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PRELIMINARY SKETCHES: THE SHORT TALE

IN DICKENS AND THACKERAY

David J. Popowski

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate School of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

August 1974

DAVID J. POPOWSKI

ABSTRACT

The short fictions of Dickens and Thackeray contain the "germs'* for their later, longer fiction. By examining the relationship between the shorter and longer works their process of novel making can be seen. By examining the short fictions that were written at the same time as the novels or afterwards, and regarding them as "chips" from the work bench, more light can be shown on both forms. Some of these tales show fictional explorations that are by-products of the novel; some show a special identi fication with the novel from which they are chips.

By examining the short fiction of both authors, the most essential germs can be seen that reveal these authors' favorite themes, motifs, fictional tendencies, techniques and characters. In the novels these favor ite devices are seen in a developed or more mature form. For example, Dickens' tale "The Black Veil" shows a "parent-child" relationship that in various forms is to dominate his later work. Thackeray's Major British (Paris Sketch Book) is a developmental step for the portrait of Major Pendennis. A number of tales, considered as germs or chips are examined in this dissertation and their relationship to the novels is analyzed.

The study concludes that the special relationship between the tales and the novels does indeed exist, that the tales are testing grounds for the fictional imagination, that the favorite themes of the authors are revealed in greater detail, that the tales and the novels show the differences between eighteenth and nineteenth century fiction, and that Dickens and Thackeray were conscious artists and in part systematic planners of their novels. The relationship between the tales and the longer fictions of these authors may also explain why they wrote no literary short stories, though much short fiction. An Appendix discusses probable reasons for the develop ment of the short story--as contrasted with the tale—at a later period in England than in the United States. < < ' i n

For: Sharon Julia Jennifer

Special thanks to: Gini & Smitty I i/

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

A definition of terms ...... 11

Short Story...... 12

Tale...... 25

Germs...... 27

Chips...... 29

A brief survey...... 30

Two "views"...... 34

The tale, the short story, England and America...... 35

GERMS AND DICKENS...... 38

Germs and Brother Jacob...... 38

Germs and the Boz tales ...... 46

Germs and the interpolated tales in Pickwick...... 59

The interpolated tales in Nicholas Nickleby ...... 84

A chip from the plot of MartinC huzzlewit ...... 86

Some conclusions...... 88

THACKERAY: GERMS AND CHIPS...... 90

The tale, "the eighteenth century" and the realistic novel...... 90

Germs...... 94

Miss Lowe...... 110

Bluebeard1s Ghost ...... 115

Dennis Haggarty* s Wife...... 119

"A Caution to Travellers"...... 122

The "conning motif" 128 A Little Dinner at Timmins1 s: a chip...... 131

Some conclusions...... 138

CONCLUSIONS...... 139

A last wor’d...... 146

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 148

APPENDIX A. Tales: Themes, Motifs, Fictional Tendencies, Developments, Characters and Novels...... 154

APPENDIX B. The British Short Story: Its LateS tart...... 158 !

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

I take it as an axiom of literary history that the novel developed

in America some fifty years later than it did in England. I also take it

as an axiom of literary history that the short story developed in England

some fifty years later than it did in America. I further take it as an

axiom of literary history that Washington Irving invented the short story

part way through what was to have been a sketch called "Rip Van Winkle" in

1819, and that the first true practitioner of the short story in England

was Robert Louis Stevenson. ("Markheim" and "Thrawn Janet" were published

in The Merry Men in 1887.)

The short story in England developed later than it did in America

in spite of the fact that such literary giants as Dickens and Thackeray wrote the bulk of their works, including novels and short fiction, in this period (1830 ’s--1860’s). The English situation demonstrates something

unique. The tradition of the novel was strong at this time as was the

tradition of the tale, and for this period England’s national literary

situation was like none other, and my principal thesis is this: There is a definite and important relationship between the short fiction and the novels of Dickens and Thackeray. A substantial amount of Thackeray’s short

fiction was written before 1847, that is, before the writing of Vanity Fair and Pendennis, while Dickens’ prose sketches and the short stories or tales found in the Pickwick Papers precede, of course, his later novels. My contention is that Thackeray, and Dickens, in some obvious instances, used 2 their shorter works of fiction as something to build upon for the novels, or as "fledgling" novels. Their short fictions, in some obvious instances, are "germs" or "incunabula" for their longer works. It is evident in the longer works that these authors have used themes, characters, motifs, and settings, in many instances, in seedling state that were then developed into something larger, or more complex, or more mature. The short works have literally become notebooks for the novels. Also it can be shown that the short fiction of Thackeray and Dickens that was written at the same time as the novels or afterwards bears an important relationship to the longer works as well. Many of these shorter works can be seen as something that are "by-products" of the novel, they are essentially "chips" from the workbench. I contend that because the short fiction of the authors men tioned above have either been germs or chips they will show the novelist at work; they will be shown as testing grounds for the fictional imagina tion, and they will reveal the primary themes and motifs of the authors in a developmental stage. In other words they reveal the novelist, the novel, and the process of fiction. Also this germ-chip relationship may show the reason why the tale became ancillary to the novel.

Most of my attention will be given to the English novel and tale writers, especially Dickens and Thackeray and to the unique relation between their tales and novels. I will not be giving primary attention to other national literatures for comparisons. Nevertheless, the American short story writers show a number of important points. Irving concentrated his artistic energies upon tales and sketches and never turned to the novel.

Hawthorne actually began with the novel and then turned to the short story, and then again to the novel. Poe, of course, wrote only short stories, 3

poetry, and criticism. Melville wrote most of his major novels before

he turned to the short story. A germ or incunabula pointedly is something

that is less than what it might be developed into. A chip is pointedly

less as well--it is a lesser by-product. "Young Goodman Brown" may contain

some of the same themes as Hawthorne’s novels but these themes are not

germs, they are not something lesser than occurs in the novel. The themes

in the short story are not "developed“ later. They have an important ex

istence of their own. The same could be said of Melville’s short stories.

If "Bartleby the Scrivener" contains some of the same themes as the earlier

novels (although one could argue strongly that it does not) again these

themes are not "less," they are at least as important and significant as

those in the novel.

There are other genuine short story writers—cum—novelists, but

most of these writers did their work after the formulation of fairly pre

cise theories about the short story, and in some cases these very writers

have demonstrated a short story theory in their critical writings or pro

nouncements. Most of the early criticism on formulations of short story

theory stressed the differences between the short story and the novel, and

significantly, how they had nothing to do with one another. (Brander

Matthews, The Philosophy of the Short Story, 1917.) Dickens and Thackeray wrote at a special time in literary history. They wrote most of their

short fictions before there was a viable theory for the short story--before

1842-1846, but not before the literary short story was being written.

And although they wrote before the theory was well known, this does not, of course, preclude them from writing "genuine" short stories, as the practice generally preceded the theory. At the same time I believe one 4 can technically remove those later writers operating in an atmosphere of fairly well defined criteria for the short story from the same sort of consideration as I am giving to Dickens and Thackeray.

The germ of incunabula effect has been noticed in a roundabout way by several critics of the works of Thackeray and Dickens. It is fairly well accepted that a number of the early sketches of Dickens surface later in the novels. Kathleen Tillotson observed that "some of the sketches published in 1834-5 in the Morning Chronicle, Evening Chronicle, and Bell's

Life in London have the same kind of background as Oliver Twist, and some thing of the same method, notably ’The Old Bailey* (later called ’Criminal

Courts’), ’The Pawnbroker’s Shop', and 'The Prisoner's Van'; and a year later, 'The Hospital Patient' contains the germ of the relation between Sikes and Nancy."''’ The same effect can be seen in a number of the Boz tales.

Samuel C. Chew and Richard D. Altick, cooperating on Book IV of A Literary

History of England, note that "Dickens’ impressions of the world around him began to appear in periodicals in 1833, and in 1836 were gathered to gether as Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life, and Every-Day

People, with plates by George Cruikshank. A second series followed in

1837 and a complete edition in 1839. These evocations and episodes of

London life, which contain the germs of much that is characteristic of his later work, spring partly from Leigh Hunt’s impressionistic essays and 2 Washington Irving’s Sketch-Book . . ." Again the same could be said of a number of the tales in the Pickwick Papers.

1Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, ed. Kathleen Tillotson (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1966), pp. xv-xvi.

^Albert C. Baugh, ed., 2nd ed. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967), pp. 1345-6. 5

In an introduction to Vanity Fair Joseph Warren Beach states,

What we have to remember is that Thackeray only gradually became a novelist, and so to speak by accident. He was essentially a "man of letters" in the comprehensive sense of the term. He had made his living for years as a Paris correspondent for various semi-periodicals. He had published a Paris Sketch Book and an Irish Sketch Book, as well as stories like Barry Lyndon and The Great Hoggarty Diamond. He had written reviews, burlesques, Christmas tales, and ballads both humor ous and sentimental. He was an assiduous contributor to Fraser*s the Times, Punch, and the Cornhill, writing generally under humorous pseudo nyms like Michael Angelo Titmarsh and Charles J. Yellowplush. Steeped in the literary tradition of the eighteenth century, the genius of the Tatler and the Spectator swayed him at least as strongly as that of Fielding. His natural bent was for the reflective and humorous essay, and it is this more than anything else that determines the peculiar character of his fiction.

Of all his miscellaneous early writings what probably retains the greatest interest still is the series of essays on snobs which first appeared in Punch. The snob is briefly defined as one "who meanly admires mean things"—that is, one who prizes social rank for its own sake and subordinates all other considerations to that. When Thackeray at length decided, with a serious picture of manners, to enter the ring as a novelist under his own name and dispute the championship with Dickens in that field, it was to the theme of these essays that he returned. The abhorrence of snobbery ^s, we may say, the germ of Vanity Fair, A Novel without a Hero . . .

Hugh Walker, in an introduction to Selected English Short Stories, expresses surprise that there is such a large representation in his book from America, whereas there would not be if his anthology were of essays or lyric poetry.^ He further observes that Scott, Dickens, Hawthorne,

Meredith, and Stevenson are represented and that they are all significant novelists in their own right. He notes that Thackeray, Eliot, the Brontes and Jane Austen are all significant novelists but are not represented.

Walker confesses that Scott and Dickens were not the usual tellers of the

•^William Makepeace Thackeray, (New York: Modern Library College Editions, 1950), p. xvi. \l914; rpt. London: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. xxiii.

^Selected English Short Stories, pp. xxii-xxiii. 6 short story and that "their short stories are few and relatively unimpor- 6 tant." Walker throws up his hands at the "problem" even though he had suggested earlier in the introduction that there are short works of fiction that are, "incunabula of the novel fyioA/ not of the short story."

H. E. Bates in The Modern Short Story: A Critical Survey alludes to the "chip" idea but with a culinary metaphor. "Of two thousand years of story evolution only one-twentieth will be examined, and of that remain ing twentieth only a part dissected. Dickens wrote short stories, Meredith, and Thackeray, and many other English novelists of the eighteenth and nine teenth centuries also wrote short stories, but they recall too often the 8 dish hashed up from left-overs of the joint ..."

There are others, early and late, who are critical of the quality of short fiction in England in the first part of the nineteenth century.

Barry Pain says of Dickens that, though he admired the story of Heyling from the Pickwick Papers, Dickens "wrote few /stories/ that were good and not one that was a masterpiece in the sense that David Copperfield and 9 — — Great Expectations are masterpieces." Pain goes on to say, "his /Dickens// short stories of the ’fifties and 'sixties, superior though they were to the early work, successful though they were with the public, were not his best work. He even regarded them at times as an annoying interruption to the more important novel. /Quoting Dickensj_/ 'The Christmas number has come round again /1863/ ... it seems only yesterday that I did the last

£ Selected English Short Stories, p. xxiii.

^Selected English Short Stories, p. xiii. o (New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons Litd., 1942), p. 14.

^The Short Story (London: Martin Seeker, 1921), p. 22. 7

. . . When I can clear the Christmas stone out of the road, I think I can dash into it on the grander journey.'"10 Wendell V. Harris in one of the most significant articles on English short fiction in the nineteenth century states that, "the greater portion of the short fiction written in the first three-fourths of the century, even by well-known writers, is clearly care less, formless, and crude. The twentieth-century reader is not greatly in error in finding so many of the stories written before about 1880 aes thetically unsatisfying. There is no formula for successful short fiction, even for the short story itself, but one recognizes clearly a number of guidelines not to be violated by those at all uncertain of what they are 11 doing, and these remained unrecognized for the greater part of the century."

He further observes,

A. E. Coppard, himself an eminent short story writer, and significantly enough, an Englishman, once remarked that it would be easy for him to edit an anthology of short stories because the book would be one-half Maupassant and one-half Chekhov.

^The Short Story, p. 24.

English Short Fiction in the 19th Century," Studies in Short Fiction, 6 (1968), 1-2. 12 "English Short Fiction in the 19th Century," p. 3. 8

Because of the general denigration of the short fiction of the first three-quarters of the century modern readers give little attention to these short tales. Primarily they are not given attention because, it is argued, they do not make good short stories. Significantly enough the tales make good reading in their own right as short tales. They trade in humor, irony, and the grotesque. There are excellent burlesques and direct satires. And some show an internal parody, that is, the tale form itself is parodied. Second to their intrinsic reading value, the tales should be examined for what they can reveal about the novels, the novelist and the process of fiction.

Something of the prevalence of the tale at this time should be mentioned. First, there was a significant market for short fiction in 13 England in the early and middle part of the century. Also, there were a good many "stories" published at this time. Wendell Harris notes that,

"The most obvious problem in attempting to survey short fiction in the nine- 14 teenth century is its mass. . . ." One need only to read through such works as Altick’s The English Common Reader (1957), and Margaret Dalziel’s

Popular Fiction 100 Years Ago (1957), to get some idea of the great number of stories being written, published, and read. Thomas Carlyle translated and published four volumes of German romances in 1827, "but the market was

13 Periodicals accepting short fiction were Blackwood1s Magazine (1817), New Monthly Magazine (ca. 1830), Fraser* s Magazine (1830), Bentley* s Miscellany (1837), Dickens' Household Words, Macmillan's Magazine (1859), Temple Bar (1860), and The Cornhill (1860). There were also the "annuals" such as Friendship's Offering (1824-44), The Keepsake (1828-57), and Heath's Book of Beauty (1833-47). On the "pop" side were such things as The Penny Story Teller (1832-1841).

■^"English Short Fiction in the 19th Century." p. 1. 9 glutted with such things and the work did not sell."^ The German tales

that had inspired Irving were known in England even in translation. The

Baugh History notes, in referring to Carlyle’s unprofitable venture above, 16 that he translated tales by Musaus, Tieck, and fantasies by Hoffman.

Dickens knew of Irving’s work. Irving was popular in England. And strange

as it may seem, Dickens and Thackeray had in mind something short, or were

working with short pieces when they began their novel writing, and in most

cases published their novels sgementally.Despite all of this--the fact

that there was a market, the fact that plenty of short fiction was being

written,' the fact that the "seed ground" for the short story was present

(the German tale), and the fact that Dickens and Thackeray thought "short"

and wrote short—there were, according to the commentators above, no sig

nificant short stories written. This is an indication of just how strong

the tale tradition is in the century that is also characterized by the

Victorian novel.

I would like to demonstrate my thesis first by defining in greater

detail the terms I am using, especially, "short story," "germs," and "tale.

Then I will survey briefly the short fiction of the nineteenth century and

observe the "gap" between American and British achievement in the short

story; this in turn will show more of the strength of the tale tradition

in England. I will then show what I consider to be germs and chips, be

ginning with an emblematic or demonstration germ of George Eliot. With

Baugh, p. 1311.

l^A Literary History of England, p. 1311.

l^Pickwick was originally to have been a series of sketches, much of Vanity Fair is reworked from Pen and Pencil Sketches. 10

Dickens I will say something about his methods of composition and something about the corpus of his short fiction. I will incidentally say something about most of the tales but specifically I will be using "The Black Veil,"

"The Drunkard’s Death," "The Boarding-House," "Sentiment," and "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle" from the Boz tales, "The Stroller's

Tale,” "The Convict's Return," "A Madman's Manuscript," "The Tale of the

Queer Client," "The Bagman’s Story," and "The Goblins Who Stole a Sexton" from the Pickwick Papers to show the relationship specifically to Oliver

Twist and other Dickens' novels. For Thackeray I will use his "tales" and certain of his sketches and relate them primarily to Vanity Fair and Pen dennis. Thackeray's tale of A Little Dinner at Timmins's is a particularly good example of a chip. In all instances I will attempt to show the germ or the chip, its relationship to the novel, and also how it has developed in the longer fiction.

In a later section I would like to look at the relationship between the novel and the tale from another angle. The methods of publication and most importantly, the predominant position of the novel socially and criti cally in the first three-quarters of the century, among other things, will reveal more about the special relationship of the tale and the novel, some thing of the condition and position of the genuine short story in England, and also how the short tale in most cases was ancillary to the novel.

