he did it in not lucid manner; but, in my opinion, it is very difficult to know what to say in a situation like this, because you know that the words can not alleviate the prisoner. So, in this cases sometimes the gestures are more important that the words; thus, a handshake or a tight hug is more heartwarming than any speech; otherwise, saying that there are ups and downs, Mr Plornish reduced the problem to the inevitability of fate, removing responsibility of Mr Clennam and giving him the hope that the wheel of fate would bring better times. What other thing he could do?
Mrs Plornish way was more effective; she wept, wept and wept, and when she talked, she hit the target; as when she said that, had Miss Dorrit been here, “the sight of you, in misfortune and trouble, would have been almost too much for her affectionate heart. There is nothing I can think of, that would have touched Miss Dorrit so bad as that”
In my view, no other words could reach more deeply in Mr Clennam’s heart, in this unfortunate time. Don’t you think so?
Otherwise, I think that Mr Clennam must be a little confused seeing that everybody less him seemed to know Little Dorrit’s love. In my view, he had decided not to know, not only in the case of Little Dorrit, but in relation with women in general, he felt fear to take the initiative and therefore he always found any pretext. Thus, or the woman is too young, or too beautiful, or perhaps she feels gratitude instead of love, or whatever other reason.
He always look for an excuse because he is a coward and he doesn’t want to suffer the frustration of the failure; and this is not a speculation but a fact; Dickens itself tells us this very clear, when in chapter XVI of the first book, a propos of his possible relationship with Pet, he says: “Arthur Clennam was a retiring man, with a sense of many deficiencies; and he so exalted the merits of the beautiful Minnie in his mind, and depressed his own, that when he pinned himself to this point, his hopes began to fail him. He came to the final resolution, as he made himself ready for dinner, that he would not allow himself to fall in love with Pet.”
I’m sorry; the quote is a little long, but it is very clear; and it is Dickens who talks.
Good nigth:
I have just been in the lecture about Dickens that they did at the school. It's a pity that not very much people came, because the conference has been interesting, and they told about some things about Dickens that I haven't realized. One, and the most astonishing, is the relation of his litterature with Kafka's one. Dickens was one of the first writers in telling about the feeling of isolation and alienation of modern men in the cities. Other subjects of the lecture were the deficiences and good things about Dickens' novels. And I totally agreed with what they said. It's true that in Dickens' books characters are much like stereotypes, whitout much complexity, without much psycology: the good guys are very good, the bad guys are very bad... And Dickens was not a revolutionary, altough he was a reformist, in spite of his never questioning the social order in this novels and never provide a solution to the problems of the society. But you must put the books in their context, and realize that Dickens was not a philosopher, he was not Owen, and you can't read the novels in the way in which they were read during the XIX th Century. Dickens needed to be sure his readers knew who was the villain and who was the hero. And, probably, he never thought about being very complex, or his readers wanted him to be like that, probably they just wanted to have something that we are loosing: an entertaining and moving, but not disconected of real world book. Indeed, XIX th Century was the age of great novelists (Dickens, of course, Wilkie Collins, Honoré Balzac, Victor Hugo, Benito Pérez Galdós, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Émile Zola, Alexandre Dumas, Fiodor Dostoviesky...), and many of the critics that you can put on Dickens' books, you can put on many other books of the period. The stuff of puting a long-lost relative, who was wealty, or powerful, and gave an inheritance to the main character...we have this in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and in Victor Hugo's The Man who Laughs. It's true that Dickens was not very good at doing very deep characters, I think that it was done much better by Dostovyesky, who was precisely a very Dickensian writer. But I have expected they had spoken more about the style of Dickens, his abilities of observation, his wise irony, and the relations of his style whith other writers, and his influence in other authors (thus, my interest about Galdós, Hugo and Dostovyesky). They could have spoken even about Dickens and films, altough you can not say all in the same lecture, and we already had a similar activity.
It's true that British litterature has a special interest about children, and children's litterature (other subject discussed), that is not easily found in other litteratures, perhaps because of the education. It's true that is not easy to find equivalents to Alice or Peter Pan in other countries. Perhaps there is it in German literature, with the tales of Hoffmann (The Nutcracker, The Sandman...) or the Grimm Brothers, but I think the comparation is not entirely accurate, because the world described by German writters are different (much more fantastic, but also, darker and more subjetive), and the wrote their works thinking mainly about adult readers.
In conclussion, it has been an interesting lecture, but it's a pity that they couldn't do it at the beggining of the course , (and it couldn't be done sooner, because they revealed some elements of the plot) because, by now, not many people come to such events.
I meant, "the worlds".
Good nigth.
I am very sorry for not having been at the assembly hall of the School to listen the lecture about Little Dorrit. I am very sorry because I was very interested in this activity, as you can imagine; I would have liked very much to know the view of an expert in the matter. I am also very sorry for Carmen, because I know that she organized this activity especially for us, and we were morally obliged to attend. Therefore, Carmen, I apologize to you again.
In principle, I doubted if I should say the reason of my absence to the lecture in order to avoid Carmen’s harsh criticism, taking into account that she always put English activities above any other consideration. But, at the end, much as I know that my motive is not strong enough for her, I have decided to confess my fault.
I didn’t go to the lecture because one of my childrens gave my wife two tickets to the theatre to see “The Inspector”. The worse of all is that my son had asked me which day we had free, and I chose today because I didn’t remember the activity of Little Dorrit.
I would thank very much if anyone could write a little comment about the lecture. There was any surprising disclosure?
Isidro, I did. Check my two last commentaries.
Rosa, after posting my last comment I saw yours, which you posted while I was writing mine. I thank you very much for having posted this interesting comment about the lecture; it is so extent and so rich in details that I feel as if I had been there.
