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Spinsters and Bachelors in Dickens's Novels: from the Ridiculous to the Sublime

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Spinsters and Bachelors in Dickens's Novels: from the Ridiculous to the Sublime Spinsters and Bachelors in Dickens's Novels: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime by Elizabeth M. Craig MA, University of Toronto, 1991; BA (Hons), Queen's University, 1989 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Academic Unit of English Supervisor: Mary Rimmer, PhD, Department of English Examining Board: E. Sandra Byers, PhD, Department of Psychology Vicky Simpson, PhD, Department of English Edith Snook, PhD, Department of English External Examiner: Leon Litvack, PhD, School of Arts, English, Queen’s University, Belfast This dissertation is accepted by the Dean of Graduate Studies THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK October, 2017 ©Elizabeth M. Craig, 2018 Abstract This project explores spinster and bachelor characters in Charles Dickens’s novels as an element of his fictional practice; it also enlarges our understanding of gender roles and characteristics as they played out in Victorian culture. Such figures are rooted in comedy where the laughter evoked through the images of the “desiring undesirable” and the “un-desiring desirable” confirms the hegemonic values of Victorian society even as it provides a platform for change. Questions surrounding the self and its need for validation are further examined through the discussion of those unmarried men and women who desire love and are rejected. Indeed, the marriage-plot in Dickens’s novels is often sidelined by a rejected lover plot, as the characters negotiate a response to rejection which provides an opportunity for growth or for decline. The later chapters focus on spinsters and bachelors who wish to remain unmarried, thereby drawing attention to the constructed nature of gender roles. Successful bachelors, fully immersed in a domestic ideology which they bring to their places of work, demonstrate that domesticity is often found outside of a conventional family setting. Dickens abandons the conduct manuals of his contemporaries that encourage division between the sexes and grants a voice to the marginalized thus allowing the complexity of the characters and of their situations to be revealed. Despite the constraints of society and the dismissive laughter directed at them, Dickens demonstrates that there are many unmarried women and men who live full lives and, in doing so, offer new possibilities: a bachelor can be an “angel of the house” and, using Nina Auerbach’s words, a spinster can have a “splendid identity.” ii Dedication To David, Beth, Margaret, Alice and Charles, and the memory of my grandmother, Alice Semple, who would hide in the henhouse to read novels. iii Acknowledgements I am overwhelmed with gratitude when I think of all the help and support I have received throughout the duration of this project. I am very grateful for my experience at UNB, and especially for the support of the Department of English and the School of Graduate Studies. I have stretched the patience of both groups to the fullest extent, and I am overcome by their gracious understanding of the person behind the student. I would like to thank Diana Austin and Roger Ploude for their continued support through the years and for being willing and attentive departmental readers of my thesis. I am also so appreciative of the rigorous readings and astute suggestions by the members of my committee: Dr. Vicky Simpson, Dr. Edie Snook, Dr. Sandra Byers, and Dr.Leon Litvack. I am indebted to the Victorian Women: Mary, Kitty, Vicky and Sara—you provided more support than you probably ever realized. I would like to thank my family and friends for their on-going interest and encouragement, and especially for knowing when to ask questions, and when to support me in silence. My children’s pictures and notes on the walls of my study have surrounded me with encouragement and love, and I treasure our summer of “Dickens at 4” when we gathered together to watch the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Nicholas Nickleby, and the 2005 BBC production of Bleak House (“shake me up, Judy”). My hope is that I have not discouraged them from reading Dickens. There are not enough words to express my thanks to my dear husband who has enthusiastically read bits and pieces of this work, brought home books from the library, iv engaged in conversations about gender and nineteenth-century British social history, and offered his steadfast faith, encouragement and love. Most importantly, this project would never have been completed without the faithful support and encouragement of my dear supervisor, Mary Rimmer. She has had an unending supply of patience and grace: never once did she express frustration at the length of time I have taken; instead, she has thanked me for giving her time to finish reading Dickens’s novels. She has brought me out of the Slough of Despond more than once, over the Hill of Difficulty and around Giant Despair. All the best parts of this thesis are thanks to Mary: her insightful comments pushed me to probe a little further and stretch my mind a little wider. Her responses to my writing were always rigorous and impelling and caused me many times to wonder at the breadth and depth of her knowledge of nineteenth-century writing and beyond. Mary is a wonderful teacher, supervisor and mentor, and I am so grateful to have been her student. v Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi Dickens’s Novels and Two Sketches: Date Published and Abbreviations ....................... vii Introduction: Dickens, Gender, and the Nineteenth Century ............................................. 1 Chapter One: Bachelors and Spinsters: Rooted in the Comic ......................................... 43 Chapter Two: Rejection and Revenge .............................................................................. 74 Chapter Three: Rejection and Renewal .......................................................................... 114 Chapter Four: Independent Women ................................................................................ 157 Chapter Five: “Bacheldores” and Domestic Virtues ..................................................... 207 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 247 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………….253 Curriculum Vitae vi Dickens’s Novels and Two Sketches: Date Published and Abbreviations The Pickwick Papers (PP) (1836-7) Sketches of Young Gentlemen and Young Couples (Sketches) (1837-38, 1840) Oliver Twist (OT) (1837-39) Nicholas Nickleby (NN) (1838-9) The Old Curiosity Shop (OCS) (1840-1) Barnaby Rudge (BR) (1841) Martin Chuzzlewit (MC) (1843-4) A Christmas Carol (CC) (1843) Dombey and Son (DS) (1846-8) David Copperfield (DC) (1849-50) Bleak House (BH) (1852-3) Hard Times (HT) (1854) Little Dorrit (LD) (1855-7) A Tale of Two Cities (TTC) (1859) Great Expectations (GE) (1860-1) Our Mutual Friend (OMF) (1864-5) Edwin Drood (ED) (1870), unfinished vii Introduction: Dickens, Gender, and the Nineteenth Century “that Dombey and Son should be a Daughter after all!” (DS 191) These revolutionary words suggesting that a woman could be the heir to the family company are spoken by the spinster, Miss Tox, in Charles Dickens’s Dombey and Son, which was being read in serial form in 1846-48. The death of the young Paul Dombey means that the only surviving heir for the firm Dombey and Son is Florence Dombey, the “Daughter after all” (DS 191). This statement is, of course, ignored by Mr. Dombey, Senior, who feels that his only recourse is to seek another wife who will produce a male child. Almost twenty years later, Mr. Twemlow, a bachelor related to Lord Snigsworth in Our Mutual Friend, who is used most often by the Veneerings as “dinner furniture,” concludes the novel by boldly advocating for love in marriage and holding the “feelings of a gentleman . sacred” (6, 820). These marginal characters, Miss Tox and Mr. Twemlow, are given socially and politically momentous words. Yet while Mr. Twemlow’s remarks strike the heart of at least one other diner, Miss Tox’s words are ignored. The status of the speakers, as well as the nature of their comments, dictates to some degree how much they will be heard. Some elements of progress take more time than others, and the bachelor and his words are a step ahead of the spinster and 1 her utterances.1 This project aims to bring both bachelors and spinsters in Dickens’s novels under scrutiny, and to show how these characters serve to question conventional notions of domesticity, family, masculinity and femininity, complicate the typical marriage plot through the plot of the jilted lover, and reveal ideas about desire and the self. Dickens himself had a large circle of unmarried friends, many of whom defied societal conventions. The Irish painter, Daniel Maclise, caused a “public scandal” when his affair with Lady Henrietta Sykes was blazoned on the front page of the newspaper, The Morning Chronicle (Kaplan, Dickens 109). He was also one of “Dickens’s favourite companion for outings of one kind or another,”
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