By looking at the relationship of certain of the tales to certain of the novels I hope light will be thrown in both directions—at the novel and at the tale. I am not attempting any new interpretations of the novels or the tales; at the same time much is usually made of an author's plans, or rough drafts, or notebooks, primarily as to the author's intention, and 11

I hope there may be some value here. Most importantly I believe I am

offering a method for the examination of the fiction of Dickens and Thack

eray, and I assume that this method may apply and be fruitful in examining

other novelists of the first part of the nineteenth century who started

with the tale, turned to the novel, and continued to write tales during

and after the writing of their novels.

A Definition of Terms

Definitions of the short story (as well as the tale) are many; and

they are sometimes contradictory and confusing. Sometimes there are dif

ferences of opinion, and sometimes it can be seen that the definition of

the short story apparently develops or evolves during the nineteenth and

early twentieth centuries. The definition of a genre like the short story and the tale is difficult at best. For each category exceptions will be

found, and the problem of length has baffled attempts to categorize and define different forms of narrative fiction. An example of the difficulty of definition, or maybe the position on definition that must be taken, is best demonstrated by the passage from A Dictionary of Literary, Dramatic, and Cinematic Terms quoted below. I would like to survey some of these definitions and opinions early and late to demonstrate the difficulty of defining, and to possibly show some of the peculiar characteristics of the short story and the tale; their relationship to each other, and to show what relationships they may have to the novel. I will not be classifying or categorizing the tales of Dickens or Thackeray but rather examining them to see what is happening, what was done in them, and what they were to the novels. 12

Short story. Washington Irving, at least in theory, seems to make

the first distinction between the tale and the short story. In a letter

to Henry Brevoort on December 11, 1824 he wrote, "I consider a story merely

as a frame on which to stretch my materials. It is the play of thought,

and sentiment, and language; the weaving in of characters, lightly, yet

expressively delineated; the familiar and faithful exhibition of scenes

in common life; and the half-concealed vain of humor that is often playing 18 through the whole,--these are among what I aim at . . ." It could also be said in fairness that this is what Dickens and Thackeray "aimed" at in their short fiction and occasionally succeeded in doing. I believe on can see Irving's theory at work by comparing "The Tale of Peter Klaus” from

Otmar's Volks-Sagen to "Rip Van Winkle." Irving has taken the tale of Peter

Klaus and put his materials upon it. Peter Klaus is a goatherd from Sitten- dorf who upon following one of his best goats happens to discover a group of mysterious men playing a game of nine-pins. Once in their company and after overcoming his initial fear of these mysterious people he drinks some wine from a pitcher that had been placed near him. Peter then grows tired and falls asleep. When he awakens he finds his herd is gone so he returns to Sittendorf. He slowly discovers he had slept for twenty years, his new neighbors identify him, and he is welcomed back after his twenty year absence. At this point the tale ends. It is a story about an odd happen stance and nothing more. The twenty year sleep is the most significant aspect of the tale. Rip Van Winkle is easily a more complex character than

1 8 The Life and Letters of Washington Irving, ed. Pierre M. Irving (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1869), p. 64, rpt. in Eugene Current-Garcia, and Walton R. Patrick, eds. What is the Short Story (Chicago: Scott Foresman and Company, 1961), p. 2. 13

Peter Klaus, and the story by Irving is different in a number of ways.

Rip has overslept the Revolutionary War and a revolution in society. He

has rid himself of his greatest burden—Dame Van Winkle--by closing his

eyes. Rip becomes "reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, ----- 19 and /_a.sj a chronicler of the old times. ..." As a chronicler of the

"good old days" Rip fulfills--in the Romantic view—the function of the

artist. The twenty year sleep of Rip Van Winkle becomes merely a catalyst

for other elements in the story.

In another of his statements on the short story Irving anticipates

Poe’s ideas on construction. "It is comparatively easy to swell a story to any size when you have once the scheme and the characters in your mind; the mere interest of the story, too, carries the reader on through pages and pages of careless writing, and the author may often be dull for half a volume at a time, if he has some striking scene at the end of it; but in these shorter writings, every page must have its merit. The author must be continually piquant; woe to him if he makes an awkward sentence or 20 writes a stupid page. . . ." Irving also believed that the story must 21 contain a strong moral statement, but that the moral statement should not be apparent. He says, "I have often hid my moral from sight, and dis guised it as much as possible by sweets and spices, so that while the simple reader is listening with open mouth to a ghost or love story, he may have

1 9 Washington Irving, "Rip Van Winkle," Great American Short Stories, ed. Wallace Stegner, and Mary Stegner (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1957), p. 50. on ■ ...... The Life and Letters of Washington Irving, p. 64.

O j xThe Works of Washington Irving, new edition, rev. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1860), p. ix, rpt. in What is the Short Story, p. 3. 14

a bolus of sound morality popped down his throat, and never be the wiser 22 for the fraud. . . . Clearly, to Irving both morality and artistry were

important ingredients of the short story, with artistry the more important.

Dickens and Thackeray in many instances have a strong moral statement in

their shorter fictions. Thackeray will take no care to "hide" his state ments, and in fact if the reader has missed his message, Thackeray is not

above repeating it in capsule form at the end of the story. Dickens oc

casionally does the same thing, and even if he does not the moral is evident

in the story.

Poe, who has become the classical theoretician of the short story, argued for a "unity of effect," something that "might be perused in an 23 hour." Poe further argues that there should be nothing extraneous in the successful work.

A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invests such incidents--he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design.

In effect Poe argues that the successful story should be written "backwards."

"Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elabo rated to its denoument before anything be attempted with the pen. It is

22 The Works of Washington Irving, p. ix, rpt. in What is the Short Story, p. 3. 23...... -...... The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Vol. XI, ed. James A. Harrison (New York: AMS Press Inc., 1965), p. 106.

2^The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, XI, p. 107. 15 only with the denoument constantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensible air of consequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the development of the 25 intention."

Hawthorne, who contributed more to practice than theory, confessed an "inveterate love of allegory." This implies that Hawthorne had both a formal artistic and a moral intent.

Anton Chekhov in a letter to A. S. Souvorin on October 27, 1888, makes a significant statement about the use of characters in the shorter work: "in planning a story one is bound to think first about its framework from a crowd of leading or subordinate characters one selects one person only-wife or husband; one puts him on the canvas and paints him alone, making him prominent, while the others one scatters over the canvas like 26 small coin ..." That the short story emphasizes or singles out one character seems to be a criterion insisted upon by later theorists.

Among those who seem to feel that there is a formulaic definition for the short story is J. Berg Esenwein. In fact he makes a list of the ingredients for the true short story. It must have, he says:

1. A Single Predominating Incident 2. A Single Preeminent Character 3. Imagination 4. Plot 5. Compression

^The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, XI, p. 193.

•^Letters on the Short Story, The Drama and Other Literary Topics liy Anton Chekhov, ed. Louis S. Friedland (New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1964), pp. 11-12. 16

6. Organization 7. Unity of Impression

Esenwein sums by saying, "A Short-Story is a brief, imaginative narrative, unfolding a single predominating incident and a single chief character, it contains a plot, the details of which are so compressed, and the whole 28 treatment so organized, as to provide a single impression."

Shortly thereafter Henry Seidel Canby decried the idea of writing short stories by critical formulae. He felt that writers were being im prisoned by criteria and that only a greater variety of theme would re- 29 vitalize the short story. Sherwood Anderson attacked the idea that plot 30 is a necessary ingredient for the short story, and as early as 1917 Herbert 31 Elsworth Cory was talking about "The Senility of the Short Story." Henry

James in telling about the process of composition of "The Real Thing" makes a very significant statement. "I tried a beginning yesterday, but I in stantly became conscious that I must straighten out the little idea. It must be an idea--it can’t be a 'story* in the vulgar sense of the word. 32 It must be a picture; it must illustrate something." It seems that James

^Writing the Short Story: A Practical Handbook on the Rise, Structure, Writing, and Sale of the Modern Short Story (New York: Hinds, Noble and Eldridge, 1909), p. 31. 28 Writing the Short Story, p. 31.

29i«pree Fiction," Atlantic Monthly 116 (July 1915), 60-62.

3^A Story Teller's Story (New York: B. W. Huebsch, Inc., 1924), pp. 352-3, rpt. What is the Short Story, pp. 78-81.

31pial, LXII (May 3, 1917), 379-381, rpt. in What is the Short Story, pp. 70-74.

•^The Notebooks of Henry James, ed. F. 0. Matthiessen and Kenneth B. Murdock (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 103. 17

is pointing away from the "tale" element of the short story, i.e., plot,

or anecdote, or eventfulness, or external action to, essentially, internal

action. Bonaro Overstreet, commenting upon the milieu of the "modern"

short story makes this statement, "What of the twentieth century? It is

not, in the same sense as the nineteenth, marked by eventfulness. To say

this may seem paradoxical--even absurd. For more things happen every day,

every minute, than ever before. But eventfulness is a psychological as well

as a physical matter—and the twentieth century is dog-tired of action; 33 action that goes on because it cannot stop." Overstreet argues that 34 the psychological process is the stuff of the short story.

Wendell Harris as he surveys short fiction in the nineteenth century

makes some interesting statements that go in the direction of definition

of the short story. When talking about the Blackwood's usual tales he ob- 3‘ served that they lacked "the attempt to portray ordinary human experience."

Further on he states, "An important symptom of the defects of the earlier

nineteenth-century conception of the story or tale was the inability to

deaL with ordinary life."-30 On another tack, and in relation to the stories

of Wilkie Collins, Harris makes this statement, "Though it is clearly an

illegitimate demand to expect a story to end with a bang, it should not

end in a tedious tidying of details. It is not so much knowing how to end 37 a story ... as knowing when to end it."

oo "Little Story, What Now," Saturday Review of Literature, 24 (22 November 1941), 4. 34 "Little Story, What Now," p. 5. 35 "English Short Fiction in the 19th Century," p. 21.

^"English Short Fiction in the 19th Century," pp. 57-58.

^"English Short Fiction in the 19th Century," p. 31. 18

How significant is length in the short story? How does the novel

differ from the short story? Poe states that because a novel "cannot be

read at one sitting, it deprives itself, of course, of the immense force 38 derivable from totality." Hawthorne saw his short stories as something

quite different from the novel, and Poe as noted above makes the point

explicit on the basis of compression, and unity of effect. The short story

is not bound by the traditions of the novel (e.g., the nineteenth century

tradition that the central character would be a bourgeois "everyman" con

cerned with financial success and social acceptance); it is more flexible

in its use of character and organization while having less range and scope

than the novel. One could say that the short story deals with a single

character in a "situation" whereas the novel deals with "characterization"

in the usual sense. The tradition of the central character in the novel, mentioned above, applies to many novels but hardly to all of them: Hardy’s

for example. Also, short story writers like Katherine Mansfield and Chekhov are interested in the presentation of character—although in a special

sense. The short story does not have the room or scope for exhaustive

studies and presentations of character. It was Frank O'Connor who said that the short story deals with unusual, outcast, unique characters point

edly unlike certain time-honored traditions in the novel.

Point of view may possibly be the most significant element to con sider concerning the problem of length in the short story, novelette, and novel.

While the novel-writer aims at an eminently natural method of trans cription, the author of the Short Story adopts a very artificial one.

5^The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, XI, p. 107. 19

His endeavor is to give a striking narrative picture of one phase of the situation or the character, as the case may be. His aim is toward a strip lengthwise, disregarding much that a cross section might show. He deals with a series of incidents, closely related to one another but not at all related to the byplay of life which, in reality must accompany them. He treats of a mood always existing but in the story supremely indicated; perhaps of an adventure or a catastrophe, which differs from the denoument of a novel in that the interest is concen trated . . .

Canby goes on to say, "Thus it is the standpoint of the author that makes the distinction between a short novel and a long Short Story. In the one the writer digests life histories, or portions of them; in the other he looks only for the episode, which, like the bubble on the stream,is part of and yet distinguished from the main current. . . .He /the author/ for goes completeness and gains in force, and this by a change in the stand- 40 point from which he views his world of fact and fancy."

One can also turn to the usual literary handbooks for definition and interesting comment. M. H. Abrams' A Glossary of Literary Terms con tains this definition:

A short story is a work of prose fiction, and most of the terms for analyzing the component parts, the types, and the various narrative techniques of the novel are applicable to the short story as well. It differs, for example, from the anecdote—the simple and unelaborated narration of a single incident—in that it organizes the action, thought, and interactions of its characters into the artful pattern of a plot, which has a beginning and develops through a middle to some sort of denoument at the end. The plot form may be comic, or tragic, or ro mantic, or satiric; the story is presented to us from one of the many available points of view; and it may be wirtten in the mode of fantasy, realism, or naturalism.

The short story, however, is a story that is short; that is, it differs from the novel in the dimension which Aristotle calls "magni tude," and this limitation imposes differences both in the effect that can be achieved and in the choice and management of the elements to

39 Henry Seidel Canby, "On the Short Story," Dial, XXXI (October 16, 1901), p. 272, rpt. in What is the Short Story, p. 47. 40 "On the Short Story," p. 272. 20

achieve those effects. Edgar Allan Poe, who is sometimes called the originator of the short story as a specific genre, was at any rate its first critical theorist. He defined what he called "the prose tale" as a narrative that can be read at one sitting of from one-half hour to two hours, and that is limited to "a certain unique or single ef fect" to which every detail is subordinate (Review of Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales, 1842). Poe's comment applies to many short stories, and it points to the economy of management which the tightness of the form always imposes in some degree. We can say that, by and large, the short story writer introduces a very limited number of characters, cannot afford the space for a leisurely analysis and sustained develop ment of character, and cannot undertake to develop as dense and detailed a social milieu as does the novelist. He often begins his story close to, or even on the verge of, the climax, minimizes both prior exposition and the details of the setting, keeps the complications down, and clears up the denoument quickly—sometimes in a few sentences. ... The cen tral incident is selected to reveal as much as possible of the totality of the protagonist’s life and character, and the details are devised to carry maximum significance. This spareness in the narrative means often gives the artistry in a good sho^ story higher visibility than the artistry in an equally good novel.

The above definition seems to emphasize structure, i.e., form and the

"artistry" that results from following that form. This definition is

found in A Handbook to Literature:

A short story is a relatively brief fictional narrative in prose. It may range in length from the "short-short story" of 500 words up to the "long-short story" of 15,000 to 20,000 words. It may be dis tinguished from the sketch and the tale in that it has a definite for mal development, a freedom from looseness in construction; however, it finds its unity in many things other than plot, although it often finds it there—in effect, in theme, in character, in tone, in mood, even, on occasion, in style. It may be distinguished from the novel in that it tends to reveal character through a series of actions or under stress, the purpose of the story being accomplished when the reader comes to know what the true nature of a character (or sometimes a situation) is (James Joyce called a short story an "epiphany," because of this quality of "revelation"); whereas, the novel tends to show character developing as a result of actions and under the impact of events. This generalization, like every generalization about the short story and the novel, grossly overstates its case; yet in a broad sense, it does define a basic difference between the two genres.

However natural and formless the short story may sometimes give the impression of being, however much it may appear to be the simple

41 3rd ed. (Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1971), pp. 157-8. 21

setting down of an overheard oral narration, as in Ring Lardner's or Somerset Maugham's stories, or the unadorned report of an action, as in Hemingway's or John O'Hara's a distinguishing characteristic of the genre is that it is consciously made, that it reveals itself, upon careful analysis, to be the result of conscious craftsmanship and ar tistic skill. ...

The above definition is rather interesting in that it would preclude anyone

from writing a short story who was not fully conscious of artistic demands.

The following definition or "non-definition" of the short story is given

in A Dictionary of Literary, Dramatic, and Cinematic Terms. It also ex

presses that particular "difficulty" of definition.

Narrative prose fiction shorter than the novel, usually not more than 15,000 words. It is impossible to distinguish a short story from a novel on any single basis other than length, and there is no estab lished length for either. "Long story" and "short novel" are pigeon holes for works that, because of their length, do not seem classifiable as short stories or novels. One cannot say that a short story has more unity than a novel, for both may be equally unified—just as a sonnet and an epic may be equally unified, though the latter is far longer. Nor can one say that a short story deals with fewer characters, or with a briefer period of time than does a novel, for while this is frequently so, a story of a few pages may mention numerous characters and cover decades, while a long novel may limit itself to a single day in the lives of three or four persons. Since a good short story and a good novel make the most of their length, one can perhaps say that the good novel is necessarily more complex than a good short story. Most fre quently a short-story writer of the nineteenth or twentieth centuries focuses on a single character in a single episode, and, rather than tracing his development, reveals him at a particular moment. As Poe put it, in reviewing Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales, the writer of a story conceives of "a certain unique or single effect to be brought out.”43

Brander Matthews, who has devoted a book to definition of the short

story--The Philosophy of the Short Story--says, in contrast to the handbook definition above, "A true Short-story is something other and something more

42 William Flint Thrall and Addison Hibbard, revised and enlarged by C. Hugh Holman (New York: The Odyssey Press, 1960), p. 458. / Q sylvan Barnet, Morton Berman, and William Burto, 2nd ed. (Boston: Little, Brown and.Company, 1971), pp. 100-1. 22

than a mere story which is short. A true Short-story differs from the

Novel chiefly in its essential unity of impression. In a far more exact and precise use of the word, a Short-story has a unity as a Novel cannot 44 have it." Matthews goes on to say, "A Short-story deals with a single character, a single event, a single emotion, or the series of emotions 45 called forth by a single situation." Matthews, directing the writers of the short story, goes on to more definition: "The writer of Short-stories 46 must be concise, and compression, a vigorous compression, is essential."