In a previous comment I wrote about the reasons of Mr Clennam to renounce to fall in love with Minni. And we know that when he thought of Little Dorrit, he also look for excuses; thus, he thought that he was so old that he could be her father. It is true that everybody thought that she was a girl at first sight; for example, Mr Flintwinch, Mrs Dorrit, the prostitute that saw her in the street at night accompanied by Maggy, all of them thought that she was a girl; however, in my opinion, after having talked with her, and having seen her attitude in front of the problems, her responsibility, her maturity, and her spirit of sacrifice, Mr Clennam should have changed his view. Other pretext of Mr Clennam to not declare his love for Little Dorrit is that it was possible that she felt only gratitude for him, instead of love? In short, he didn’t want to take any risk.
Otherwise, I think that, in some way, Young John was not very mistaken being upset to Mr Clennam. John had reason to think wrong of him; the truth is that it was not necessary that he should talk to Little Dorrit against Young John, because she didn’t love him. But we know that Mr Clennam was jealous and he thought that Little Dorrit should not marry him.
So, as Little Dorrit didn’t love Young John, Mr Clennam was relieved and there was not a problem; however, what do you think that would have happened if she had felt a certain inclination to him? I think that he had not encouraged her to love Young John? Don’t you think so?
In consequence, John is mistaken thinking that Mr Clennam would have help him, if Miss Dorrit had had a positive inclination toward him, therefore he softens his relationship with him and he opened his eyes, but Mr Clennam’s attitude to John is not clear.
In consequence, Mr Clennam ambiguity created problems to Amy stimulating her fancy and making her believe that she could be the princess of the fairy tail. His position could stimulate in Young John a diffuse, thought impossible, hope; and his weakness is also harmful to himself who is condemned to lead a sad and solitary life forever. However, Young John has given him the necessary push to exit him of his indolence.
Now, Mr Clennam is in the bottom of the society. When Mr Merdle sank, he draged whith him lots of people. The other day, in the class, and in the lecture about Dickens, this issue was commented. We had had similar cases in our days, with the stories of Mario Conde and Maddoff, as it was said. They were rich and admired, and, the next day, they were in prison, poor and being hated by everybody. And when they fell, they took whith them the houses and savings of many little people who really went to banckrupcy because of them. Nobody expected Arthur to go to the jail, therefore, their astonishment. But Arthur's main concern was not his reputation, or money, or the bussiness, but Mr Doyce. I think not much people had behaved as Arthur did. This is something very well reflected in Dickens' novels, as they said in the lecture: it's very easy to change your social position, whitout your being able to do anything about that. Even so, I find most strange Arthur's behaviour, because he could ask help to his mother, or Mr Flinwich, altough his being almost sure they were not going to provide it.
We saw that Daniel Doyce encourages Mr Clennam to step forward in relation with Pet, but Mr Clennam didn’t want to adopt a critical attitude against Mr Gowan, hiding this way his shyness and his fears; Mr Meagle told him that if her other daughter had lived he would liked that he had married her; Mr and Mrs Plornish also saw well the possible relationship of Mr Clennam to Little Dorrit; and even Fanny and Mr Dorrit opposed to Amy’s relationship with Mr Clennam for other reason; they never thought in the age as a reason against the marriage. So, nobody but Mr Clennam saw a problem in the age to marry Pet or Little Dorrit, what proves that it is only a pretext to not give a step that terrified him.
Otherwise, I don’t believe that Little Dorrit’s poverty could be a reason for not marrying Little Dorrit, because being the husband rich, the economic status of the wife was relevant; we have the example of Mr Merdle that married her wife only by her bosom, and even Mr Dorrit tried to marry a woman that had to work to live. So, why Mr Clennam could not do the same thing?
Moreover, this could have been a handicap at the beginning, but when she became rich Mr Clennam could have made some approach, at least after her father’s death. But, in my view, Little Dorrit’s wealth, instead of being an incentive in favour, it was a motive that increased his cowardice. In reality, we know that Mr Clennam didn’t dare to talk to Pet because he thought that he was not worthy of her. However, he talked frequently to Little Dorrit because she was a girl that needed help and he was in relation with her in a position of superiority.
So, whichever way we look this matter, we see Mr Clennam as a pusillanimous, weakly, complexed and coward in relation with women; he is afraid of them and therefore he adopts a passive position toward them; in my view, it is possible that he should see his mother’s spectrum behind every women. Don’t you think so?
Had been Mr Carton a character of this novel and had he received the first letter of Little Dorrit, he wouldn’t become insensitive as a marble statue, he would have done any approach to her, or even he would have gone to Italy; and he would have married her immediately, if they had obtained the consent of her father; and if not, he would have married her after her father’s dead. However, Mr Clennam is in the clouds. And I don’t say that he is in limbo, because now there is no limbo.
In my last comment:
...being the husband rich,the economic status of the wife was NOT relevant"....
Rigaud is a man without scruples, a mercenary that can do anything for money; as Miss Wade said, he is a man that can take the life of a man if you pay for it. So, Mr Clennam’s dark omen about him is completely justified, but his encounter with Rigaud in jail is useless, because Mr Clennam’s capacity of action there was very limited. Therefore, the meeting is very annoying to him and to Cavalletto; the first had to buy a bottle of wine to him and to stand his insolences, and the second had to relive his obnoxious experience of prison, being obliged to serve him wine and having to endure his contempt.
We see Regaud managing the meeting at ease, scoffing at everybody, showing his rudeness, boasting of being a gentleman; so, the meeting was a completely nonsense and a sad spectacle.
In my opinion, Mr Clennam can’t be more naive. Do you imagine his face while Rigaud made his performance? But, what he could he expect?
