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Structural Patterns in Some of Dickens's Novels

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Structural Patterns in Some of Dickens's Novels STRUCTURAL PATTERNS IN SOME OF DICKENS’S NOVELS, WITH A SPECIAL STUDY OF OLIVER TWIST, NICHOLAS MICKLEBY, MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT, DAVID COPPERFIELD, AND GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Eleanor Frances Morgan A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (English Literature) in the University of London Bedford College 1981 London ProQuest Number: 10098415 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10098415 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT Examination of Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Martin Chuzzlewit, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations, all organized around central heroes, allows the critic to look for operative structural principles in works that appear similar. The similarity is on the surface only. Detailed analysis leads to the conclusion that the structure of each is determined by the underlying mode in which it is written. Oliver Twist is a kind of allegory, Nicholas Nickleby, a melodrama, Martin Chuzzlewit, a satire, David Copperfield, a Bildungsroman, and Great Expectations, a Bildungsroman told through a fair^ tale. When the novels are read with the underlying mode in mind,many critical anomalies are seen to stem from requirements of th^iîparticular mode. Choice of mode appears to be determined by the author's narrative stance toward his material; this can be determined, as a rule, from prefaces, letters, and biographical events at the time of writing. The method of analysis is of central importance, as is the discovery of an adequate typology to identify salient characteristics of each mode. In addition to offering fresh insights into the novels them­ selves, the results of the approach through mode suggest that many novels might profitably be examined in this way. Recognition, for instance, that certain roles, such as those of the knave and the fool in satire or of the magic donor in the fairy tale, are essential to their respective modes has interesting implications for the study of characterization. This approach has not been used before, though certain of the underlying modes have occasionally been mentioned by critics. There have also been casual attributions of mode which do not stand up under systematic examination and are misleading. The under­ lying mode affects so many aspects of a novel's form that this approach would seem to provide a useful tool for novel criticism. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Academic work that is carried out in conjunction with domestic and professional responsibilities owes much to the generosity of others. I am more than ordinarily indebted to my two supervisors, Professor Kathleen Tillotson and Dr. J.S. Bratton. Discussions with Professor Tillotson at regular meetings during my term of residence gave me the benefit of her rigorous and sympathetic critical mind; she helped me to focus broad questions within a manageable framework. Her continuing interest and help, even after her retirement, has provided ballast on what sometimes seemed a questionable voyage. Dr. Bratton, who supervised the writing from the second chapter, has been thorough and perceptive in the difficult business of long­ distance supervision. Her knowledge of the period, particularly of its drama, has been sobering, and her sturdy opposition to wild theory a stimulus. Both have been admirable teachers and have given me much time. Various academic services for which I am grateful have been performed by the following: Dr. James Duggan, who located two plays for me; Dr. Michael Laing, who gave advice on certain technical points; Professors Robertson Davies and Northrop Frye, as well as members of the Department of Comparative Literature at Toronto, who permitted me to attend graduate seminars that gave me both assurance and direction in particular sections of the work. I have benefitted in many ways from Peter F. Morgan's scholarly knowledge of the Nineteenth Century. I wish to thank the Canada Council for Pre-Doctoral Fellowships awarded for my second and third years in London. Their permission, unusual at that time, to retain the second Fellowship when I married at mid-term left me with a useful obligation to continue work they had supported. My mother's financial, and, occasionally, domestic help has made a great difference in practical ways over the years; my aunt. Miss Frances Thompson, left money when she died for me to complete the thesis, and I could not otherwise have done so. I should also like to express my gratitude to Woodsworth College, Toronto, which has shown an appropriate understanding of the needs of adult students in its tolerance of flexible teaching schedules that allow time for writing. Finally, my four children, who have grown in the shadow of the thesis, have increasingly countered their backward pull with a forward push, and have given unquestioning support. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. THE NOVEL AS ALLEGORY: The Adventures of OLIVER 22 TWIST; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress II, THE NOVEL AS MELODRAMA: The Life and Adventures 81 of NICHOLAS NICKLEBY III. THE NOVEL AS SATIRE: The Life and Adventures of 146 MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT IV. THE NOVEL AS BILDUNGSROMAN: The Personal History 206 of DAVID COPPERFIELD V. THE BILDUNGSROMAN AS FAIRY TALE: GREAT 265 EXPECTATIONS CONCLUSION 337 APPENDIX 339 BIBLIOGRAPHY 343 MOTE ON EDITIONS AND REFERENCES QUOTATIONS FROM THE NOVELS, WITH THE EXCEPTION Of Oliver Twist, are taken from the Charles Dickens Edition of 1867-68, the last edition corrected by the author in his lifetime. This has the further advantage of running titles which are sometimes indicative of Dickens’s intentions. References to the text, by page, follow quotations and are indicated as: (CD, — ). For Oliver Twist the Clarendon Edition of 1966, based on the 1846 text, has been used. References to this text also follow quotations and are given as: (Cl OT, — ). At the time of writing Volumes I, II, III, and IV only of the Pilgrim Edition of the Letters are in print. References to this edition are givenTthe footnotes thus: Letters I Pilgrim, p.-. References to the Nonesuch Edition are given thus: Letters III Nonesuch, p.-. References to Forster’s Life are to the annotated edition by J.W.T. Ley, 1928. Editions of primary texts published after August 1, 1980, have not been included. INTRODUCTION This thesis is an attempt to find the operative structural principle in each of five works that appear, on the surface, to have structural similarities. It originates in questions about the structure of the novel and follows an M.A. thesis, "The Structure of Middlemarch", written for the University of Toronto in 1954. While that thesis did clarify Middlemarch, it gave rise to questions about both method and terms that might be applied to a wide range of novels. Can novels of different types and complexity, by the same author, be analyzed with the same tools? How much of the difference between novels from different literary epochs comes from the period and how much from the individualities of their respective authors? Is there an underlying principle that informs all novels of similar type? With questions such as these in mind one begins to survey signifi­ cant works and to place them tentatively in groups. But when one comes to Dickens he does not assimilate well. Methods and theories that work for most other novelists do not work for him. It would seem, then, that Dickens must either be set aside or he must be investi­ gated first. This intractability is challenging, forcing criticism out of its accustomed grooves. If one comes to terms with Dickens first that exercise may provide useful tools of criticism, just as the study of the abnormal often provides a key to the norm. Certain Dickens novels are here examined, therefore, as much for their use as vehicles for the discovery of critical methods as for objects of study in themselves. The study of the single-hero novels, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Martin Chuzzlewit, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations provides the thesis with a principle of organization and with a unity of subject to compensate for its chronological spread. It might be expected that the defining principle of form in each of these would be the single hero, but a comic single-hero novel might have certain types of characters and certain configurations of scenes, a whole design that would be different from, for instance, the patterns in an autobiographical novel. This idea of considering single-hero novels as if they had been dipped in a series of solutions to see how chemical changes affected the surface quickly disappeared under analysis. It was soon evident that the central structural fact was not that the single hero provided a single line of develop­ ment; this was replaced in importance by underlying modes that, instead, were far more influential in determining structure. Thus the recognition that Oliver Twist is some kind of allegory almost at once throws light on the repeated criticism of the "good" parts of the story and on Oliver's saintly character. The Brownlow-Maylie parts may be inferior to the Fagin sections in interest, but once one has recognized that Oliver Twist is not only an allegory, but a special type of allegory, a psychomachia, whose essence lies in the struggle between good and evil for the hero's soul, then the alternating good and evil casts of characters can be seen as essential to the form Dickens has chosen.
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