Later, he says by way of advice again, "The writer of Short-stories must have the sense of form . . . The construction must always be logical, ade- 47 quate, harmonious."

The above definitions of the short story are wide ranging and, as

I have pointed out before, often contradictory. I will attempt no concise personal prose definition but rather point out in list or "ingredient" form certain leitmotifs that seem to occur in all attempts at definition.

(1) shortness This is obvious, but it is the starting place.

There are certain outside absolute limits to the length of the short story, and this of course is related to a (2) unity of effect growing primarily from the compactness of structure.

The short story usually gives some (3) evidence of art or structure or form. This, I think, is one of the most important considerations.

^(New York: Longman, Green and Co., 1917), p. 15.

^^The Philosophy of the Short Story, p. 16.

^The Philosophy of the Short Story, p. 22.

^The Philosophy of the Short Story, p. 30. 23

Brander Matthews in the work cited above states, "I have written 'Short-

story* with a capital S and a hyphen because I wished to emphasise the dis

tinction between the Short-story and the story which is merely short. The 48 Short-story is a high and difficult department of fiction." Henry James,

again commenting on "The Real Thing" says, "Make it /the story/ tremendously

succinct--with a very short pulse or rhythm—and the closest selection of

detail--in other words summarize intensely and keep down the lateral develop- 49 ment. It should be a little gem of bright, quick, vivid form." Truman

Capote remarked during an interview that, "When seriously explored, the

short story seems to me the most difficult and disciplining form of prose writing extant."50 Capote went on to say, "Even Joyce, our most extreme

disregarder, was a superb craftsman; he could write Ulysses because he could

write Dubliners. Too many writers seem to consider the writing of short

stories as a kind of finger exercise. Well in such cases, it is certainly only their fingers they are exercising. . . ."^

The short story usually gives some (4) evidence of control of materials. This is of course related to (1) and (2) above but in another

sense it may refer to scene setting or introduction. A story of only two

pages could be said to be "padded out." Usually there is not a great deal of introduction or scene setting in the short story nor is there usually

a tidying of details at the end.

48 The Philosophy of the Short Story, pp. 24-25.

^The Notebooks of Henry James, p. 104.

^Malcom Cowley, ed., Writers at Work (New York: The Viking Press, 1958), p. 287.

^Writers at Work, p. 288. 24

The short story to some degree usually contains (5) internal action.

By this I mean that part of the focus of the story is on what is going on

inside the mind. The more I examine the development of the short story the

more I am inclined to say that when authors began to deal to some degree

with "internal action" that this marks the dividing line between the tale

and the short story. Robert Louis Stevenson, who is regarded as the first

practitioner of the short story in Britain, in stories like "Markheim" and

"The Sire De Maletroit's Door" begins to show the reader, or begins to put

emphasis on, the workings of the mind rather than on external events. In

"Markheim" the plot is simple. Markheim murders a shopkeeper and then begins

to rifle his house. He suffers remorse of conscience and turns himself over

to the police. Most of the story deals with Markheim's guilty thought.

In "The Sire De Maletroit's Door" a young man is confronted with a choice of marriage to a beautiful woman or death. The complication is that the young woman is not the one the hero would prefer to marry. Throughout the waiting period for his choice the reader is treated to the working of the hero's mind. It is marvelous how the young woman begins to appear better and better in his mind. The movement to internal action in the short story reflects what seemed to be happening in the novel since James, and this movement imposes its own form. Bonaro Overstreet has observed, "The twen tieth-century story-teller is becoming, in his own way, a master of rigorous form. But to understand this form, we must recognize that it is dictated by psychological materials and processes, not primarily to events in the

CO objective world." So, to a degree, point number (5) is related to number

(3) as well.

52 "Little Story, What Now," p. 5. 25

The short story also usually deals with (6) ordinary life, that

is, it does not usually deal with ghosts, or goblins, or romantic robbers

or other stock characters from the romance or the tale. At the same time

there is usually (7) some suspense in the short story which may evolve

from the plot as well as from other elements in the story.

The short story in most cases deals with a (8) single event and

a (9) single character, and in most cases the single character is not com

pletely characterized. Whole characterization is not ideal. The single

character to a degree becomes an emblem.

My last point may be a reiteration especially of point (3) but I

feel it should be included, and I believe it refers mostly to the reaction of the reader. The short story should always be (10) more than a "story."

I don’t want to say it should be more than a "mere" story but that there is more to the short story than the "story."

Tale. To define the short story is to also define the tale, but there are other specific things that can be said. A tale primarily is a fictional short narrative in prose that emphasizes happenings or eventful ness rather than characters. "Tale" implies romance and a plot of episodic nature if one exists at all. Some commentators on the short story seem to feel that the tale is what results in a brief, fictional, narrative when 53 the author has no consciousness of technique. M. H. Abrams calls the 54 tale a "story of incident." It is given almost the same definition by

Sylvan Barnet, et al., who say the tale is "a narrative that decidedly

cj-l James B. Hall, The Realm of Fiction: 65 Short Stories, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1970), p. xi.

5^A Glossary of Literary Terms, p. 168. 26 55 emphasizes happenings rather than character. ..." The following defi

nition appears in A Glossary for the Study of English: "Perhaps the simplest

and oldest form of prose fiction is the story or tale. Both refer to

relatively uncomplicated (but sometimes very elaborate) narratives, usually

plotted loosely and designed to entertain. Either, but especially the tale, tends to sound as if it were created for oral rather than written presentation.This sounds especially true of an example--"Wandering

Willie’s Tale"--and perhaps this is another way to define—by example.

Wendell Harris notes:

Another type of short fiction that falls into the class of tales we are now considering is that built upon the peculiarities of a locale or nationaltiy. Scott’s novels showed the possibilities of this kind of fiction; and "Wandering Willie’s Tale," from the novel Redgauntlet, makes excellent use of that mixture of old legend, familiar supernatu ral motif, and local color that makes up the best of the Scottish and Irish short fiction from the first half of the century. "Wandering Willie's Tale" was Scott's only successful brief narrative; it is also almost,.^ textbook example of the well told tale as opposed to the short story.

In Scott's "Wandering Willie's Tale” the central character, Steenie, borrows money to pay his rent to the notorious Sir Robert Redgauntlet. Before

Steenie can get a receipt old Sir Robert dies of a stroke and Steenie leaves hastily. When Sir Robert's son takes over his accounts, no trace of Steenie's money can be found and he is called upon to pay the rent a second time.

Steenie, in troubled spirits, takes a cup of brandy before traveling home through the wood of Pitmurkie. In the forest he meets a friend who says he can help him and they travel deeper into the forest, coming upon a great

55/ Dictionary of Literary;.: Dramatic, and Cinematic Terms, p. 101.

5^Lee T. Lemon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 3.

57Harris, p. 14. 27

house where Steenie confronts a specter Sir Robert the elder. Steenie gets

the ghost of Sir Robert to sign a receipt and to tell him where the money

is hidden. Steenie next awakes in the forest at daybreak thinking he had

dreamed the whole thing--but he still has the receipt. He returns to his

new landlord and the money is recovered where the phantom had said it would

be. Scott tells essentially only what Steenie did and what happened.

Samuel Hynes makes this comment on Thomas Hardy's short works and

incidentally helps to define the tale. "They /the tales in the volume/

are exceptional, I think, because they come nearest to being 'parrish

history'; they have the qualities, not of the modern Chekhovian kind of

story (which Hardy didn't like), but of the older kind, the traditional

story teller's tale. The method is broadly narrative, covering many epi

sodes and long periods of time; and the story is always recalled from the 58 past, like a familiar folk tale, known already to the hearers. . . ."

He goes on to say, "Traditional tales. . .generally fall into one of three

categories; they are examples of folk humor, or they are melodramatically 59 ironic, or they are grotesque and macabre."

Germs. I am using the concept of germs essentially as Henry James

used it. James "habitually noted down what he called 'germs' of his fic-

tion--brief anecdotes, ideas, situations which he might later take up and 60 develop into a story or a novel." Also, an ordinary dictionary defini-

5^Samuel Hynes, ed. Great Short Works of Thomas Hardy (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1967), p. xxiii.

59Great Short Works of Thomas Hardy, p. xxiii.

60Henry James, The Ambassadors, ed. S. P. Rosenbaum (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1964), p. 371. 28

tion would suffice: "the rudimentary form from which a new organism is

developed; seed, bud . . . that from which something can develop or grow; 61 origin: as, the germ of an idea." Also, as above, Kathleen Tillotson

uses germ in this sense when she writes "and a year later, 'The Hospital

Patient' /Dickens, 1836/ contains the germ of the relation between Sikes 62 and Nancy." The germ is something in seed or seedling state that is

developed into something larger, or more complex, or more mature. A germ

is something less than what it might be developed into. In one of the

interpolated tales of Pickwick a character called Gabriel Grub suffers remorse of conscience by seeing scenes of life presented to him by means of a mysterious mist in a goblin's cave. By the time of A Christmas Carol,

Scrooge, another misanthrope—like Gabriel--is shown "scenes" that alter his outlook on life. In this case Dickens uses something larger and certainly more complex in the scenes shown Scrooge by the "Christmas ghosts." Another interesting aspect of the "germ" figuration is the concept of the "homun culus," the old idea that a tiny version of the mature product was carried in the seed, whether it was a tiny oak in the acorn or a "dwarf" man car ried in the sperm. Another metaphor that may be helpful in explaining the germ is "incunabula." This word would recall any manuscript published before 1500, but it also refers to something in its first stages, or its beginnings, or infancy. Scholars talk about incunabula of the novel mean ing those early works that they saw as stages in the development of the

61 - Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1966), p. 607. 62 in an introduction to Dickens' Oliver Twist (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1966), p. xvi. 29

novel. There are certain of the short works of Thackeray and Dickens that

could be viewed as developmental works leading to their eventual work in

the novel form.

Chips. I am using "chips" in a figurative sense as Irving Howe

has used it in his book on Thomas Hardy.

The bulk of his stories were composed during the 1880s and 1890s, the period of Hardy’s most prolific and accomplished work as a novel ist. He seems to have regarded the writing of stories as mere jour neyman’s work by which to earn a living, and to have dashed them off with the casualness of purpose and desire to please a large audience which he claimed to be characteristic—though we have reason to be skeptical--of the way he wrote his novels. Yet anyone who has become familiar with the timbre of Hardy’s voice, both in an early work like Under the Greenwood Tree and a late one like Tess of the D'Urbervilles, could not fail immediately to recognize a tale like "The Withered Arm" or "The Three Strangers" as uniquely his. Like most short fictions composed by novelists, Hardy's are fragments chipped off his larger work, or developments of major themes in modest scope, or exerciges at sketching the figures and locale of his more ambitious books.

Howe makes a further observation which reveals the value of the chip and

incidentally the germ. "If once you have fallen under the spell of the kind of writer who created his own fictional world and keeps returning to

it in book after book—as Faulkner does with Yoknapatawpha, or Balzac with

Paris, or Hardy with Wessex—even his minor stories will hold a lively

interest. For in them loose narrative ends may be tied together, bits of

information casting light on the novels casually provided, and an imagin- 64 ary place we have come to know once again exhibited." As a novelist works or, figuratively speaking, builds or sculpts at his workbench a by product of his work would be the small pieces of wood or stone that are cut off or broken off. To carry the figuration out, if the "author" was

JIrving Howe, Thomas Hardy (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967), p. 76. 64Thomas Hardy, pp. 76-77. 30

carving oak the chips would be oak and would have the same grain or tex

ture as the wood that they were chipped from. If the author was sculpting

in granite the chips would be the same material--if there is a grain or

texture to the stone the chips would share this. By matching the material,

its grain and texture, theoretically one could determine the "source" or

the original piece from which the chip came. In this work I will be using

the term "chip" to refer to those shorter fictions that were written at

the same time or after the novels to which they bear an important relation

ship. Thackeray's A Little Dinner at Timmins1s published in Punch from

May to July 1848, was written after the bulk of Vanity Fair had been pub

lished—the last number of each appeared in July 1848. I believe I can dem onstrate that A Little Dinner at Timmins1s is a chip from Vanity Fair, that

it has the same grain and texture, the same motifs and themes as does Vanity

Fair, and is essentially a special by-product of the novel.

A Brief Survey

The short tale or story abounded in England before and during the era when the short story was in full development in America. Thomas Car- 65 lyle "translated and published four volumes of German Romances (1827) . . ." but significantly enough, "the market was glutted and the work did not 66 sell." To meet the popular demand Carlyle "translated folk-tales by

Musaus and Tieck, a fantasy by Hoffman, and Fouque’s Asluaga1s Knight; but he went on to Richter (very difficult to translate and hitherto accessible 67 in English only in fragments) and to the second part of Wilhelm Meister."

^Baugh, p. 1311.

6Baugh, p. 1311.

67Baugh, p. 1311. 31

Carlyle translated into English the same sources that Irving used in many

of his stories (e.g., Tieck), and if Irving was the fountainhead of the

American short story, the British apparently saw the stories differently

or were so accustomed to the German tale that they had no particular effect.

Carlyle apparently did not recognize the short story as a specific genre;

to him they were merely "folk-tales." In 1838-1840 Edward William Lane

translated the 1001 Nights in a condensed, expurgated version adding to

the flow of examples of the shorty prose narrative.

In 1850 Dante Gabriel Rosetti wrote a short story called Hand and

Soul, published in The Germ in 1855. The story is a statement of Rosetti’s

aesthetic, and is refreshing from the standpoint that it is not overbur

dened with details. An example of a sometimes anthologized tale by Dickens

is "The Seven Poor Travellers" (1854) first published in Christmas Stories

(1860), a frame tale that takes almost as much "framing" as "telling."

Wilkie Collins’ "The Yellow Mask" (1855) seems to be a germ for The Moon

stone (1868); also there is Collins’ "The Travelleris Story of a Terribly

Strange Bed" from After Dark which is a good mystery story but which also

ends in a drawing out of details that leaves the reader somewhat disappointed.

George Meredith's story "The Punishment of Shapesh, the Persian, on Khiphil, the Builder" from The Shaving of Shagpat (1856) is of the legend variety.

Meredith begins the story immediately without any tedious scene setting.

Elizabeth Gaskell continued in the mystery tradition in "The Squire's Story" from The Grey Woman, and Other Tales (1856). As a work representative of her short stories the reader will find that this is not handled well, and particularly that the ending of the story seems to be unsatisfactory from the standpoint of construction. 32

Anthony Trollope turned out four collections of short stories in his prolific writing career, but very rarely do any of Trollope's tales find their way into anthologies. Trollope is of course totally ignored by those who consider that the short story has some special artistic requirements--especially those developed above. In 1877 George Gissing sold some short stories to the Chicago Tribune. These stories are reprinted in Sins of the Fathers and Other Tales. Gissing has two other volumes of short stories, Human Odds and Ends (1898) and a work published post humously, The House of Cobwebs. Again, Gissing is ignored by most com mentators on the literary short story. George Meredith wrote three sig nificant short stories; the finest of the three, The Tale of Chloe, is an episode from Bath society in the eighteenth century. The story was written the same year as The Egoist, 1879.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote essays, short stories, and novels, and there is a general opinion that he had the most success artistically with 69 the briefer works. A collection of short stories called New Arabian

Nights (1882) contains "The Pavilion on the Links," and "The Sire De Male- troit’s Door." A collection published in 1887 called The Merry Men con tains "Markheim" and "Thrawn Janet." In the story "Markheim," as mentioned above, there is some emphasis on "internal action." The reader is treated to what is going on inside the mind of Markheim after he commits murder.

"Thrawn Janet" deals with an encounter with the living dead. "The Sire

De Maletroit’s Door" emphasizes internal action. The hero of the story

£ O Vincent Starrett, ed. (Chicago, 1924)

69Baugh, pp. 1498-99. 33 is quickly thrown into a complication and the rest of the story deals with his agonies of mind as he contemplates his situation and comes to a for tuitous decision. As mentioned earlier, Stevenson is the first major writer in English who cannot be considered without paying primary attention to his short works, and the turn to "internal action" as subject matter seems to mark, for the British, the beginning of the literary short story.

Thomas Hardy published four volumes of short stories: Wessex Tales

(1888), A Group of Noble Dames (1891), Life's Little Ironies (1894), and

A Changed Man and Other Stories (1913). It is noted in Baugh's A Literary

History of England that,

Hardy was not a great short story-teller, though he wrote a few fine short stories. The Three Strangers, The Withered Arm, The Dis tracted Preacher, On the Western Circuit, For Conscience' Sake and A Tragedy of Two Ambitions are little masterpieces, exhibiting a wide range of power--ironic, humorous, grim, sardonic, or eerie. But too frequently Hardy's tales are either trivial or extravagant local anec dotes cast in literary form or else give the impression of being sketches or drafts for full length novels. ®

In 1886 Kipling published a collection of tales called Departmental Ditties♦

This was followed in 1888 by Plain Tales from the Hills. Also in 1888 two of Kipling's short stories, "Soldiers Three" and "The Phantom 'Rickshaw,'" came out in single pamphlet form to accommodate the railway readers. These tales were gruesome and laced through with the occult. Life's Handicap, another collection, was published in 1891, followed in 1893 by Many Inven tions, which includes "His Private Honor," "Love 0' Women," '"Man Who Was," and "In the Rukh," The Jungle Books followed in 1894 and 1895; these in

^Baugh, p. 1467.