Rigaud did honor to himself and became the leader of the meeting....We see him in his element saying: “I am a gentleman...I have born to be served....Once a gentleman and always a gentleman. A gentleman to the beginning, and a gentleman to the end”
What a nerve! Don’t you think that he is shameless.
Much as he repeats that he is a gentleman, over and over again, to try to convince the others, he can’t even persuade himself, therefore he can’t stop repeating this.
He is a murderer, a cheat, a liar, a boastful, a blackmailer,.... So, it is normal that Little Dorrit and Pet were afraid of him; however, what is very surprising to me is that Mr Gowan trusted him and hired his services. Don’t you think so?
Weak as he is, in my opinion Young John worths much more than Mr Clennam, so naive and lost in his musings that don't lead to any place. The way in which he forgives Mr Clennam (altough there is not here really nothing to be forgiven for), proves. But it must have been a very awkward scene for both of them...
The misfortunes of poor Arthur don't end there. He is confronted with his memories of Amy, and her missing. Alone, whitout friends, he must face not only the bare facts he couldn't forsee, but the annoying and menacing appearance of Blandois, who has finally drop his pose. Arthur learns he can not hope any help from her mother, and not for being expected this fact is less painful. Also, Pancks and Cavaletto seem to be under the evil influence of the french one.
I like the way in which Dickens writes the chapter, but not the way in which he describes Rigaud-Blandois' behaviour: it's too much noticeable that he is the bad guy.
Mr Clennam is in a sorry state; his health got worse every day and he felt increasingly weak; he even breathed with difficulty because the air was stifling, and he thought that he would die there; so, he could not be more depressed. He had been in a semiconscious state, without strength to get out of bed, hearing songs and voices product of his hallucinatory state.
But after an indefinite time, little by little, he began to recuperate his conscience, and he realized that there was a smell of flower in the room; then, he saw a beautiful bouquet of flowers on the table. He got up and smelt the fragrance of the flowers which was the best welcome to life. He didn’t know who would have put this handful of lovely flowers there, but I think that he would think of little Dorrit while he smelt them.
And, if the flowers are without any doubt a sign of hope to Mr Clennam, the visit of Little Dorrit would be the best medicine to him in this difficult moment. I think that, seeing this flowers, Mr Clennam would think of the possibility of Little Dorrit having made a visit to him, while he was unconscious. Who else could have had such a romantic gesture? Mr Clennam knows that Little Dorrit doesn’t like Italy and that she misses London very much; so, after her father death, there is not anything that can detain her there. In consequence, after his conversation with Young John, much as Mr Clennam be not very keen to capture the subtleties of love, he shouldn’t have problems to achieve the appropriate conclusion.
So, it is possible that we are going to see Mr Clennam talking tenderly with Little Dorrit, without fear to failure, unless he should be overwhelmed by a certain shyness because of his bankruptcy. It is possible that, having been in the clouds when he could have helped her, he doesn’t want to be selfish now and to try to take advantage of her money.
The beggining of Chapter XXIX is fantastic. Dickens describes wonderfuly, masterly, the condition of a wretched man and a depressed mind. Then, Little Dorrit appears, and the whole thing is ruined. Why this gal is so unsympathetic to me? Is it because her foundness to suffer and being treated as a carpet by every men around her (her father, Arthur, her brother...)The only who is nice with her is John, and she dismisses him with not great regardings...
We are painting the house, and I have my mother ill, so this afternoon I will not be able to go to the lesson
Little Dorrit is back, and she is hosted in the same hotel that her father was in his last visit to London. However, she doesn’t care about what the First Butler might think of her, and she has nothing to hide because she is not ashamed of anything; therefore, she put on her old worn dress and went to Marshalsea to see Arthur Clennam.
What a nice detail ! Sometimes, the small details say much more about people than great gestures. Amy knows better than anyone Mr Clennam’s mood in this moment, because she has lived in Marshalsea and she has experienced the effect of prison on people; therefore she wants him to feel that she is with him; she wants remove all sign of distance; so, she is thinking much more of Mr Clennam than of herself.
The first time that Little Dorrit met Mr Clennam in jail after her return, they didn’t need to speak of their mutual love because all was understood and words were unnecessary. But Mr Clennam didn’t wanted that Little Dorrit did any sacrifice for him; he thought that she had passed much time in Marshalsea and that now was time to go away and live far of prison; he said that she could come to see him but not soon nor often. However, Little Dorrit told him that she wouldn’t be happy, being rich while he was in prison. She offered him her money to pay his debts but Mr Clennam rejected the offer.
Mr Clennam is a bad businessman as we have seen; but in the field of love he is a disaster. His shyness is surprising; I can understand that he had fear to declare his love to Little Dorrit before knowing that her loved him, but after his conversation with Young John, he should have had a tender conversation with her taking himself the initiative; however, we see him adopting a passive position hearing Little Dorrit’s tender words; but for his side he acted as if love were implied, without telling anything. He is the height of shyness.
Don’t you remember Young John declaration of love to Amy? In my view the difference between one and the other is the difference that there is between John’s mother and Arthur’s; thus, while john is a normal sensitive fellow, Athur’s libido is repressed.
Otherwise, taking into account that Mr Dorrit trusted his fortune to Mr Merdle, don’t you think that it is possible that her family be in the ruin and she doesn’t know it yet? In this case, they will have to share their lives in prison. Don’t you think so?
What a difficult crossroads! Mr Clennam knows because of Young John’s declaration that Little Dorrit loves him, and he finally realizes that he also loves her. But he has to take a difficult decision, because he will have to choose between asking her to forget him, or declaring his love to her and accepting her money.