?!Baugh, p. 1503. 34

turn were followed by two more collections, The Day's Work in 1898, and

Just So Stories in 1902.

After 1890 Henry James began to focus more on the short story, and

in 1895 George Moore published Celibates; a group of short stories about

abnormal and neurotic people. Celibates was revised in 1922 as In Single

Strictness and again in 1927 when it was retitled Celibate Lives. Joseph

Conrad's Youth was published in 1902, and this was followed by Heart of

Darkness also in 1902 and Typhoon in 1903.

The early part of the twentieth century witnessed a continued

flowering of the British (and Irish) short story. D. H. Lawrence wrote most of his short stories in the period 1911-1930. Joyce's the Dubliners containing the masterful short story "The Dead" was published in 1914.

E. M. Forster wrote most of his short stories in this period. Aldous

Huxley, though not of the rank of Lawrence and Joyce, and probably not of Forster, published two short story collections--Limbo (1920), and Two or Three Graces (1926). Maugham's short stories, most of them reminiscent of the French tradition, were collected in Altogether (1934). This col lection includes his best known short story, Rain.

Two "Views"

It seems that there are at least two general historical-critical views of the short story concerning its origin, growth, and development.

The first of these general views is that any work that is short, in prose, fictionalized, and in narrative form may be called a short story. Literary historians and critics who subscribe to this view trace the short story back to Chaucer, in his tales, both prose and poetry, back to Boccaccio, 35 to the Bible; and even further back to Nimrod tales orally carried by primitive man. The second view is that not all short, fictionalized, narrative, prose pieces can be called short stories, and that there are certain other criteria that must be met in order to give the short, fic tional, narrative in prose the name—"short story." Historians of this persuasion would trace the short story in its primitive form back to no earlier than the early nineteenth century and would generally contend that the first genuine short stories were written in America beginning about

1820 and in England beginning about 1880. The "first view" and the "second view" seem to have nothing to do with chronology. Poe formulated artistic requirements for the short story in the 1840’s. Henry Seidel Canby in

The Short Story in English (1909), and Harry T. Baker in The Contemporary

Short Story: A Practical Manual (1916), generally followed Poe’s lead in maintaining specific requirements for the literary short story. But, there are certain twentieth century commentators whose only requirement for the short story is that it is a piece of fiction shorter than the novel. I would judge that the "second view" of the short story is the most wide spread one today, and this is possibly what causes us to disregard the nineteenth century tale.

The Tale, the Short Story, England and America

As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter the tale in England is the dominant form of short fiction until about 1880. In America the literary short story becomes the dominant form, first appearing in a well developed fashion in the 1820’s. One might characterize or "emblemize" this difference in the development of short fictions in a national litera 36

ture, in brief, by examining a bibliography of criticism dealing with the

short story. Jarvis Thurston, 0. B. Emerson, Carl Hartman, and Elizabeth

V. Wright in Short Fiction Criticism: A Checklist of Interpretation Since 72 1925 of Stories and Novelettes (American, British, Continental): 1800-1958

include references to: Charles Brockden Brown, Hawthorne, Irving, Poe and

Melville; on the British "side" they include references for: Conrad, Forster,

Galsworthy, Hardy, James, "Joyce," Kipling, Lawrence, George Meredith, Walter

Pater (on his work called "Sebastian van Storck"), Stevenson, Wells, and

Woolf. Significantly enough Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, and George

Eliot are not included.

The short tale tradition persisted more strongly in England than

elsewhere. Dickens and Thackeray both wrote tales and sketches although

the short story was developing around them (America and the Continent),

and conditions in England such as the presence of the German literary fairy

tale in translation, the demand for short fiction, the knowledge of American accomplishment, and the existence of a corpus of short fiction, could have

led to the development of a new fictional form—namely, the short story.

If the short fictions of Dickens and Thackeray were ancillary to their novels, if their art in the novel was untraditional (at least different

from eighteenth century and Romantic traditions in the novel) and if their short fictions are workshops for the fictional imagination it would follow that Dickens and Thackeray would have used the comfortable and easy tradi tion rather than striking out into new fictional forms for the shorter works as well. In any case I would now like to offer a demonstration germ,

72 (Denver: Alan Swallow) 37 and then examine the short fictions of Dickens and Thackeray to see what relationships exist. CHAPTER II

GERMS AND DICKENS

As well as examples of specific germs among the tales there are

explorations of a general kind of mode that Dickens used often in later

works; also some of the tales demonstrate certain tendencies that permeate

the later work. Another aspect of the germ relationship shows the develop ment and amplification of certain themes and motifs. As the germs are

developed into novels many scenes, motifs, and ideas are given increasing

forcefulness and subtlety. There is nothing strange about a writer using

earlier material in a number of ways as he develops, and the same is true of other artists. What can be learned from looking at the preliminary

sketches in relation to the more mature work is: (1) the kinds of motifs that were basic to the artist, (2) something about the ways in which he developed his ideas, and (3) the combinations and permutations of motifs which resulted as he worked.

Germs and Brother Jacob

However, before tackling the relationship of the shorter tales of

Dickens and Thackeray to their longer works, I would like to use the re lationships between George Eliot’s short work called Brother Jacob and her novel Middlemarch as demonstration pieces, or examples, or "emblems."

By seeing how the germ is preliminary to the longer fiction in a different writer, we may possibly be better able to discern how it works in Dickens and Thackeray. Brother Jacob, the work of George Eliot that most closely resembles a short story, was first written in 1860 under the title of "Mr 39

David Faux, Confectioner," and was first published in the Cornhill Magazine in July, 1864.''" Probably the best way to summarize Brother Jacob is to

quote from the George Eliot Dictionary:

David Faux, in order to go to the West Indies to make his fortune, steals his mother’s hoard of twenty guineas, but before he can make way with it is seen by his idiot brother Jacob. To divert Jacob’s attention, David tells him that guineas turn into yellow lozenges, and wins the idiot’s inconvenient love by giving him the sweetmeats. After six years in Jamaica, where instead of making a fortune he works as a cook, David returns to England, and under the name of Edward Freely establishes himself as a confectioner in the little town of Grimworth, passing himself off as a scion of a good family, the nephew of a fictitious Admiral Freely. The convenience of his cooked food demoralizes the good housewives of Grimworth, and David prospers, gains quite a reputation as a great traveler of many adventures, and succeeds in becoming engaged to pretty Penny Palfrey, the young daughter of the richest farmer in the neighbourhood. He makes the mistake, however, of claiming a small legacy which his father had left him, and this recalls him to the mind of the idiot brother with the sweet tooth. When David is entertaining his fiancee and her family, brother Jacob appears, raids the supply of lozenges, and claims relationship with "Mr. Freely". David’s real name and his theft^are discovered, and he loses his bride and has to leave Grimworth.

Henry James, writing a review of Brother Jacob and The Lifted Veil made this observation:

George Eliot will probably always remain the great novelist who has written fewest short stories. As her genius has unfolded she has de parted more and more from the "short story" standard, and become, if not absolutely the longest-winded, at least what may be called the most spacious, of romancers. Of the two tales in question, "Brother Jacob," which is wholly of a humorous cast, is much the better. We say it is of a humorous cast, but it is probable that like everything of George Eliot’s it may be credited with something of a philosophic import— offered as it is as an example of the many forms, in the author’s own words, "in which the great Nemesis hides herself." The great Nemesis here is the idiot brother of a small criminal, who brings the latter to shame and confusion by an obstinate remembrance of the sweet things he has swallowed. The guilty brother, of whose guilt he has been an accidental witness, has bribed him to secrecy by a present of sugar plums, and when Mr. David Faux is after the lapse of years flourishing,

1Vol. X, 1-32. 2 Isadore G. Mudge and M. E. Sears (1924; rpt. Folcroft, Pennsylvania: The Folcroft Press, Inc., 1969), p. xix. 40

under an assumed name, upon the indirect fruits of his misdemeanors (a petty robbery) the too appreciative Jacob reappears clamoring for more lozenges, and throwing a fatal light upon Mr. Faux's past. The story is extremely clever, but it is a little injured, perhaps, by an air of effort, by too visible an attempt to say good things, to bestrew the reader’s path with epigrams. As the incident is related wholly in the ironic, satiric manner, the temptation to be pregnantly witty was, of course, particularly strong. But the figure of the di minutively mean and sneaking young man upon whom the great Nemesis descends is a real portrait; it is an admirable picture of unromantic malfeasance. Capital, too, is the fatal Jacob, who, after the manner of idiots, leaves us with a sense of his combined vagueness and ob structiveness. The minor touches^are very brilliant, and the story is, generally, excellent reading.

Apparently there are no short story anthology editors who share James' opinion about the relative quality of The Lifted Veil and Brother Jacob.

The former tale (around 15,000 words) is occasionally included in "short story" anthologies, but as far as I have observed Brother Jacob has never been chosen for inclusion as a short story.

George Eliot, like Dickens and Thackeray, began with shorter works, and then proceeded to the novel. They all continued to write shorter works during and after their novel writing. For George Eliot, however, there are only two examples of the "during and after" category: The Lifted Veil 4 and Brother Jacob. Brother Jacob echoes some of the earlier novels, but

I think most evidently it contains many of the germs that are fully devel oped or grown in the novel Middlemarch.

There are a number of important relationships between the story and the novel. David Faux is an "outsider" in Grimworth who has a secret,

3 Nation, 26 (25 April 1878), 277, rpt. in A Century of George Eliot Criticism, ed. Gordon S. Haight (London: University Paperbacks, 1965), pp. 130-131. Sj. C. Knoepflmacher in George Eliot* s Early Novels: The Limits of Realism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), p. 244, suggests that Brother Jacob is a chip from The Mill on the Floss, although he does not use the term "chip." 41

crime-related past. He has a significant effect on the community. He

has a nemesis in the person of his idiot brother Jacob. He is in essence

an alien in the community. His secret past is discovered and he must leave

Grimworth in disgrace. In the novel Bulstrode is an outsider who has a

secret, crime-related past. Bulstrode is a respected banker in the com

munity of Middlemarch. He is involved in a measure of philanthropy by

supporting the appointment of Lydgate to the New Hospital. Bulstrode gives

all evidences of respectability, steadiness and good background. His par

ticular problem is John Raffles who knows that in the past Bulstrode has

been a receiver of stolen goods. When Raffles first arrives in Middlemarch

he blackmails Bulstrode, threatening him with exposure. When Raffles ar

rives a second time he is in extremely poor health, suffering from the Ef

fects of advanced alcoholism, though he is still in possession of his ruin

ous secret. Bulstrode, like David Faux, is a hypocrite in that though

dishonest and cowardly, he desires wealth and respectability. There is

a further parallel between John Raffles and Jacob. John Raffles arrives

in town, as Jacob did, with a story to tell; he takes on something of the

"vagueness" and "obstructiveness" of Jacob. Raffles knows of Bulstrode’s

past. Faux is threatened and destroyed by an idiot brother. Bulstrode

is threatened and destroyed, in a manner of speaking, by a drunken black

mailer. The nemesis theme is reiterated in the novel and of course Bul

strode leaves Middlemarch in disgrace.

These basically are the parallels, but the point is that the "ele ments" in the story have grown and developed in the novel. David Faux

is merely a mean and sneaking character who is tripped up by an odd mis

chance—his greed ironically causes his fall. Bulstrode is easily a more w.

complex character. He has woven a tangled web of deceit that becomes more

and more complex, and more and more difficult to escape from. Bulstrode’s

attempts to cover his deceit eventually lead him to what might be called

murder. Eliot says of Bulstrode, "Strange, piteous conflict in the soul

of this unhappy man, who had longed for years to be better than he was—

who had taken his selfish passions into discipline and clad them in severe

robes, so that he had walked with them as a devout quire, till now that

a terror had risen among them, and they could chant no longer, but threw 5 out their common cries for safety." In the shorter story when Faux’s

nemesis descends upon him he finds he must "own" his brother, he finds

in a strange way that he has become his brother’s keeper. In the novel,

however, the situation is more complex. Not only has Raffles threatened

to blackmail Bulstrode by revealing his past, and so becoming his nemesis,

but Eliot puts the fate of Raffles in Bulstrode's hands, causing a compli

cated moral problem. When Raffles arrives in Middlemarch he is in such

poor health that Bulstrode asks Lydgate to come and treat him. After Lyd

gate has done what he can for Raffles he charges Bulstrode that no more

liquor be given him or it would likely prove fatal. Mrs. Abel has unknow

ingly given Raffles port wine and brandy after Lydgate’s visit (Raffles has been demanding the liquor), and when she informs Bulstrode of her "treat ment," Bulstrode hands her the key to the wine cooler, telling her she would find plenty of brandy there. Bulstrode has a hand in causing Raf

fle’s death, but as a further complication or permutation, he is collabo-f rating with the evil propensities of his nemesis rather than overtly causing

^Middlemarch (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1956), p. 517. 43 his demise. Bulstrode must not only struggle with the question of whether or not he is his "brother’s" keeper, but also with the problem that Raffles is the agent of his destruction. Bulstrode’s moral sense has been deadened, and just remnants of conscience remain, however Bulstrode is a calculating man, and the "vision" of Raffles dead has a tremendously soothing effect.

He eventually comes to a moral decision that causes the death of Raffles.

Quentin Anderson notes, "the whole Bulstrode strand in the novel is less impressive than the others because his past is somewhat stagily rendered and the agents out of that past who hunt him down seem melodramatic con veniences. The "staginess" might result from the fact that it had been staged before: Brother Jacob and its motifs are the "melodramatic conven iences" of the story of B&lstrode in Middlemarch.

David Faux in his perfidy seems to harm only himself. Bulstrode’s hidden guilt and later culpability in the death of Raffles are infectious.

Middlemarch is subtitled Life in a Provincial Town—pointedly the town of Grimworth is provincial—it is countrified and rustic, and it is also provincial from the standpoint of its "narrow" views. The shorter work deals with the outsider and his particular effect on the community, while this theme and problem are developed in the stories of Lydgate and Will

Ladislaw in conjunction with the misfortunes of Bulstrode. Lydgate is at first accepted in the community, but then as head of the hospital he runs into local politics and prejudice. Middlemarch is no place for a physiolo gist who wants to do basic research on "primitive tissue." Also his culpa bility with Bulstrode in the death of Raffles causes him to leave the com-

6"George Eliot in Middlemarch," George Eliot: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. George R. Creeger (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970), p. 145. 44 munity. Lydgate is driven to financial success but personal failure.

Ladislaw is an outsider because of his radicalism or at least his un provincial views. Will is also tainted by his relationship with Bulstrode and the fact that the banker offers him a fortune. When Will temporarily exiles himself in London his motivation is more an unwillingness to be caught up in Bulstrode’s shady affairs.

The "will" is a story-telling device in Brother Jacob that works a number of ways. First it is the thing that trips up Faux, secondly it is a device to reveal character. When the small inheritance is dangled before him, Faux in his greed and pettiness cannot help but snatch it up.

In the tale the will serves to reveal only one aspect of one character, and it also serves as a simple plot device. The motif of the "will that reveals character" is used in Middlemarch, again in a more complex manner.

In the novel this "device" reveals more characters to us, and in a very subtle way reveals more about them. The will in Brother Jacob proves David

Faux only to be greedy. In the novel Casaubon leaves a will denying Doro thea his property if she marries Ladislaw. Dorothea of course makes the human decision to give up the money and follow her heart. The will reveals

Dorothea’s character; she grows in human awareness rather than in moral character--here she needs no improvement. The fact that she eventually realizes what Casuabon is, the fact that she realizes she has been in a manner seduced by his false intellectualism, the fact that she can flout the narrow values of the community to follow her heart and marry Ladislaw, shows her growth. The will is major device to reveal this part of her character. 45

There is another variation in the novel on the device of a will to reveal character. Fred Vincy expects that Peter Featherstone is going to will him a large sum of money. Fred leads something of a profligate life--at least he falls into debt counting on the inheritance. With the money he expects Fred had also planned to take orders and "retire" into the church. When Fred finds he is not provided for, he finally decides he must provide for himself. He is taken into business by Caleb Garth, makes something of a success of himself, marries the sensible, even-tempered

Mary Garth, and at the end of the novel is a respected and financially successful farmer.

Brother Jacob contains the nemesis theme, the theme of an "alien" in a provincial community, and the motif of a will that reveals character.

In the novel she has used these themes and variations on them. Faux is a petty thief who is tripped up; Bulstrode is a more complex character who is in a more subtle relationship with his nemesis. There are other char acters in the novel who are aliens in a provincial community for more complex and subtle reasons than David Faux. The will also has become more than a plot device in the novel. It reveals character, but with greater develop ment, and also with greater scope, that is, it reveals more characters.