In the first option, Little Dorrit would be unhappy seeing Mr Clennam in prison while she is rich and lives away from prison; but if Mr Clennam accepts her money or allow her to live with him in prison, he would have a guilty conscience. So, Mr Clennam is facing a difficult dilemma.
In my view, Little Dorrit would have been happy living with Arthur in prison, if she be satisfied from the affective point of view, because she is used to live in harsh condition; but Arthur is different; he neither has the necessary strength to face the hard conditions of the prison, nor enough imagination to create an imaginary role, as Mr Dorrit, to make his stay in prison more bearable. So, in my view, it is necessary that Dickens saves them in order to demonstrate that, despite the hard conditions of society, people can overcome the worst hardships and live with dignity. But, do you think that Dickens will be able to pull a rabbit from his hat in the last moment?
Now, we know what had happened, and the whole story of Arthur's family. Bad as he is, Jeremiah is rigth: one can be the most virtuous and honorable person, and be the most evil and wicked being in the world. Take the example of Mrs Clennam, always boasting about her virtue, and puting herself as an example of rigth behaviour. But she is evil, and sinful, and she has comitted which are, in my opinion, the worst sins: pride, envy, lie, and greed. She is proud, because she is always flaunting about her good behaviour, she is envious, because she couldn't stand Mr Clennam being happy with other woman, she is greedy, because, altough she says that what made her to hide Mr Clennam's will was not the wanting of money, I don't believe she did so only for the sake of the virtue, and she is a liar because she has been living in a lia during years and years. Not always religion makes people better: it has turn Mrs Clennam a proud, mean, cruel and vindicative woman, stern in her convictions, behaving that she is always rigth and on the rest of the people and leaving other people to be miserable, altough they were innocents, because she thoutgh they were sinful. And, sadly, we have examples of this in our days.
And you have the proof of what I have said in the fact of Mrs Clennam being surrounded by crooks and rogues, like Jeremiah and Rigaud, she who is so pure and flawless. What a hyppocrite woman!
It is very interesting to see that the less intelligent people which are on the limit of normality, as Maggy, are sometimes those who best understand the language of affection. She is a dependent person that is not able to explain a complex situation; for example, she wouldn’t know to explain the whole meaning of the tale of the Princes that Little Dorrit once told her, but she capture very well its affectionate content. It is not surprising?
In a moment specially difficult to Little Dorrit, in which she was very depressed and without hope in the future, she told Maggy the story of the Princess because she needed vent herself. And, although Maggy had not the capacity to understand the concepts of the tail, she could catch the affections implied in it. Therefore now, when she sees her Little Mother’s happiness, she conect very rightly the end of the tale with this special moment that Amy is living.
This kind of people are very affectionate; they need the help and affection of the others, but they also are those who most affection give, because they devote themselves unconditionally. Therefore, Maggy is very happy with his Little Mother’s return; she knows that nobody loves her more than her; and Amy also is very happy because she is a very affectionate person that can’t stand the hypocrisy. Therefore she was tired of living in a world full of hypocrisy in which all was a farce.
In chapter XXX Mrs Clennam’s secret is revealed, and we find the reason of her hatred to Arthur. All of us had thought that Mrs Clennam’s behaviour was unnatural and inappropriate for a mother, and now that we know the hidden reason of her bitterness, we can understand her upset with her husband, but we can’t excuse her behaviour with Arthur.
I imagine Arthur’s terror and confusion, being the object of an unjust punishment, and I feel sorry for him. In my opinion, Mrs Clennam’s behaviour is unforgivable; she discharged on Arthur all her violence, with the intention of harming his father who was the passive witness of her horrible behaviour with Arthur.
Arthur’s father must be a more pusillanimous and weaker man than Arthur itself, remaining in a passive attitude, while his wife frightened his son. But, at the end, he decided to go away, because he could not bear so much cruelty nor her wife’s scorn toward him. So, instead of facing the problem, he chose to flee, and even in the moment of his death, he didn’t dare to say the truth to his son.
It is possible that Arthur be a weak man by nature, but knowing his strict education and how much he suffered as a child, we can understand his fear to women and his shyness. We must remember that his mother told him that he was guilty of an unforgiveable crime unknown for him; so, Arthur has lived anguished all his life without knowing the cause of his suffering; he couldn’t imagine that he was being unfairly punished by his father’s sin.
In my view, much as Mrs Clennam had reason to be upset with Mr Clennam, she was a wicked woman that embittered Arthur’s life, but at the same time, she was a victim of her own cruelty. Thus, she was punished to lead a solitary disable life, full of remorses, locked in her own home, transformed into an avenging angel full of hatred and resentment. In brief, she became a horrible monster that used a caricature of religion to justify her wickedness.
folks, I´m back again if only for a few comments. I have been unable to get through all your comments but I´m glad you are reading the Pickwick papers; isisdro, you will love it.
I want to say that Mrs. Clennam´s behaviour to arthur is unforgivable; indeed, but so is his father´s. why should we blame her only? why did the father marry her? couldn´t he have said "No" and marry his lover? He could, but hten he would have been left without his money and that is what he wanted.
I wonder why all men make the same mistake ever. you are "unhappy" (in the sense that there is an absence of happiness in a matrimonial life after a certain period of time, and they, because it has been normally the case, become involved with someone, normally ...younger, who is always gay, because she is simply "new". when that new becomes old the same starts, they want a change. when do they stay? when they have no better place to go to. Let´s fae it, it is very similar to this, isn´t it?
Mr. Clennam could have stayed and made the most for his son, but he did not, he escaped, so both are to blame.
the ensuing result of this unfortunate marriage is, a weak man.
today we have talked about strength in a man. what do you think about this issue? For me a man has to be strong (am I too basic?), a weakling is not a man but a boy...I pity a woman who is married to a weak man..