In essence there are a number of germs contained in Brother Jacob that have grown and been developed in Middlemarch. I believe one could say that the shorter work is part of the "primitive tissue" of Middlemarch, and this is largely what the "relationship" will show for Dickens and

Thackeray. In addition, in their short tales I believe are to be found general fictional explorations and also certain fictional tendencies, re lated to theme, that find their way into the later work. 46

Germs and the Boz Tales

In writing about Dickens’ "germs" and the relationships to the longer works I will be concentrating on the tales in the Sketches by Boz and the interpolated tales in the Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby.

I will not be using for my consideration the "Christmas Stories" or the

"Christmas Books" or the later "miscellaneous" tales. Many of the later tales are too long and therefore not relevant to my purpose. Because I am trying to discover the most essential germ I am concentrating on the shorter narratives and sketches.

I would like to characterize the tales in the Sketches by Boz that

I think can be seen as "germs" for the later and longer works, and then show the relationships and development. The first of the tales or sketches is called "The Boarding House." Dickens begins with a picture of charac ters at dinner and then says, "We are not about to adopt the license of novel-writers, and to let ’years roll on:’ but we will take the liberty of requesting the reader to suppose that six months have elapsed, since the dinner we have described, and that Mrs. Tibbs’s boarders have, during that period, sang, and danced, and gone to theaters and exhibitions, to gether, as ladies and gentlemen, wherever they board, often do."? Dickens at least humorously acknowledges that he is working in a medium different than the traditional novel. It is also interesting to note that when

Dickens writes these words he had not yet written a "novel." He describes a series of odd boarder--caricatures actually, of hypochondriacs, radicals,

Irishmen, and dadies. There are courting scenes, replete with mistaken

?(New York: Oxford University Press, 1957), p. 284. 47

identity and boarding-house-bedroom comedy--all seemingly to no purpose.

In the tale there are two separate sets of boarders. When Mrs. Tibbs de

cides to let she ends up with three men, two younger and one older, and

three women, Mrs. Maplesone and her two young daughters, Matilda and Julia.

In a short while the two young men and the two young women are married,

but the third marriage (Mrs. Maplesone and Mr. Calton) doesn't come off

and Mrs. Maplesone sues and wins ^1000 for breach of promise. The only

other complication is that Mrs. Tibbs is left without any boarders. After

Dickens tidies up this episode, telling what happened to each of the prin

cipals, he introduces a new set of boarders. He skteches them for awhile

and then involves them all in a little mix-up concerning a nighttime ren dezvous in which nearly everyone is discovered in an embarrassing position.

All of the boarders leave and Mrs. Tibbs ends by getting out of the busi ness of renting.

This tale most evidently shows some of the general tendencies of

Dickens in fiction that find their way into the later works. There are two long dining scenes in the tale, one at the beginning and one in the middle centering on each set of boarders. Showing the major characters taking a meal is a handy and economical device to reveal character, set themes, and foreshadow later events. There are many dining scenes in

Dickens’ later work that have this purpose and result. The best example in the magnificent opening-dining scene in Ogr Mutual Friend. Dickens has been accused of creating caricatures rather than characters, and though this is not wholly true he does present some caricatures in this tale that survive in the novels. There also seems to be a strong influence on Dickens from the usual goings-on in the eighteenth century novel such as the bed 48

room comedy and the mistaken identity. These are precisely the motifs that

he incorporates a few years later in some of Pickwick’s misadventures.

Specifically there is Mr. Pickwick who finds himself in the wrong bedroom,

and then there is the breach of promise element in the tale that is repeated

with a variation in the "Bardell vs. Pickwick" episode. In the tale Mr.

Calton backs out directly; in Pickwick, of course, Mrs. Bardell mistakes

Mr. Pickwick’s actions and intentions. In the manner of telling and in

subject matter the tale sounds very much like the ana of Thackeray.

The next of these tales, "Sentiment," is very similar to Thackeray’s

"The Professor: A Tale of Sentiment." Dickens’ tale concerns a young lady,

Miss Brook Dingwall, who is sent to a finishing school by her father in order to protect her from the romantic designs of a young man, and even more to protect her from her own romantic inclinations. Mr. Brook Dingwall happens to be a Member of Parliament whose governmental specialty is bees wax. He dislikes the young man, Mr. Theodosius Butler, who is the object of Miss Dingwall’s attention, because he is the object of Miss Dingwall’s attention, and also because this young man had written an inflammatory pamphlet on removing the beeswax duty. Once at school she accidentally is thrown into the company of her young man and they elope. When Mr. Ding wall, Esq., M. P., hears of the elopement, he is so enraged that he thinks of bringing in a bill for the abolition of finishing schools, and he allows the newly married couple only a hundred and fifty a year. Mr. and Mrs.

Butler reside in a small cottage located in the middle of a brickfield;

Mr. Butler writes incessantly, and is incessantly ignored by the publish ers. Mrs. Butler begins to think that the misery of unrequited love is more to be preferred than the realities of a miserable married life. 49

Dickens satirizes all of the characters in his tale especially Miss Ding

wall and the pamphleteering young romantic. Dickens tidies up the tale and

gives the reader a moral tag, along the line that "marriage contracted in haste is repented in leisure."

There is at least one character in the tale that Dickens uses in a number of ways in the later works, Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq., M. P.

/He/ was very haughty, solemn, and portentous. He had, naturally, a somewhat spasmodic expression of countenance, which was not rendered the less remarkable by his wearing an extremely stiff cravat. He was wonderfully proud of the M. P. attached to his name, and never lost an opportunity of reminding people of his dignity. He had a great idea of his own abilities, which must have been a great comfort to him, as no one else had; and in diplomacy, on a small scale, in his own family arrangements, he considered himself unrivalled.

As a general tendency there are a number of "stuffed shirts" in Dickens such as Mr. Podsnap in Our Mutual Friend and perhaps Mr. Dombey. The read er finds that Mr. Dingwall, M. P., besides being an expert on beeswax, is 9 drawing up "A Bill for the better observance of Easter Monday," and when one remembers he sends his daughter to school to have romantic notions shaken out of her head I believe he is the miniature portrait, or germ, of Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, who becomes a Member of Parliament in the course of Hard Times. In the tale Dickens' target is sentiment or romantic in clinations. In the novel he seems to have reversed his feelings, at least he is attacking "fact, fact, fact" or the Utilitarian position. Thomas

Gradgrind, M. P. says to his daughter with great confidence in her educa-

tion 9

"I prepared you last night to give me your serious attention in the conversation we are now going to have together. You have been so well

^Sketches by Boz, pp. 324-25.

^Sketches by Boz, p. 352. 50

trained, and you do, I am happy to say, so much justice to the educa tion you have received, that I have perfect confidence in your good sense. You are not impulsive, you are not romantic, you are accustomed to view everything from the strong dispassionate ground of reason and calculation. From that ground alone, I know you will view and consider what I am going to communicate."''’®

Of course he is going to persuade Louisa to marry Mr. Bounderby. He does not stop to consider whether Louisa loves Mr. Bounderby, he can only cons

sider the "facts of this case." Thomas Gradgrind, M. P.; becomes Dickens’

Commissioner of Fact; he is the monumental representative of the Utilitarian stance, and like Mr. Brook Dingwall, M. P., he is extremely jealous of

Parliamentary prerogatives.

"The Black Veil," I believe, is another of the tales that is read ily and strongly identifiable as a germ—or containing germs for some of

Dickens' later fiction. The tale has a "dark and stormy night" opening characteristic of the popular tale, and for the first time Dickens uses in his fiction the gothic .trappings that are to become almost a "Dickensian" characteristic.

The story concerns a physician who has a strange visitor in the night, a woman dressed all in black, muffled, and wearing a black veil.

In a very sparse dialogue, unusual for Dickens, the physician is requested to meet with the woman at a specified time and place the next day. While they are conversing, the physician's assistant, a young boy, listens in tently at the keyhole. (This boy seems to be the undeveloped prototype of the "fat boy" who in the Pickwick Papers has a habit of clandestinely listening to important conversations.) In order to meet with the veiled lady the physician must travel through a part of the city that has the

l®Hard Times, ed. George Ford, and Slyvere Monod (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1966), pp. 73-74. 51

atmosphere and appearance of a "dreary waste." Dickens very realisti

cally describes the ramshackle buildings, the stagnant water, the heaps

of refuse, the poor and shabby-looking adults, and the sallow infants.

Just in the picture alone there is a social message. One sees the need

for efficient police, better city planning, and most importantly some

humane agency to take care of the needs of the people. The mysterious

visitor turns out to be the mother of a hanged criminal. The grieving

mother engaged the physician in the vain hope that her son's corpse can

somehow be resuscitated. It is a good tale of horror but the ending is

muffled by an "afterword" or tidying that makes the story end happily.

The atmosphere of the tale is heavy with intimations of crime and

criminals. A significant motif is that of a son who wittingly or unwit

tingly punishes his mother by turning to crime. This tale is closer in

time than any other of Dickens’ fictions to the "blacking warehouse experi

ence," and I believe this motif (son punishing the mother) is the germ

for the manifestations of this blacking warehouse experience in his later

and longer works. The mother, when she engages the physician, seems to

be carrying as much guilt as grief. (Dickens, in the tale, is also study

ing a mother-son relationship.) The woman in the black veil genuinely

grieves for her son because of his fate. When the physician impresses

upon her that there is no hope for her son--he has been hanged as a crim

inal and is quite dead--she falls a madwoman at the physician’s feet.

When Dickens pulls all the loose ends together the reader finds that the

physician adopts the woman and cares for her to the end of her life. She

Sketches by Boz, p. 376. 52

becomes his surrogate mother and he her surrogate son. To the physician

it is one of the most gratifying experiences of his life. The surrogate

parental relationship is a constant motif throughout the works, often, as

in the tale, with roles reversed—children caring for parents or younger

people caring for older—but most commonly in his later works there are

characters who take on the parental role because the real parent-child

relationship has failed.

Crime and criminals are the central elements of Oliver Twist.

There is a picture of the sordid London underworld, and Dickens is also

exposing a "son" to crime. Of course Oliver never becomes a criminal both

because he is intrinsically good and is saved from crime by the powers that

be, or the "stronger hand than chance." Dickens is also working out a

parent-child relationship: Oliver’s real mother dies in childbirth, and

he is warred over by sets of surrogate parents, some benevolent and others

malign. At the conclusion of the novel Oliver has "new" parents.

David Copperfield is also a study in parental relationships—as

biographical as it is. David is a posthumous son to his father. His mother

remarries and dies shortly thereafter and David is left with a stepfather.

Actually David, like Oliver, has a series of new parents, again some malign

and some benevolent. Like Oliver, David is also confronted by crime. He says,

I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources or the difficulties of my life. I know that if a shilling were given me by Mr. Quinion at any time, I spent it in a dinner or a tea. I know that I worked from morning until night, with common men and boys, a shabby child. I know that I lounged about the streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a little vagabond.

12 Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (New York: The New American Library, 1962), p. 169. 53

With the "mercy of God" and his own will David makes a decision that proves to be the right one.

Another motif that Dickens uses in "The Black Veil" is the journey that reveals the poor conditions of a particular area and establishes an atmosphere or mood for what is to happen next in the narrative. I believe it becomes one of Dickens’ most important fictional devices. One can see this device growing in power and complexity in subsequent works. This motif is used in "The Drunkard’s Death" (Boz), "The Stroller’s Tale" (Pick wick) , a number of times in Oliver Twist, and variously in many of the later works. In Hard Times the reader takes a journey to the center of

Coketown (Chapter 5, "The Key-Note") and discovers the evils of industrial ism; he sees the pollution and realizes that Coketown is the emblem of

"fact, fact, fact." The variation from the tale is that the reader does not travel with a character, he, with the author can omnisciently view

Coketown and penetrate to its "factual" heart. Coketown, of course, not only establishes a mood but also becomes more, a manifest symbol of fact and the center point of Dickens’ attack. Also, as well as there being specific motifs in this tale, there is a sketching out of several tendencies that permeate Dickens' later work, and as other examples this is the first time in narrative form that he explores the germ of criminality and the gothic mode in fiction.

"A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle" directly presages the arrest and imprisonment episodes of the Pickwick Papers and the later novels. In my judgment it is one of the best relationships for showing how Dickens would take a germ and amplify it, giving it greater force and subtlety. In this case Mr. Tottle is locked up for non-payment of debt 54

rather than for failure to pay damages in a breach of promise suit. In

the tale Dickens pictures a series of debtors.

From this cheerful room itself, the attention of Mr. Gabriel Par sons was naturally directed to its inmates. In one of the boxes two men were playing at cribbage with a very dirty pack of cards, some with blue, some with green, and some with red backs—selections from decayed packs. The cribbage-board had been long ago formed on the table by some ingenious visitor with the assistance of a pocket-knife and a two-pronged fork, with which the necessary number of holes had been made in the table at proper distances for the reception of wooden pegs. In another box a stout, hearty-looking man, of about forty, was eating some dinner which his wife--an equally comfortable-looking personage—had brought him in a basket: and in a third, a genteel-look ing young man was talking earnestly, and in a low tone, to a young female, whose face was concealed by a thick veil, but whom Mr. Gabriel Parsons immediately set down in his own mind as the debtor's wife. A young fellow of vulgar manners, dressed in the very extreme of the prevailing fashion, was pacing up and down the room, with a lighted cigar in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, ever and anon puffing forth volumes of smoke, and occasionally applying, with much apparent relish, to a pint pot, the contents of which were "chilling" on the hob.13

The reader finds that the young man expects to be released at any moment because of financial aid from his father. The implication is that the aid is not likely to be immediately forthcoming and the young man is cutting a ridiculous figure. Dickens writes in the Pickwick Papers of another lock-up scene:

This coffee-room was a front parlour: the principal features of which were fresh sand and stale tobacco smoke. Mr. Pickwick bowed to the three persons who were seatdd in it when he entered; and having dispatched Sam for Perker, withdrew into an obscure corner, and from thence looked with some curiosity upon his new companions.

One of these was a mere boy of nineteen or twenty, who, though it was barely ten o’clock, was drinking gin and water, and smoking a cigar: amusements to which, judging from his inflamed countenance, he had devoted himself pretty constantly for the last year or two of his life. Opposite him, engaged in stirring the fire with the toe of his right boot, was a course vulgar young man of about thirty, with a sallow face and harsh voice: evidently possessed of that knowledge of the

13Sketches by Boz, pp. 447-48 55

the world, and captivating freedom of manner, which is to be acquired in public house parlours, and at low billiard-tables. The third tenant of the apartment was a middle-aged man in a very old suit of black, who looked pale and haggard, and paced up and down the room incessant ly; stopping, now and then, to look with great anxiety out of the window as if he expected somebody, and then resuming his walk.

In the novel the reader notes that the "pacing" gentleman momentarily ex

pects relief--from his father as well. But the reader also notes that the

gentleman really has no chance of being released. "'Chances be d--d,'

replied Price; 'he hasn't half the ghost of one. I wouldn’t give that

for his chance of walking about the streets this time ten years.In

the story of Watkins Tottle Dickens has created a hopeful young debtor

who merely seems ridiculous. One assumes that the father of the "hopeful

young debtor" is going to let him cool his heels for a while in order to

teach the young man a lesson. In the more mature work, the hopeful debtor

has "aged" and he is now the essence of a forlorn debtor who demands pity

rather than scorn. The lock-up house of the Pickwick Papers is made grimmer

in degree by its inhabitants.

In the first scene there are two card players, a stout, hearty

man eating with his wife, a "genteel" young man talking in an earnest man

ner to his veiled wife--this almost a romantic scene--and then there is

the young man, cutting a ridiculous figure, who hopes for release from

his father. In the second scene there is a young man "nineteen or twenty" who is a drunkard, another course vulgar young man ruined by low company,

and a pale, haggard middle-aged man. In the Boz passage the young man hoping for release is the seed of the forlorn debtor. The young man is

(New York: Washington Square Press Inc., 1960), pp. 602-3.

15pjckwick Papers, p. 603. 56

temporarily forlorn. The developmental element in the Pickwick passage

is the "middle-aged" debtor who also hopes for aid from his father. The

young men of the second passage are coarser than the inhabitants of the

first lock-up scene. The second lock-up scene, as mentioned before, is

grimmer, and it is also more realistic. One would guess, with a few not

able exceptions, that the usual inhabitants of the lock-up house would be

ne’er-do-wells. Also because the forlorn debtor is older, his position

seems especially pitiable and tragic—he is not a comic figure like the young man. The significant point about the older man is that his hope is vain, he is truly forlorn, and Dickens goes on to develop this aspect.

The middle-aged debtor is the same age as William Dorfit when he

enters the Marshalsea debtor’s prison. Mr. Dorrit hopes for his release

from the very first second he is imprisoned to the last, some twenty-three years later. The truth about Mr. Dorrit’s chances of being released are known as well. "'Out?’ said the turnkey, 'he'll never get out, unless his creditors take him by the shoulders and shove him out.’"'''^ William

Dorrit truly becomes the "Father of the Marshalsea" in a number of ways, and Dickens has further use for his forlorn prisoner. After twenty-three years Mr. Dorrit finally "comes into" money and is released. At a dinner party in Italy, days and miles removed from the Marshalsea, William Dorrit offers an after dinner speech and the reader finds that his long Imprison ment has unhinged his mind.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the duty--ha--devolves upon me of--hum-- welcoming you to the Marshalsea! Welcome to the Marshalsea! The space is—ha—limited—limited—the parade might be wider; but you will find it apparently grow larger after a time—a time ladies and gentlemen--

1 °Little Dorrit (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967), p. 100. 57

and the air is, all things considered, very good. It blows over the— ha—Surrey hills. Blows over the Surrey hills. This is the snuggery. Hum. Supported by a small subscription of the—ha—Collegiate body. In return for which—hot water—general kitchen—and little domestic advantages. Those who are habituated to the—ha--Marshalsea, are pleased to call me its Father. I am accustomed to be complimented by strangers as the--ha—Father of the Marshalsea."-*-?

Mr. Dorrit, as well as the reader, discovers that families are prisons,

indeed the whole world is a prison, "nor is he ever out of it." Dickens

has developed his picture of the forlorn debtor and prisoner into a man

who is even more tragic. When eventually free Mr. Dorrit discovers the

pervasiveness of "prisons." The picture and "message" of Mr. Dorrit is,

to be sure, a much more powerful, and also a more pessimistic one. There

is a great deal of irony in the fact that Mr. Dorrit can never be released.

"The Bloomsbury Christening" shows us another character who is later amplified. Mr. Nicodemus Dumps is a misanthrope on the order of Gabriel

Grub of the Pickwick Papers. Mr. Dumps’ misanthropy is not entirely mis placed. On his way to the christening Mr. Dumps has his ¡pocket picked by an extremely polite young man. Mr. Dumps spoils the christening by alluding to the child’s apparent health. He remains the most miserable man in the world. It is a commonplace of Dickens criticism that one of his favorite devices is picturing a curmudgeon who turns into a different, usually more benevolent person. The prime example is, of course, Scrooge.

The point is that Mr. Dumps never turns for the better, and Gabriel Grub

(who will be treated later) seems only chastised by his experiences. Mr.

Dumps and Gabriel Grub are the germs of Dickens’ later curmudgeons such as Mr. Sowerberry and Mr. Dombey. And in a developmental or amplified

17Little Dorrit, pp. 708-9. 58

treatment I believe they are germs for Dickens’ "apparent" curmudgeons

such as Mr. Jarndyce, Mr. Jaggers, or Pancks, and then of course for the

curmudgeon turned into a benevolent person.

The descriptions in "The Drunkard's Death" are again rehearsals

for "the revealing journey" in "The Stroller's Tale" in Pickwick and many

of the scenes in Oliver Twist (first noted in "The Black Veil"):

The alley into which he turned might, for filth and misery, have competed with the darkest corner of this ancient sanctuary in its dirtiest and most lawless time. The houses, varying from two stdries in height to four, were stained with every indescribable hue that long exposure to the weather, damp, and rottenness can import to tenements composed originally of the roughest and coarsest materials. The win dows were patched with paper, and stuffed with the foulest rags; the doors were falling from their hinges; poles with lines on which to dry clothes, projected from every casement, and sounds of quarrelling or drunkenness issued from every room ... A gutter ran down the center of the alley—all the sluggish odours of which had been called forth by the rain . . .

The story is about an ungrateful parent who through his drunkeness has turned his son to crime, the theme used in some degree in "The Black Veil,' while there are psychological manifestations of it—from Dickens' point of view—in Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. In this tale the reader sees

Dickens working with the results of an agonized conscience, or maybe more exactly, the horrors of the loss of reason and virtue. "Suddenly he /.the drunkard/ stated up, in the extremity of terror. He had heard his own voice shouting in the night air, he knew not what, or why. Hark! A groan!

—another! His senses were leaving him: half-formed and incoherent words burst from his lips; and his hands sought to tear and lacerate his flesh. 19 He was going mad, and he shrieked for help till his voice failed him."

1 8 sketches by Boz, pp. 487-8.

^sketches by Boz, p. 493. 59

From this description the reader recalls the last night of Fagin on earth when he literally goes insane as he recalls his deeds and contemplates his fate. And then there is Sikes who is unhinged by his terrible action but who still has the instinct to escape and save himself. He is much like the drunkard of the tale who in remorse jumps into the river but then struggles grimly and unsuccessfully to save himself. The particular guilt of Fagin, and Sikes’ mental reaction will be treated later in connection with "The Stroller’s Tale."

Germs and the Interpolated Tales in Pickwick

It should be mentioned that there are roughly two ways of viewing the "standing" of the interpolated tales in Pickwick Papers. One is that 20 they are fillers that probably have nothing to do with the story line, and the other view, seemingly a more recent one, is that the tales have full 21 thematic integration with the novel. In other words it is possible to view the tales as chips, but for my purposes I am regarding the tales as germs or seeds for certain later works.

Edgar Johnson, Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph, I (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952), p. 165; John Butt and Kathleen Tillotson, Dickens at Work (London: Methuen & Ed. Ltd., 1957), p. 68; Sylv^re Monod, Dickens as Novelist (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), pp. 88- 89; and Edmund Wilson, The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1941), p. 10. 21 Robert L. Patten "The Art of Pickwick’s Interpolated Tales," ELH, 34, No. 3 (September 1967), pp. 350-5, pp. 363-5, and "The Interpolated Tales in Pickwick Papers,"'Dickens Studies, 1, (1966), pp. 86-89; Heinz Reinhold, "*The Stroller’s Tale’ in Pickwick," Dickensian, 64, No. 355 (May 1968),. p. 151; Robert Lougy, "Pickwick and ’The Parish Clerk’," Nineteenth Century Fiction, 25, No. 1 (June 1970), pp. 100-11; William F. Axton, "Unity and Coherence in The Pickwick Papers," Studies in Literature: 1500-1900, 5, No. 4 (Autumn 1965), pp. 663-76, and Circle of Fire: Dickens' Vision and Style and the Popular Victorian Theater (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1966), pp. 75-83. 60

The Pickwick Papers appeared in numbers from March 31, 1836 to

November 1837. Dickens probably wrote the first of Oliver Twist before

he was done with the Papers. He apparently began sometime after "The

Stroller’s Tale" and probably after "A Madman’s Manuscript" appears in 22 the novel. Dickens was actually writing two novels at the same time.

It has been noted above that Kathleen Tillotson believes that Dickens

reached back in his Sketches for some of the material for Oliver Twist.

In this instance she says, "'The Hospital Patient’ /from Sketches by Boz/ 23 contains the germ of the relation between Sikes and Nancy." Primarily

I believe that most of the tales are germs for Oliver Twist because of

the close writing relationship. On the other hand Edmund Wilson notes that,

"There are in Pickwick Papers, especially in the early part, a whole set

of interpolated short stories which make a contrast with the narrative T proper . . .allowing here . . . for an element of the conventional and

the popular, of the still thriving school of gothic horror, we are surprised

to find rising to the surface the themes which were to dominate his later 9 / work." The more "gothic" of the tales are often viewed by critics as

an emotional record of Dickens, and significantly enough, as germs for his later work. Edgar Johnson writes:

What dark and perilous things Dickens had to transcend is hinted by a number of brief and isolated stories set within the framework of the book. . . . The striking thing is that Dickens should have intruded into the bright texture of a comic novel these gloomy tales of poverty

^Monod, p. 93.

^Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1966), p. xvi.

24The Wound and the Bow, p. 10 61

and persecution, revenge, insanity, and despair. Their presence be trays a vein of morbid horror in Dickens deeply significant of his submerged griefs and fears.

The revelation is all the more impressive because in his later work these lurid preoccupations with criminal resentment, terror, and rebellion were to rise, like the bloody ghost of Banquo, again and again. . . . Fagin's last night in the condemned cell, all crouched into a shape of huddled nightmare, the hangman Dennis dragged pleading and screaming to the gibbet, Jonas Chuzzlewit skulking through the crimson wood, Bradley Headstone remembering ever the struggle by the weir and the crash of the heavy club, John Jasper muttering through his opium daze of the dangerous journey he has taken over the unknown deeps.25

"The Stroller’s Tale" is the first interpolated tale to appear in the Pickwick Papers. Dickens was enthused about it and felt that it would create some sort of sensation when it appeared. This story has the ingre dients of poverty, alcoholism, guilt--and also a good dose of the grotesque and gothic. The reader takes a melancholy journey to a shabby building and shabbier flat, seeing along the way, and once there, the sordid condi tions and abject poverty of the inhabitants—in this case of a dying;actor and his family. The journey sets the mood for what is to happen later and is another representation of the general motif of the revealing journey.

It was late, for I /the narrator of the tale/ had been playing in the last piece; and as it was a benefit night, the performances had been protracted to an unusual length. It was a dark cold night, with a chill damp wind, which blew the rain heavily against the windows and house fronts. Pools of water had collected in the narrow and little- frequented streets, and as many of the thinly-scattered oil-lamps had been blown out by the violence of the wind, the walk was not only a comfortless, but most uncertain one. I had fortunately taken the right course, however, and succeeded, after a little difficulty, in finding the house to which I had been directed--a coal shed, with one story above it, in the back room of which lay the object of my search.

A wretched-looking woman, the man’s wife, met me on the stairs, and, telling me that he had just fallen into a kind of doze, led me softly in, and placed a chair for me at the bedside. The sick man

25 Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph, I, pp. 163-64. 62

was lying with his face turned towards the wall; and as he took no heed of my presence, I had leisure to observe the place in which I found myself.

He was lying on an old bedstead, which turned up during the day. The tattered remains of a checked curtain were drawn round the bed’s head, to exclude the wind, which however made its way into the comfort less room through the numerous chinks in the door, and blew it to and fro every instant. There was a low fire in a rusty unfixed grate; and an old three-cornered stained table, with some medicine bottles, a broken glass, and few other domestic articles, was drawn out before it. A little child was sleeping on a temporary bed which had been made for it on the floor, and the woman sat on a chair by its side. There were a couple of shelves, with a few plates and cups and saucers: and a pair of stage shoes and a couple of foils hung beneath them. With the exception of little heaps of rags and bundles which had been carelessly thrown into t^g corners of the room, these were the only things in the apartment.

The element that makes this tale stand out from the Papers so strongly is the naturalistic description that Dickens uses in drawing the place, the people, and the death of the actor. (By naturalistic description I mean a specific selection and coloring of only certain details of any scene, specifically a subjective description, and pointedly not an objective de scription,which might also include pleasant details. It is a special man agement of all the objective elements of a scene to present only those elements that the author wants for his particular purposes. As an example of another form of subjective description, an author in the proper frame of mind, say a romanticist, might be able to travel through a ghetto and find only beautiful, or quaint, or picturesque things there, or he might for his purposes select only these details, if present, or color some of the details to make them picturesque.)

A somewhat similar situation is evident in Oliver Twist, where humor is blended with horror. For example, Oliver and Mr. Sowerberry, the

26 Pickwick Papers, pp. 39-40. 63

undertaker, make a journey much like that in "The Stroller’s Tale" and

much like that in "The Drunkard’s Death."

They walked on, for some time, through the most crowded and densely inhabited part of the town; and then, striking down a narrow street more dirty and miserable than any they had yet passed through, paused to look for the house which was the object of their search. The houses on either side were high and large, but very old; and tenanted by people of the poorest class: as their neglected appearance would have sufficiently denoted, without the concurrent testimony afforded by the squalid looks of the few men and women who, with folded arms and bodies half doubled, occasionally skulked along. A great many of the tenements had shopfronts; but these were fast closed, and mouldering away: only the upper rooms being inhabited. Some houses which had become insecure from age and decay, were prevented from falling into the street, by huge beams of wood reared against the walls, and firmly planted in the road; but even these crazy dens seemed to have been selected as the nightly haunts of some homeless wretches; for many of the rough boards, which supplied the place of door and window, were wrenched from their position, to afford an aperture wide enough for the passage of a human body. The kennel was stagnant and filthy. The very rats, which here and there lay putrefying in its rottenness, were hideous with famine.27

Their purpose, of course, is to retrieve a cadaver. "There was no fire

in the room; but a man was crouching, mechanically, over the empty stove.

An old woman, too had drawn a low stool to the cold hearth; and was sitting beside him. There were some ragged children in another corner; and in a

small recess, opposite the door, there lay upon the ground, something cov- 28 ered with an old blanket." The journey has prepared us for what is about to happen and it establishes a mood of decay that logically can only end with "death." This relationship, noted above, indicates that a "technique" of description may be a germ as well, but there is another interesting apsect to the tale.

^Oliver Twist, pp. 30-31.

28 Oliver Twist, p. 31. 64

In the tale the dying actor has brought his family to its present state by his addiction to alcohol. A major part of his present "illness" is the heavy burden of guilt he bears. He feels his wife is going to kill him: "’She does hurt me. There's something in her eyes wakes such a dread ful fear in my heart, that it drives me mad. All last night, her large staring eyes and pale face were close to mine; wherever I turned, they turned; and whenever I started up from my sleep, she was at the bedside 29 looking at me.’" The actor eventually dies at the end of a hideous de lirium.

The primary motif of "The Stroller’s Tale" is the torture caused by a guilty conscience. Sikes suffers a special form of psychological torture for the death of Nancy, and the most striking similar element in the two works is that the eyes of the "victim" are the agency for torturing the guilty. After Sikes has murdered Nancy he is primarily aware of her eyes. "He had not moved; he had been afraid to stir. There had been a moan and motion of the hand; and, with terror added to hate, he had struck and struck again. Once he threw a rug over it; but it was worse to fancy the eyes, and imagine them moving towards him, than to see them glaring upward, as if watching the reflection of the pool of gore that quivered 30 and danced in the sunlight on the ceiling." Sikes wanders aimlessly but he cannot escape the eyes.

For now, a vision came before him, as constant and more terrible than that from which he had escaped. Those widely staring eyes, so lustreless and so glossy, that he had better borne to see them than

29 Pickwick Papers, p. 41.

3(101iver Twist, p. 323. 65

think upon them, appeared in the midst of the darkness: light in them selves, but giving light to nothing. There were but two, but they were everywhere. If he shut out the sight, there came from the room with every well-known object—some, indeed, that he would have forgotten, if he had gone over its contents from memory—each in its accustomed place. The body was in its place, and its eyes were as he saw them when he stole away. He got up, and rushed into the field without. The figure was behind him. He re-entered the shed, and shrunk dow^ once more. The eyes were there, before he had lain himself along.

A developmental variation from "The Stroller’s Tale" is that the "eyes" that pursue Sikes become disembodied. As Sikes flees he finds himself atop a crumbling warehouse on Jacob’s Island while a bloodthirsty mob below is clamoring for his capture. "At that very instant the murderer, looking behind him on the roof, threw his arms above his head, and uttered a yell 32 of terror. 'The eyes again!’ he cried, in an unearthly screech." The reader assumes that his remembrance, or the "appearance" of Nancy’s eyes startled Sikes from the roof of the building to his death.

In Oliver Twist the motif of "guilt" is better developed—it is more forceful, and in itself greater than in the tale. Fagin is the prime example. He shares complicity with Sikes in Nancy’s death because it is he who sends Noah to spy, and then of course there are his designs upon

Oliver. Fagin recalls all of his evil deeds, especially those that caused men to be sent to the gallows. Like the actor, Fagin seems eventually driven mad as he spends his last night upon earth. "At one time he raved and blasphemed; and at another howled and tore his hair." Like the dying actor, Fagin is periodically agitated. "Now, he started up, every minute,

^Oliver Twist, pp. 327-28.

32 Oliver Twist, p. 347. 33 Oliver Twist, p. 361. 66 and with gasping mouth and burning skin, hurried to and fro, in such a paroxysm of fear and wrath that even they /turnkeys/-—used to such sights— recoiled from him with horror. He grew so terrible, at last, in all the tortures of his evil conscience, that one man could not bear to sit there, 34 eyeing him alone; and so the two kept watch together." Fagin’s guilt and anguish are unsurpassed. Dickens writes, "Those dreadful walls of

Newgate, which have hidden so much misery and such unspeakable anguish, not only from the eyes, but, too often and too long, from the thoughts, 35 of men, never held so dread a spectacle as that."

"The Convict’s Return" presents another study of guilt. The central characters are a brutish, wife-beating husband, an ill-treated wife, and their sensitive, impressionable young son. As the child grows to manhood he turns to crime, apparently because of the conditions at home. He is arrested and at first condemned, but then his sentence is commuted to trans portation for fourteen years. The young man is sent off; and during this time his mother dies. When the convict returns years later, he meets his father, who upon recognizing his son, bursts a blood vessel and falls a dead man. An autopsy, if it could reveal these things, would show that the cause of death was guilt over what he had caused his son to be rather than advanced arteriosclerosis. This tale deals with the nature of evil and the workings of the criminal mind. The reader sees a man suffering from guilt, but in the tale it is in the stage of a seedling compared to the way it is developed in the stories of Sikes and Fagin.

^Oliver Twist, p. 361.