Well, he, the strong man, could be like Mr Doyce, in the book. He does the rigth things when they should be done, he is brave, coherent, hard-working, and well considered by everybody. But it is not easy to define what is strong, and what is tough, or cruel, because is not easy, not always to make the difference. Think about Mrs Clennam, surely she thougth about herself as a strong woman, but, for me, she is just an hypocrite and a stern woman, who believed herself the to be the chosen one of her vindicative God, and acted as her instrument. Surely she thouth what she was doing was good, and rigth, I think it's a bit like the case of that nun who stole a lot of children from their rigthful mothers during the fifties and sixties.
For me, they were not very surprising all this revelations, because I was sure Mrs Clennam was not really Arthur mother's, and that there was a blackmailing story behind the whole thing. And look, she had not her own children. She was barren. I think that's a bit like a Biblical curse which went against her.
In chapter XXX not only did we know that Arthur is not Mrs Clennam’s son, we also find that she had hidden the will in which Arthur's uncle bequeathed a sum of money to a daughter that Arthur’s mother could have or, if she didn’t have any child, to her younger niece. Mrs Clennam knew that Little Dorrit was the younger niece beneficiary of the legacy of Mr Gilbert Clennam, but she decided not to deliver the money to her, and therefore she hid the will. However, she hired Little Dorrit as a seamstress; in my view, she hired her in order to mitigate her conscience of guilt. Don’t you think so?
Other interesting aspect of this chapter is that Affery plucked up courage and remained in the meeting between Blandois and Mrs Clennam, in spite of Mr Flintwinch’s menaces; and she participated in the conversation revealing some dark aspects of the story, and showing an unknown courage and intelligence.
We discover in this chapter the pernicious effect of a strict religion, in which punishment and suffering are the fundamental ideas; a religion in which it seems that the idea of forgiveness is completely ruled out and in which life becomes a valley of tears even for children; a conception in which love and the positive forces of life seem to have been stigmatized. And when a hateful bitter and resentful woman becomes the priestess of a so gloomy and perverse religion, life becomes the worst nightmare.
Carmen, I agree with you that Mr Clennam was guilty. He was guilty of having a sex relation out of his marriage; guilty for adopting a passive attitude while his wife terrorized his son, guilty for fleeing to China leaving his child at home at the mercy of his wife, and finally guilty for not revealing the truth to his son before dying.
But in my opinion, all these sins are the result of his weak personality; remember that he was “a poor, irresolute, frightened chap....... that even had no choice in the election of his wife”; and he was completely relegated by his wife.
So, his sins were the result of his passivity. The only one in which his positive intervention was required was his sexual relationship with the beautiful young singer. However, knowing the ability of Arthur with women, and taking into account that his father was much more pusillanimous than him, I think that it is possible that the woman be more active than him.
In my opinion, we must not judge Arthur’s father very hard because we only have the opinion of his wife, whose value is relative, because she can’t be neutral. Moreover, when the novel begins Arthur’s father had already died, and our knowledge of him is very limited.
However, we know that when Arthur returned home, he feared his encounter with his mother and he recalled his childhood, depicting a frightening atmosphere of bitterness and mortification. Then, the image of his childhood memories is reinforced with her welcome to Arthur that couldn’t be more cold and full of hatred and scorn; and we always have seen her as an authoritarian, selfish and wicked woman. She shows herself as a representative of the strict religion, but she terrorized an innocent child, she usurped Mr Gilbert Clennam’s legacy to Arthur’s mother and to Little Dorrit....
Mr Clennam was guilty of not having willpower and of not having the necessary strength of character to face reality; he had not the necessary capacity to manage his enterprise, to choice his wife or to talk sincerely to his own child. But, in my opinion, this sins compared with those of his wife are irrelevant.
Well, Arthur's Father's case is not so strange. The marriages, in the past, specially among the higher classes, were not made because of love, but because arrangements between the families. It was not unusual that a man had more than one family. And I think I understood he married the young singer before he married Mrs Clennam. It was not the proper thing what he did, but I think is quite excusable, because how many of us would marry (and love)a woman like Mrs Clennam, having not money in the middle of the story? He didn't choose her, she was chosen by his uncle, who thought she would be a good wife. Even if he did wrong, I am more willing to forgive him than Mrs Clennam, because there is much hatred in what she did. Even Little Dorrit knows and tells her, that she must forsake her bitter feelings, and look for the God of Mercy.
Finally, fate did justice killing Blandois, the most obnoxious character of this book; from now on, all of us, the readers, know the secret of Mrs Clennam, and many characters of the book also know it, but Arthur doesn’t. Do you think that it would be good for him to know the truth?
In my view, his father should have taken his son with him when he went to China and tell him the truth, if not immediately, at least when Arthur became an adult man. This way, he would have liberated Arthur of the negative influence of Mrs Clennam and would have spared him much suffering. But Arthur’s father was such a weak man that he didn’t dare to say the truth to his son even in the moment of his death, leaving his son in the most completely uncertainty.
However, it is possible that in this moment the best for him be not to know the truth, because after having suffering Mrs Clennam severity it would be to him a new suffering to know that her real mother was a wretched woman and his father a coward that had not the courage to face his responsibilities. In my view, the best for him would be that he could leave Marshalsea and that he and Little Dorrit got married. Don’t you think that Little Dorrit’s love would be the best therapy for Arthur, and the best way so that he forgets his past sufferings?