^^Oliver Twist, p. 361. 67

An important aspect of this tale is the parent vs. child motif which

has implications for many of Dickens’ other works. The convict may be the

first of the "organic" symbols or motifs that Dickens uses throughout, in

this case, "the outcast child." For example, in "The Drunkard’s Death,"

the last of the Boz tales, a drunken father indirectly causes his son to

turn criminal. When the father commits suicide he is maddened, of course, by alcoholism--but also by the realization of what he had caused his son to be. In a manner of speaking, the son causes the father’s death. In

"The Stroller's Tale," which is actually about a drunkard’s death, the actor is hastened to his end by guilt over his treatment of his wife and child. (The sex of the child is not known--it is possibly another elemental germ of the general motif of the ill-treated child.) In "The Convict’s

Return" a son, somewhat less indirectly, causes his father’s death. In

"The Old Man's Tale about the Queer Client" or "Heyling's Story"--to be treated later—a man is imprisoned for debt by his father-in-law, and his own father will not help him financially. Heyling's real father dies before he can disinherit him leaving Heyling rich and most importantly, free.

Heyling uses his new wealth to track his father-in-law down and ruin him financially. Heyling so hounds the old man that he dies. In other words,

Heyling has almost directly killed his father(-in-law). Steven Marcus notes,

The story of Heyling is one of three interpolated tales in the novel in which a grossly wicked father dies: in "The Stroller's Tale" (ch. 3) and "The Convict's Return" (ch. 6) fathers who have injured their children are also paid in kind—and the stories of Heyling and "The Convict's Return" both end in symbolic patricide. Three other tales take up similar situations: "The Madman's Manuscript", "The Parish Clerk" and "The Legend of Prince Bladud", each of which concerns the humiliation and crip^ing influence that a powerful, denying father inflicts upon a son.

36pickens: from Pickwick to Dombey (New York: Basic Books Incorporated, 1965), p. 42. 68

While Marcus is on the whole correct, I fail to see the "powerful,

denying" father in "The Madman's Manuscript." The madman has inherited

his mental disease from his grandfather, through his father, but otherwise

his father is absent from the tale. The only other "father" is the parent

of the madman's bride who is old and white-haired, and who marries his

daughter to the madman out of financial desperation. In "The Parish Clerk"

there is a powerful father but he has only a daughter who is the object

of attention of Nathaniel Pipkin (the parish clerk). Pipkin is denied

Maria Lobbs' hand, but he does rise in esteem with old Lobbs and even takes

a pipe and pint with him. In a sense old Lobbs does deny Pipkin and there

is a symbolic atonement between "father" and "son." In "The Legend of

Prince Bladud" there is a power father--in fact he is a king. He has chosen a bride for his son but the complication is that Prince Bladud loves some one else. When he reveals he will not marry the bride his father has chosen, he is imprisoned. Prince Bladud escapes and wanders over the kingdom, but his father will not give up the prerogative of choosing his son's bride.

The king is powerful and he does deny. This motif of the child vs. parent is quite apparently related to the blacking warehouse experience. John

Dickens seemingly was blithely unaware of Charles' desire to be educated and become a gentleman. When John saw his son on "public display" the row that followed with James Lamert caused Charles to lose his place. But it was Charles' mother, unsure of their new financial position, who petitioned

Lamert to let Charles continue working. David Copperfield shows us some thing of the devastating psychological effect that his experience in the warehouse had on him. In these tales Dickens is working on his dominant theme: that of parents who deny their children or otherwise mistreat them 69

(most developed and precisely delineated in David Copperfield.and Little

Dorrit).

Besides the "powerful-denying father" there is in this tale another

important germ. In "The Convict's Return" the reader observes in an un

developed state the "cause" of someone turning to crime, the germ for the

later study of the "sociological" criminal. The young man in the story

apparently turned to crime because of the conditions of his early home

life (and possibly because of his heredity). To the story teller (the

old clergyman) the cause is a mystery, but to the reader it is apparent.

Dickens must be primarily aware of the causes because of his use of them

in greater detail in later works. The tale contains this explanation about

the young man.

Shall I tell you, that the young man, who, looking back to the earliest of his childhood's days to which memory and consciousness extended, and carrying his recollection down to that moment, could remember nothing which was not in some way connected with a long series of voluntary privations suffered by his mother for his sake, with ill- usage, and insult, and violence, and all endured for him;--shall I tell you, that he, with a reckless disregard of her breaking heart, and a sullen willful forgetfulness of all she had done for him, had linked himself with depraved and abandoned men, and was madly pursuing a headlong career, which must bring death to him, and shame^^o her? Alas for human nature! You have anticipated it long sinch.

The old clergyman is of course concerned about the son's ingratitude, but

the young man's actions do not seem so strange if his earliest memories

are of privation, ill-usage, insult, and violence. Also, the tale teller

says, "Alas for human nature!" and this reminds us that there may be some mental predisposition in his nature that could have been inherited. He, in his crime, is as cruel to his mother as his father had been, though, this could also have been a learned reaction.

37 Pickwick Papers,p. 82. 70

The other sociological criminal in Dickens is of course the returned

convict—Abel Magwitch. When Magwitch tells the story of his life it can

actually be put in few words, "In jail and out of jail, in jail and out 38 of.jail, in jail and out of jail." Magwitch goes on to say, "I’ve no more notion where I was born, than you have—if so much. I first become

aware of myself, down in Essex, a thieving turnips for my living. Summun had run away from me—a man—a tinker—and he’d took the fire with him, 39 and left me wery cold." It is significant that Magwitch must steal in order to live. Magwitch ends up under the sentance of transportation tak ing most of the blame for Compeyson, and getting twice as many years, one could say because of what he was born with, and to what conditions he was born. Magwitch relates,

When we was put in the dock, I noticed first of all what a gentle man Compeyson looked, wi' his curly hair and his black clothes and his white pocket-handkercher, and what a common sort of wretch I looked. When the prosecution opened and the evidence was put short, aforehand, I noticed how heavy it all bore on me, and how light on him. When evidence was giv in the box, I noticed how it was always me that had come for'ard and could be swore to, how it was always me that the money had been paid to, how it was always me that had seemed to work the thing and get the profit. But, when the defence come on, then I see the plan plainer; for, says the counsellor for Compeyson, "My lord and gentlemen, here you has afore you, side by side, two persons as your eyes can separate wide; one, the younger, well brought up, who will be spoke to as such; one, the elder, ill brought up, who will be spoke to as such; one, the younger, seldom if ever seen in these here transactions, and only suspected; t’other, the elder, always in ’em and always wi’ his guilt brought home. Can you doubt, if there is but one in it, which is the one, and, if there is two in it, which is much the worst one?" And such-like. And when it come to character warn’t it Compeyson as had been to school, and warn’t it his school fellows as was in this position and that, and warn’t it him as had

38 Great Expectations (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1965), p. 360.

on Great Expectations, p. 360. 71

been know’d by witnesses in such clubs and societies, and nowt to his disadvantage? And wam't it me as had been tried afore, and as had been know'd up hill and down dale in Bridewells and Lock-Ups? And when it come to speech-making, warn't it Compeyson as could speak to 'em wi' his face dropping every now and then into his white pocket- handkercher--oh! and wi' verses in his speech, too--and warn't it me as could,only say, "Gentlemen, this man at my side is a most precious rascal"?

To sum his observations, Magwitch looks to be more of a criminal, Compeyson

is handsome and has the looks of a gentleman. Compeyson has outwitted

Magwitch. He has so arranged the scheme that Magwitch is the visible partner.

Compeyson is at least more cunning than Magwitch. Compeyson is "well brought up," and he has been to school, and he has influential friends to vouch for him. Magwitch is a hardened criminal; he has a record, his "friends" are of no help. Compeyson has the gift of clever speech either naturally or learned, and Magwitch is inarticulate at least when it comes to influencing judges. Magwitch's handicap in expression is either natural or "learned."

In the tale one of the most striking and unexplainable things /from the viewpoint of the story teller/ is that the young man turns to crime. Even though his father was a brute he had the example of his mother's patience, industry, long-suffering, and virtue. In the tale old Edmunds is called a "savage-hearted" man and there is the slightest intimation that the boy has inherited something in his "nature" from his father. In the tale there is also the slightest indication that when the young man turns to crime he is being driven, possibly by powers beyond his control. Even an amateur psychologist would point an accusing finger at the conditions of his early life--the difference between the tale and the picture of Magwitch is that young Edmunds had a good example, and an abundant supply of love and con-

^®Great Expectations, pp. 364-65. 72

cern, all from the mother. By the accident of his birth and by the forces

of his environment it is "determined" that Magwitch will be a criminal,

and will be thought of as a criminal. As a result of this Magwitch is

given twice the number of years (fourteen) of transportation as Compeyson,

and incidentally the same sentence given to the young man in the tale.

Another motif that Dickens is working with in this tale and then

uses later in Great Expectations is the "effect" on others of the returned

convict. In the tale the convict's father falls dead upon their meeting— probably from the combined effects of guilt (over what he had caused his

son to be) and also shock mixed with fear. When Pip's convict returns on

a dark and stormy night, Pip's first reaction is fear and shock. Magwitch, of course, presents a menacing demeanor, and when Pip recognizes his visitor as a convict he is revulsed. And this is all only prelude to the crushing effect on Pip when he finds Magwitch is the author of his great expecta tions .

"A Madman's Manuscript" is a tale that deals with horror, insanity, and murder. Told at a frantic pace, resembling the ravings of a madman, it is a good clinical description of paranoia, schizophrenia, and homicidal mania. In the tale when the madman is about to slit his wife's throat he meets her eyes and they have a strange effect on him. "One motion of my hand, and she would never have uttered a cry or sound. But I was star tled and drew back. Her eyes were fixed on mine, I know not how it was, 41 but they cowed and frightened me; and I quailed beneath them." It may be a feeling of guilt that temporarily stays the madman's razor or it may be that in Dickens' view the eyes of the victim have an unusual punishing

^Pickwick Papers, pp. 154-55. 73

effect on a character who could not be affected by guilt in the usual sense

(see the treatment of "A Stroller's Tale" and its relationship to Sikes in Oliver Twist).

The central character is an out-and-out murderous madman; there is no study of motivation and there is no understanding of the character.

I think it can be observed that there is no study of the motivation of a madman like Sikes, or Orlick, or Quilp. On the other hand Bradley Head stone of Our Mutual Friend is the furthest in Dickens of the portrayal of the murderous madman. In the ultimate development of the madman one can see the things that Dickens was primarily concerned with in this portrayal.

Dickens studies Headstone, and his motivations are apparent. Dickens also seems to use Headstone for very specific thematic and structural purposes.

Headstone is dangerous and unstable because of his passion for a woman, and because of his intense jealousy of Eugene Wrayburn. In his passionate 42 actions he is something of a foil to the phlegmatic and jaded Eugene.

What motivates Headstone is his anger over his lower class background; and

Eugene, of course, goads him to "madness." When Eugene decides that the only way he can have Lizzy is by seducing her, he is almost immediately 43 attacked by Headstone—retributively, at least in Dickens’ view.

By the "time" of Bradley Headstone a lot of things have transpired and it might be more instructive to look at some intervening madmen who are more on the model of the central character in "A Madman’s Manuscript."

There are a number of madmen in Dickens who are not well motivated and

/ o Taylor Stoehr, Dickens: The Dreamer's Stance (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1965), p. 222. 43 Stoehr, p. 214. 74

seem therefore as mere evil forces of nature. There is Sikes, of course,

and then Orlick who murders Mrs. Joe and attempts to murder Pip. Mrs.

Joe has cut Orlick and he seems jealous of Pip, even though it is Joe who

lays hands on him. Orlick has no powerful motive for vengeance even though

his vengeance is terrible. In Great Expectations Orlick is the constant

evil presence underlying a fairly consistent tone of comedy. Jonas Chuzzle-

wit is not a complex character, he is miserly and brutish, and ill-treats

his wife. He leads his life by the motto "Do other men; for they would

do you." Jonas assumes he has murdered his father, he actually murders

Tigg in a cunning manner, is discovered, and before he can be carried off

in chains poisons himself. Jonas’s only motivation seems greed, and again

he is an example of a totally evil person whose motivations are not fully

understood unless one allows for madness. Quilp, in his very appearance,

seems to be the manifestation of the evil criminal, he is described as

hideous, "sly and cunning," and "grotesque."" Quilp is into all sorts of

crime and eventually drowns trying to evade the police. His motivations

are not studied; again he seems to be a mere evil force of nature.

In contrast to "The Madman’s Manuscript," "The Bagman's Story" is

a tale with a happy ending that concerns a strange dream of Tom Smart--at

least that is one way to explain the queer chair that turns into an old man. Tom assumes it is a dream but there is a reality in the dream that turns to Tom’s advantage. He uses information from the "chair" to depose the nearest suitor to the proprietress of the inn at which he is staying, and he then substitutes himself in that position.

Dorothy Van Ghent has noted in the works of Dickens, especially

Great Expectations, the motif of things that resemble people, essentially, 75 44 "The animation of inanimate objects . . ." The purpose of this motif,

she observes, is to indict a society that has turned people into objects;

the inanimate turned animate is a mirror reflection of the "thingness" of 45 people. When Tom Smart first sees the queer chair in his room it has

human characteristics, "What struck Tom's fancy most was a strange, grim-

looking high-backed chair, carved in the most fantastic manner, with a

flowered damask cushion, and the round knobs at the bottom of the legs 46 carefully tied up in red cloth, as if it had got the gout in its toes."

In this instance the chair, in Tom Smart's eyes, turns completely human.

"Tom gazed at the chair; and, suddenly as he looked at it, a most extra

ordinary change seemed to come over it. The carving of the back gradually

assumed the lineaments and expression of an old shrivelled human face; the

damask cushion became an antique, flapped waistcoat; the round knobs grew

into a couple of feet, encased in red cloth slippers; and the old chair 47 looked like a very ugly old man. . . ." Oliver, too, is aware of in

animate objects that take on a certain animation.

Oliver, being left to himself in the undertaker's shop, set the lamp down on a workman's bench and gazed timidly about him with a feel ing of awe and dread... . . An unfinished coffin on black tressels, which stood in the middle of the shop, looked so gloomy and deathlike that a cold tremble came over him, every time his eyes wandered in the direction of the dismal object: from which he almost expected to see some frightful form slowly rear its head, to drive him mad with terror. Against the wall, were ranged, in regular array, a long row of elm boards cut into the same shape: looking, in the dim light, li^g high shouldered ghosts with their hands in their breeches-pockets.

^The English Novel: Form and Function (New York: Rinehart & Company Inc., 1953), p. 129.

^van Ghent, p. 129. 46 Pickwick Papers, p. 197. 47 Pickwick Papers. p. 198.

^Oliver Twist, p. 25. 76

When Dickens describes the den of Fagin he writes, "Several rough beds 49 made of old sacks, were huddled side by side on the floor . . ." In

this same room Fagin turns human beings into objects. "The Bagman’s Story"

contains the elemental germ of the "inanimate made animate" motif that becomes organic or constant in the novels of Dickens. I believe the tale is extremely important because we see Dickens’ first use of this particular motif. In the tale it seems merely grotesque and gothic, and a good device for telling an interesting tale. Later this motif becomes a basic way of seeing the world, and it has a specific relationship to another of the dominant themes of Dickens. As mentioned, Dorothy Van Ghent sees this

"thingness of people’’ as all-important to the novels. This tale is also another example of a technique that may be a germ as well.

"The Parish Clerk: A Tale of True Love" returns to family relation ships. It concerns Nathaniel Pipkins’ unrequited love for Maria Lobbs.

Pipkin is conned by Maria and her "wicked" cousin to no specific purpose-- except maybe for a practical joke. In any case Nathaniel Pipkin loses his girl but he does not lose his life at the hands of the fearsome Mr. Lobbs.

Pipkin loses the girl of his dreams, but he rises in favor with old Lobbs and becomes his good friend; as mentioned earlier there seems to be a symbolic atonement. The reader knows of course that Lobbs is very wealthy.

Dickens also uses the motif of a very rich curmudgeon who turns into some thing less of a curmudgeon. This motif is taken up in the story of Gabriel

Grub, and Dickens develops it further in the later works, especially A

Christmas Carol.

^Oliver Twist, p. 50. 77

"The Old Man’s Tale about the Queer Client" or simply the story

of "Heyling" strongly foreshadows the themes that are to be used in Oliver

Twist. Heyling is thrown into prison because he cannot pay his debt to

his father-in-law. While ha is in prison Heyling sees his wife and child

die because he cannot support them. Heyling’s own father will offer no

support either. Heyling makes a "terrible oath" that he will devote his

life to seeking vengeance on the man who had had him imprisoned. Fate

throws this man in Heyling’s way. After Heyling is released (his father

dies and he inherits all his money because the old man had inadvertently

not changed his will) he goes to the seashore to recuperate. During a

solitary walk he hears a man calling for help because his son is drowning.

Heyling recognizes the supplicator as his father-in-law. Heyling makes

his presence known and does nothing to save the boy, actually his wife’s

brother. Heyling says, "I will have life for life." Years later Heyling

buys up his former tormentor’s notes at double and triple their price and

eventually he calls them due. His adversary then flees, but Heyling re

lentlessly tracks him to "a wretched lodging in Camden Town." Heyling

informs the old man that he is now to be imprisoned for debt, but the old man dies before he can be carried off.