I am astonished because of Mrs Clenam's resentment. she has been all her life hating and trying to revenge for something that had not solution. The mistake was yet made. Once time, a person said to me you cannot resolve a mistake with another mistake and I can say that this advice has been very useful for me and I think it could have been in the same way for Mrs Clenam if she had taken this advice into account. her life has been like the atmosphere of her house, sad and gloomy.At the end she has been betrayed for the persons in whom she has trusted. If she had acted in another way she could have felt her son's love.
You are very rigth, Beatriz. A bad deed does not erase another one. This is ont the way of solving things. What Mr Clennam did, was bad, but, what Mrs Clennam did, was worse.
In reality, not was Arthur but Mrs Clennam who married by money. She demonstrated from the first moment her ability to manipulate his husband and to relegate him; this was an easy target knowing Arthur’s soft character. She stole the money of Arthur’s mother who died without receiving the financial aid that Mr Gilbert had left her; and she also stole Mr Frederic’s niece money.
She didn’t love her husband, she only loved his money; had she loved him she would have forgiven him, and she would have taken care of his son, if only to retain him. However, she was a bitter woman with a cold heart that was not able to feel love for anyone.
She says that she had received a strict upbringing, and she considered herself the avenging hand, in the name of the Lord. However, she only read the passages of the Bible that served to justify her actions; she could have read the passage that says: “who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Her hatred is so intense that there is no place in her to other feeling; a hatred inextinguishable that has remained alive during more than forty years; a hatred that she has fed reading the most gruesome passages of the bible, as this one, which she read aloud before Arthur, the day of his arrival:
“praying that her enemies...might be put to the edge of the sword, consumed by the fire, smitten by the plagues and leprosy, that their bones might be ground to dust, and that they might be utterly exterminated.”
Poor Arthur, being forty years old, these harsh words transported him to the dark horrors of his childhood when he went to bed horrified by such reading.
It is very surprising that she tries to use religion to justify such obnoxious behaviour. What a nerve!
I would like to point out Affery's attitude. For a long time she has been seeing and hearing many things: conspiracies, gossips, businesses... but she has been in silence. She thought it was more secure for her to be in silence, so she has been living like in a nightmare. Much as she has tried not to hear anything, she has known everything about the business between her husband and Mrs Clenam.
We can see two persons that in spite of not having been living in a prison, in a certain way they have been living like in a prison. Not only has Mrs Clenam lived full of resentment but also Affery has been living chained by her silence. Many of the persons of this book have had their own imprisonment though they have not lived in the Marshalsea.
Beatriz, I think that you are very right when you say that many people of this book have had their own imprisonment. However, the reason can be very different; for example, in the case of Mrs Clennam, she has been prisoner of his own decision; and in the case of Affery, the authoritarianism and the strict character of Mrs Clennam and Mr Flintwinch’s brutality are the reasons of her imprisonment. But, whatever reason, the result is the same.
Mrs Clennam has had his penalty in life; she has lived in hell without knowing it; all her life living corroded by frustration hatred and resentment, and enclosed more and more in her paranoia; all her life bittered, reading the more hard passages of the Bible, giving herself the authority to judge the evil of others, without knowing that herself was the incarnation of evil.
What a paradoxe! We see the most cruel of women invoking religion to justify her revenge; a woman with such a twisted mind that becomes disabled in a chair as a consequence of her psychopathy. In my view, this interesting detail is a geniality of Dickens, because he conceives this possibility before the formulation of the psychoanalytic theory. And if the idea of the body paralysis as a consequence of the repression of a psychic content is a revolutionary idea in this time, the idea of the healing through the liberation of the repressed psychic energy is even more revolutionary.
Other interesting aspect is Dickens calculated ambiguity in the case of Affery’s dreams. Although, the called “Affery dreams” are showed more and more as the own reality, at the beginning there was a calculated confusion. In my view, Dickens had the idea that the dreams had a certain parallelism with reality, but he couldn’t develop this idea because if he had developed it he would have been Sigmund Freud. In any case, we must recognize that Dickens had a remarkable knowledge of human being.
Are not we overinterpretating the book? Surely, Dickens wanted to put in his story some symbolisms, but, perhaps, it would be too much to say he foresaw psychoanalysis...
In any case, I think it's true he wanted to make of Mrs Clennam a symbol of the God of the Old Testament, meanwhile Amy represents the God of the New One.
Mrs Clennam, after having stood disabled in his chair during twelve years, got up making a supreme effort and went to see Miss Dorrit.
In my opinion, Mrs Clennam didn’t feign her illness and her healing was not a miracle; so, we must conclude that Dickens, much as he was not a psychologist and, of course, he didn’t foresee the psychoanalysis, he knew that phenomena of this kind were possible; and he depicts quite accurately the conditions of its possibility; in consequence he had a deep knowledge of human behaviour.
Mrs Clennam had the appearance of a ghost, and she hardly had enough strength to stand, but she achieved to arrive to Marshalsea where she met Little Dorrit. Mrs Clennam asked her to open the package that Blandois had given her and Mrs Clennam asked he, and to read the letter which revealed her secrets.
Little Dorrit, after knowing the secret, got astonished and a little confused, but she was very comprehensive with Mrs Clennam; she forgave her and even accompanied her to try to obtain a reduction of the quantity of money that Blandois demanded her.
Mrs Clennam promised to Amy to restore Mr Gilbert Clennam’s legacy that she had withheld; in reality, I think that, after having been revealed the secret, she had no choice but do so. Don’t you think so?
In consequence, Little Dorrit will receive the legacy of Mr Gilbert Clennam, without having any blood relationship with this family; therefore, if she married Arthur, the money could be used to pay his debts, and paradoxically it would return to the family.
Otherwise, Little Dorrit will have to keep the secret to Arthur to spare him more suffering. Do you think that it will be easy to her to maintain the secret? In my view, she will achieve it easily, because Mr Clennam has not Mr Pancks’s questing spirit.
I am not very satisfied with this chapter. Rigaud finds the death, this is true, but he is not punished because of his ill deeds. The whole house of the Clennams collapses, falls apart like the House of Usher in the tale of Edgar Allan Poe. Like a sort of symbol of decadence and sin. It's like one of Mrs Clennam's biblical curses turned against her. And she spends her last days motionless, like a statue...It recalls me the story of Loth's wife, in the Bible, who became a salt statue because she disobeyed God. Did Mrs Clennam disobeyed God? I am tempted to say that her only God was actually her proud and wishes of revenge.
And what happened with Jeremiah?
I’m sorry; in my last comment:
…”and Mrs Clennam asked her to open the package that Blandois had given her and to read the letter”....
In my view, it is not acceptable to justify one’s behaviour pointing the responsibility of others. For example, Mrs Clennam tries to justify her severity saying that she had a strict upbringing; however, we know the case of Arthur that also had a strict education and he is very sensitive and respectful of others; so, the education of the people doesn’t overrides individual freedom.
Otherwise, Mrs Clennam makes absurd reasonings to project the blame on others, as when she considers Mr Frederic Dorrit guilty of having helped Arthur mother. What a cheek!
Mrs Clennam reasoning always targets her interest. Thus, she thinks that had not Mr Frederic Dorrit helped Arthur’s mother, she would have been a poor humble girl without style nor any appealing, and Arthur wouldn’t have loved her; and Mr Gilbert Clennam wouldn’t have bequeathed a legacy, and she wouldn’t have been forced to steal the money
So, according to Mrs Clennam, Mr Frederic Dorrit that helped Arthur’s mother acted wrong, and Mr Gilbert Clennam also acted wrong for trying to compensate her with money. However, she didn’t find any passage in the bible to qualify her conduct when she stole the money of the legacy and permitted that Arthur’s mother died of grief and misery.
In consequence, Mrs Clennam view of the world is a complete distortion, which is the result of a mental deformation; she has not a clear and objective look because she is a woman full of prejudiced whose hatred, resentment and selfishness pervade everything.
We have now the book almost finished. I must say that I feel that Dickens was better at writting descriptions (of people or places) rather than dialogues. But there are lots of things that he doesn't solve. He doesn't tell us why Mr Dorrit lost his money and went to prison. He doesn't tell the story about the inheritance that the Dorrits got. He doesn't tell us what happens with Tip and what happens with Flora, and Mr F's Aunt, and Mr Pancks. I always expected he was going to marry Miss Rigg, and perhaps Tatty was going to get married with Mr Doyce or John. He doesn't tell the end of Ms Wade, and what happens eventualy with Pet and Mr Gowan, because I have the feeling this marriage was not going to end well, and perhaps he abandoned her, or she came back with her parents. What do you think?
We have now the book almost finished. I must say that I feel that Dickens was better at writting descriptions (of people or places) rather than dialogues. But there are lots of things that he doesn't solve. He doesn't tell us why Mr Dorrit lost his money and went to prison. He doesn't tell the story about the inheritance that the Dorrits got. He doesn't tell us what happens with Tip and what happens with Flora, and Mr F's Aunt, and Mr Pancks. I always expected he was going to marry Miss Rigg, and perhaps Tatty was going to get married with Mr Doyce or John. He doesn't tell the end of Ms Wade, and what happens eventualy with Pet and Mr Gowan, because I have the feeling this marriage was not going to end well, and perhaps he abandoned her, or she came back with her parents. What do you think?
In my view one of the characters that has had a positive evolution along the novel is Pancs. The first image that I had of him on his first appearance in the novel was the one of a strange, mean, unclean, and dark man; a henchman that made Mr Casby’s dirty work. But little by little we perceived a new view of him when he began his inquiry around Mr Dorrit’s family; a research that allowed us to discover his intelligence, his ability to plan a strategy and his qualities of coordination; thus, he achieved to involve Mr Rugg and Young John in his project, and to carry it out successfully. Mr Clennam got astonished by Pancks’s success to the point that he followed his advice of investing money in Mr Merdle’s business.
In my view, Mr Clennam’s worthy attitude, after having lost his money, was a great lesson to Pancks who had remorse of conscience for having been the inductor of Mr Clennam’s investment. Panck was tired of being Mr Casby’s henchman, and Mr Clennam’s worthy behaviour was surely the determinant factor of his decision of breaking his relationship with Mr Casby. And he staged his rupture in public as the best way to unmask the squeezer and swindler of people and to clean his own image.
I think that Pancks was already tired of doing all the "dirty works" of Mr Casby at the beggining of the novel, the first time we meet him. But we don't notice that at the first glimpse. In my opinion (this is my opinion, of course), there are not many truly sympathetic characters in this book (if we don't count Doyce, Pancks, Flora and John Chivery), and we can't talk about evolution of them, except, perhaps in the cases of Pancks and Mr Clennam, and Tatty. In my opinion Dickens was more interested in doing characters which represent an element of the human nature (Little Dorrit, the kindness, Mrs Clennam, fanatism, Rigaud, the greed, Mr Dorrit, the proud, Fanny, the vanity, Tip, the idleness, John, the innocence...), types, than in doing characters which change with the time and have their own story.
In chapter XXXIII Tattycoram returns home. At the end, she admits what all of us had foresaw, that her decision of living with Miss Wade was a clear wrong decision. Miss Wade had a similar problem as Tattycoram; she was a solitary woman that had a great inner dissatisfaction, and that was interested on Tattycoram only to discharge on her her own frustration. In my opinion, Tattycoram wanted to return home long ago, but her pride didn’t permit her to recognize her mistake; and the visit of Mr Meagle to Miss Wade gave her the best opportunity to return, because she could give something to compensate her ill conscience.
I think that Tattycoram can be a good company to Mr and Mrs Meagle now that they are going to miss their daughter very much; and Tattycoram, after having had the harsh experience of enduring Miss Wade’s bad mood, will be able to lead a normal and satisfactory life.
In my view, Tattycoram has evolved; she is more mature because she has had time to reflect and to realize that her life with the Meagle was not so bad as she had thought. But, just in case her experience of living with Miss Wade were not enough lesson, and she didn’t take the appropriate conclusion, Mr Meagle suggested to Tattycoram to take Little Dorrit as a model for her life. I think that his suggestion is very wise; Tattycoram must know that her life, in spite of being an orphan woman, is not so badly because she has the affection of a good family that loves and takes care of her.
In my view, Dickens in Little Dorrit puts the focus in the society of the first half of XIX century, depicting the extreme poverty of the humble people, the bizarre organisation of prisons, the social hypocrisy, the inefficiency of the administration...; and he depicts the life of a varied human group, showing us their passions, interests, worries, values, sufferings and expectations. I think that Dickens’s is not a philosopher or a revolutionary man; therefore he is not interested in building the foundation of a different world more just and efficient, nor in fighting against the establishment. He is a conservative man that shows an accurate portrait of reality, highlighting the problems of the working class; but, at the same time, he opens a door to hope, when he shows that much as reality can be very harsh, any person can lead a worthy life and achieve happiness, working hard and avoiding the defeatism. This is the case of Little Dorrit that was born in prison in the worst imaginable conditions, in a filthy, dirty, stifling place, in the middle of an aggressive swarm of flies that blackened the walls and attacked the mother and the newborn, while other swarm of women tried to keep the flies away, and the doctor and the midwife spent the time drinking brandy and trying to appease the agonizing wait of the parent, plunged in the most absolute misery.
This is not a pink novel, because although at the end Little Dorrit reached the seventh heaven his life was not a bed of roses; and we could say the same of Mr Clennam, because although he achieved peace and happiness at the end, his sad childhood, his life full of fears and incertitudes and his staying in prison left in his mind a faint melancholy.
I see in the novel a possible reflect of Dickens own feelings. Remember that his father was imprisoned in Marshalsea for debts, that he being a child, had to work very hard, in very bad conditions, and he never forgot the sufferings of this early days. I think that Dickens got to connect to people of his time, specially to the humble people, because he knew how to show in the novel the same problems that the readers suffered in their daily lives. They saw in the novel their troubles, their worries, their fears,.....and at the end, what is more important, a door open to hope. Thus, if Little Dorrit, the poorest and most insignificant woman, achieved to live with dignity, all was possible under the sun; so, after Little Dorrit, everybody could be redeemed.
I have read your final comments and I have to say that Isidro´s dated 25th May is fit to close the blog for the Sumer. congrats, Isidro on this and your other posts, you have made the blog alive and most interesting.
Rosa, thanks to you as well, your contribution has benn most excellent as well, and most enjoyable.
I would like to thank all those who posted and I´m sure that those who did have found this blog a most useful and entertaining way of practicing all the structures we have learnt and the written skill.
I´m afraid this is¨"goodbye"....we have to "move on" or rather you have to, I will remain here next year and those who wish to can read along with us our next novel. "Do not forget" your English, "do not forget" what you have learnt, "do not forgert" to read the wonderful English literature, and know that you will always have a small (you are many!!)place in my heart and that I will "not forget" you and the good times we have spent together!!
Good bye and God bless you!!!
Carmen
Carmen Thank you for your nice words for us. I also wanted to say that it was a pleasure to be in your class and although I did not pass the exam, I feel that I have learned, so I am very grateful for the patience that you have developed to me this year.
thanks; María!!! nice Summer
Dear Rachel, Manuela, Elena, Oliva, Gema, Marisa, María Jesús, Pura, Rebeca, Monica, Marko and Juan Pedro,
First of all I apologise for not having answered before, but I meant to go to the school premises this Monday and I would have then been able to answer each one of you individually, but as I have not gone, I have decided to do as I said and write it on the blog.
Thank you for a most wonderFULL dinner, I have used block letters for full, because the menu was immense and delicious.
Thank you as well for the wonderful e-book, with which I´m slowly coming to terms, but coming, that is a lot where my abilities are concerned. I am enchanted with this new gadget and it will accompany me everywhere I go this Summer and for the rest of my life.
I am still battling hard with all the remaining boxes...I don´t think I will ever fit all the stuff we have, as my husband and Tobias, being men, have manged to leave the house in a better condition, so to say bigger with lots more space, but with now wardrobes!!! Now I appeal to you ladies, what will I do without wardrobes? where will I put all the (ok, admitted) "useless" things human beings collect as they walk the path of life???? Those things are part of my life, however useless and now I won´t have them, but we do indeed have more space...
As you see, I´m going through the "best of times", here amidst my half empty boxes, tennis rackets, sheets, one towel, suitcases,frying pans,saucepans,(the kitchen is very new and nice but we don´t have space either), coats and jackets, hats, we never wear but which I have always seen...where will I put everything??? To thrw away or not to through away, that is the question...well, I hope my story doesn´t end as he whom I quoted.
and now to nicer thoughts of blue seas and sandy beaches. I sisncerel hope you have a nice Summer and a nice life, get married, we all do and live to remain seated among half-empty boxes...
I hope to see you sometime next year, "do not forget" your English, you have got far, move on and get better.
With all my love and gratitude
Carmen
P.S. you can use the blog next year as you read along with us if you wish.
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