Dickens writes of the "implacable animosity of Heyling," precisely what motivates Monks in Oliver Twist:

"I swore to her, if ever it /Oliver/ crossed by path, to hunt it down; never to let it rest; to pursue it with the bitterest and most unrelenting animosity; to vent upon it the hatred that I deeply felt, and to spit upon the empty vaunt of that insulting will by dragging it, if I could, to the very gallows foot."5®

-^Oliver Twist, p. 352. 78

Both Monks and Heyling are driven by implacable hatred to gain vengeance.

There is a family relationship involved in both vendettas. Heyling's wife and child have died and he "will have life for life." But Monks is some thing of a variation. One of the most powerful themes in Dickens' book is to what lengths men are driven because of avariciousness: Sikes and

Bumble and Noah, and above all, Fagin. Monks is driven to implacable re venge partly by avarice, an important difference between him and Heyling.

If Oliver can be brought to the "gallows foot," Monks will benefit, at least by the provisions of the will. Also Monks is goaded by the "challenge" of the will; to him it is an "empty vaunt" and "insulting." Monks is visited by a physical manifestation of his greed-hatred. He merely sets eyes upon

Oliver in a market town and falls into a convulsive fit. This psychoso matic manifestation seems something in addition over the pure revenge of

Heyling. To complicate matters further, Oliver is Monks' half-brother.

In other words there is some blood relationship between the two. This has the primary effect of compounding the crime and also introduces into the novel, at least symbolically, another study of family relationships.

Sikes is another character like Heyling who is motivated by intense hatred and implacable revenge. Fagin is in constant fear of Sikes, and this is the only thing that keeps Fagin's loyalty. Oliver's loyalty to

Sikes is enforced by the threat of immediate death. When Nancy aids Oliver and in so doing betrays Sikes, his revenge is maniacal. Sikes goes even further than Heyling's "life for a life." When Sikes finds he has been

"peached" upon by Nancy he explodes; "'Hell's fire!'" he cries, and sets off to have his revenge. 79

Without one pause, or moment’s consideration; without once turn ing his head to the right, or left, or raising his eyes to the sky, or lowering them to the ground, but looking straight before him with savage resolution: his teeth so tightly compressed that the strained jaw seemed starting through his skin; the robber held on his headlong course, nor muttered a word, nor relaxed a muscle, until he reached his own door. He opened it, softly, with a key; strode lightly up the stairs; and entering his own room, double-locked the door, and lifting a heavy table against it, drew back the curtain of the bed.

Without much further ado he murders Nancy.

There is in the short story an almost untenable amount of chance.

The fact that Heyling stumbles upon his antagonist at the very moment the old man’s son is drowning seems highly contrived, though extremely dramatic.

There are also a number of fantastic coincidences in Oliver Twist (e.g., that the "Dodger" should pick Mr. Brownlow as his first victim when tutor ing Oliver) as there are in many of the later novels--in this instance it could almost be considered a standard device in the novels of Dickens, and in the Victorian novel. Consider the part that chance plays in Great Ex pectations and in Little Dorrit. In Oliver Twist Dickens makes some attempt to explain the chance. Mr. Brownlow in the showdown with Monks says that 52 Oliver "was cast in my way by a stronger hand than chance. ..." In the tale Dickens makes no explanations; it is difficult to see Heyling as an agent of the "stronger hand than chance." One could say that in the tale there is "gratuitous" coincidence. According to Sylv^re Monod that which surrounds the tale, Pickwick»Papers, is full of gratuitous coinci dences .

Chance encounters and coincidences of every description are in fact the youthful novelist’s supreme resource to extricate himself and his

^Oliver Twist, p. 321.

^Oliver Twist, p. 335. 80

characters out of every difficult situation; chance is the omnipotent deus ex machina of his plots; it is by chance that Jingle overhears the conversation between Wardle’s mother and the fat boy (in the course of which the latter reports what he himself has by chance overheard going on between Tupman and Rachael); it is by chance that Sam Weller finds in Bristol the maidservant of Ipswich, and by chance that her neighbor is the future Mrs. Winkle. 5

On the other hand, in the opinion of Steven Marcus, "coincidence" has an unusual role in Oliver Twist.

On closer inspection, however, these coincidences, especially in Oliver Twist, are entirely appropriate to the kind of reality Dickens is concerning himself with, and to the sense of life he is trying to communicate. The coincidences in Oliver Twist are of too cosmic an order to belong in the category of the fortuitous. . . . The popula tion of Oliver Twist consists only of persons—the wicked and the beneficient—involved with the fate of the hero. There are, almost, no other sorts of people in it; and in a world where there ig^no acci<- dental population, no encounter can be called a coincidence.

Taylor Stoehr makes this observation about coincidence in other of Dickens’ novels.

The whole narrative /A Tale of Two Cities/ is webbed with . . . interconnections, based always on the foreshadowing or echoing detail. Such repetitions have the obvious function of promoting the unity and probability of the novels, but an even more important result is the creation of a density of atmosphere beyond the power of mere verisi militude or circumstantiality to achieve: we are presented with a cosmos everywhere interdependent, so that even objects in the land scape contribute to the sense of an interlocking system. With their multiple linkages, the "unnecessary detail" and the "needless ramifi cations" of Dickens’ style and plot provide the very fiber and fabric of his tightly knit world. The notorious coincidences of his novels are not the weak expedients of melodrama, but have behind them this same cosmic rational.5“*

If in the tale chance is a melodramatic convenience, by the time of the

"later" novels (including Oliver Twist) Dickens makes coincidence serve a thematic purpose. The tale along with the novels that followed it show

53 Dickens as Novelist, p. 100.

^Dickens: from Pickwick to Dombey, pp. 78-79.

^Dickens: The Dreamer’s Stance, p. 9. 81

Dickens hard at work with this fictional device. If Heyling's chance en

counter is part of a cosmic order, the tale, in this sense, still repre

sents a constant tendency or aspect of Dickens' work.

In the next tale in the series Dickens goes off on a different

tangent altogether. "The Goblins Who Stole a Sexton" is about one Gabriel

Grub, a morose, moody, "bah! humbug" sort who especially dislikes happy

children and who is greatly comforted by thoughts of measles, scarlet fever,

and whooping cough. On Christmas eve with no other companion than a bottle

of Hollands, Gabriel goes to the local churchyard to dig graves. On the way

there he meets a young lad who is singing a cheerful Christmas song. Gab

riel's reaction is to lie in ambush and then rap the young man soundly

over the head with his lantern. Gabriel takes great pride and pleasure

in digging graves. He laughs at the thought of a "Christmas coffin" or

"Christmas box." Almost pro forma the goblins appear and spirit Gabriel

away to a large cavern. The goblins by aid of a thick cloud at one end

of the cavern show Gabriel scenes of a happy family, but the scene changes

and Gabriel sees the "youngest child" dying in bed and the resultant sor

rows of the rest of the family. The "cloud" brings many a lesson to Gab

riel. He then awakens in the graveyard wondering if he had only dreamed

a dream of a goblin's coven. But like Goodman Brown he is an altered man.

Gabriel then wanders for a period of years and eventually returns to the village to tell his story. The "youngest child" dying in bed in this tale

seems to be the organic symbol of the victimized child that Dickens brings

first into clear focus in Oliver Twist, but this tale of course has its most important relationship to A Christmas Carol, written in 1843 some

seven years after the Pickwick Papers. 82

The Carol seems the result of a long line of development. Nico-

demus Dumps (from "The Bloomsbury Christening") is a good example of a

curmudgeon. Lobbs ("The Parish Clerk") is a rich curmudgeon who changes

slightly. Gabriel Grub is a misanthropic curmudgeon who is transformed

into a much wiser man. In A Christmas Carol Scrooge is completely trans

formed by his experiences from a curmudgeon into the opposite—a joyous

man, and one who brings joy to others. Scrooge is a product of the germs

of Dumps, Lobbs, and Grub.

The way the lessons are taught seems to be more sophisticated in

the Carol. The mists of the cave are probably Dickens’ way of crudely

rendering some sort of autonomous psychological process that might be called

conscience or self-examination. There is a hint that Grub might be having a drunken dream (he had finished the bottle of Hollands) but the ghosts of the Carol seem more certainly creatures of Scrooge's own mind. The quaint, rather than horrible, goblins reinforce the messages of the cloud by planting numerous kicks on Gabriel’s person. Gabriel is shown a number of scenes, almost all cliches, demonstrating the value of perserverance, happiness, peace, indomitableness, and love; also he is shown the meanness of being mean and solitary on Christmas, and above all he is shown--and concludes that—"it was a very decent and respectable sort of world after all,"56 Gabriel awakes, "He was an altered man, and he could not bear the thought of returning to a place where his repentance would be scoffed at, and his reformation disbelieved. He hesitated for a few mo ments; and then turned to wander where he might and seek his bread else-

56Pickwick Papers, pp. 431-32. 83 where.It seems that Gabriel is still affected by a certain amount of pride.

Scrooge is the epitome of curmudgeonliness. He "was a tightfisted hand at the grindstone. Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scrap ing, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, 58 and solitary as an oyster." To a cheery Christmas greeting Scrooge re plies, "Bah! Humbug!" Grub is a misanthrope who is solitary and spite ful on Christmas, Scrooge is a misanthrope who ignores Christmas, and as an enlargement he is also miserly.

Scrooge's reformation is handled differently. The ghosts of Marley, and Christmas Past, Present, and Future more than the "cloud" render to

Scrooge precisely what he was, what he is, and will become. Scrooge's change develops through the experiences with the spirits, and as a sophis tication, of a more fateful nature, Scrooge is shown the certainty of his own death, and the fact that he will be quickly forgotten. I think there is a strong indication in the Carol that the spirits are figments conjured up in Scrooge's own mind; he sees scenes from his own experiences—they are elements induced by a self-examination, triggered possibly by the ef fects of the Christmas season. On the other hand Grub's scenes are handled as moral abstractions.

When Grub awakens after his experience he wanders away unable to face those who would note the change in him; Scrooge, unlike Grub, when

57pjckwick Papers, p. 432.

^Christmas Books (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 8. 84

he awakens on Christmas day, repents to those he has most wronged. His

reformation is witnessed by those who would be least likely to believe

it.

The Interpolated Tales in Nicholas Nickleby

The two interpolated tales in Nicholas Nickleby are frame tales—

those told by travellers at an inn waiting for a coach. The tales are

foils to each other—"The Five Sisters of York" being a predominantly

melancholy tale and the story of "The Baron of Grogzwig" one which em

phasizes hope and the indomitable spirit. "The Five Sisters of York" is

something of a "legend" story very much like the tale of Prince Bladud

(number eight of the nine Pickwick tales). This story explains how there

came to be a window called the "Five Sisters" in the Cathedral at York.

The tale deals with the passage of time, the brevity of human life and

the futility of human endeavor—a cliche from beginning to end. It is

also a little anti-clerical; no matter what troubles the sisters have they

do not give in to institutionalized religion—in the good times and the bad they stay away from the church.

The next story recounts how the Baron Von Koeldwethout’s life comes crashing down around him. The Baron, late at night, deciding on suicide, is visited by a supernatural creature called the "Genius of Despair and

Suicide." This is very similar to another midnight spiritual appearance that significantly changes a man’s outlook, demonstrating that Dickens is keeping the "Grub" motif alive. As the story progresses the Baron slowly takes heart and realizes that, "nothing is too bad to be retrieved."

59Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (National Library Edition), p. 99. 85

The Baron’s laughter frightens the horrible genius off, and there is a moral

tag at the end—"don't despair"--but the theme of the story is best stated by the teller in the frame. "The good in this state of existence prepon

derates over the bad, let mis-called philosophers tell us what they will.

If our affections be tried, our affections are our consolation and comfort; and memory, however sad, is the best and purest link between this world 60 and a better." This statement, though sounding like a platitude, can be seen as one of the significant messages or themes of the two earlier novels and some of the later as well. In the Pickwick Papers "the good preponderates over the bad." The Papers show the reader scoundrelly conmen, scoundrelly lawyers, and scoundrelly politicians; and Mr. Pickwick even does a stretch in prison, but the book’s emphasis is upon good and the fact that things turn out for the best. In Oliver Twist the good wins out over the evil, even though it doesn’t "preponderate." Oliver is a pawn between the forces of good and the forces of evil, and in the book there is a narrow decision for "good." In Nicholas Nickleby one could say that the good pre- pbhdefates over the bad, while in The Old Curiosity Shop as in other of the earlier novels Dickens seems strident about virtue and the fact that it should win out over "the bad." He has even been accused of creating

"monsters of virtue." As the novels progress the good no longer is even narrowly superior to evil, and Dickens creates islands of goodness in a sea of evil. By the time of Little Dorrit, and Our Mutual Friend these islands of goodness seem smaller and farther apart.

60Nicholas Nickleby, p. 88. 86

A Chip from the Plot of Martin Chuzzlewit

Jonas Chuzzlewit, as mentioned earlier, is a murderous madman.

If there is any motive to his attempts at murder, and then actual murder,

it is greed, and an attempt to cover up his previous "crime." Jonas, in

somewhat of a hurry to inherit from his father, attempts to poison the

old man. The attempt is discovered by a faithful servant, Chuffey, who

thwarts the plot and informs Anthony. A few days later Anthony dies of

natural causes and Jonas assumes he has succeeded in murder. Later Jonas

is involved in a number of schemes with a fake life insurance company (the

Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Insurance Company). And later

besides ill-treating his wife he carries out a clever murder of a partner.

Near the end of the novel there is an indication that he might have mur

dered old Chuffey but for the timely intervention of Mrs. Gamp. Shortly

thereafter Jonas is cornered by Nadgett, old Martin, young Martin, Mark

Tapely, Martin Lewsome, and Chevy Slyme. Nadgett in a classic unravelling reveals how Jonas had murdered Montague. Jonas is unmasked and discovered a murderer, but before he can be carried off in chains, he commits suicide by poison.

Hunt ed Down by Dickens first appeared in the fall of 1859 in The

New York Ledger. It concerns a Mr. Simpson, who is employed by a life assurance company, a Mr. Slinkton who attempts to bilk the insurance company by murder, and a Mr. Alfred Beckwith who is instrumental in foiling the plot of Slinkton. It seems that Slinkton has insured the life of a young lady and then poisoned her for the insurance money. The young lady was romantically involved with Mr. Beckwith, and he, in league with Mr. Simpson, 87

pretends to be Slinkton* s next victim. He passes himself off as an alco

holic on the verge of death. Slinkton keeps Beckwith supplied with all

the liquor he needs, spiked with slow poison, and in the meantime insures

Beckwith’s life. But Slinkton is counterplotted the whole way by Simpson

and Beckwith. Simpson is aware of the scheme and Beckwith wisely only

pretends to drink the poisoned liquor. At night when Slinkton is asleep

Beckwith searches his rooms and discovers his poisons, even having some

of them analyzed. Eventually Slinkton is cornered in another classic un

ravelling scene and his smug assurance destroyed by Simpson and Beckwith

who really have all the goods on him. As Slinkton is about to be carried

off, mentally destroyed by the counterplot, he crushes a vial of cyanide

between his teeth and dies immediately.

I think it is easy to see that the plot line of Hunted Down is

chipped from Martin Chuzzlewit. In a sense in Hunted Down we return to

a fictional world that is familiar to us. But the tale represents a fic

tional exploration of a different kind from the novel, and the tale has more of a relation, probably, to some later works. There is more of a

"detective" atmosphere or motif in the later tale. Slinkton is done-in

in a far more clever way. He is baited by his own evil propensities and

then elaborately counterplotted. The clever criminal is done-in by an even more clever scheme hatched by Simpson and Beckwith. The detective motif

is an ever-increasing favorite in the novels of Dickens. In most of Dickens’

later novels there are felonious murders and unravellings and even clever

inspectors of police like Buckett. Mr. Simpson but for being a life as

surance salesman would have made a good police inspector. 88

Some Conclusions

It seems apparent that Dickens uses his earlier, shorter works as

germs for the later, longer works in subject matter and technique. The

shorter pieces of fiction might be germs in another sense. Dickens, like

Thackeray and Eliot, proceeded from short to long in his fiction. I think

it is possible to see the shorter works as developmental to the writing

of the novel. Even though Dickens continued to write short pieces of fic

tion, the early pages of Nicholas Nickleby witness the last of the inter

polated brand of tales; it is the last time Dickens mixes the short with

the long in his fiction. Also by this time, and although there are occa

sional indifferent products later, Dickens seems well launched as a novel

ist.

John Butt and Kathleen Tillotson in Dickens at Work basically argue

that in his novels Dickens was a more systematic planner than we might at first realize.61 They also observe that Dickens, "was peculiarly sus-

62 ceptible to the influence of his readers." That is, if they liked things

in the tales and the novels, Dickens was sure to use them or variations

on them again. They also observe that, "his earliest novels suggest a 63 hand racing to keep pace with the mind’s conceptions," but that he gave r/, attention to the smallest details. "For several years Dickens kept a 65 notebook in which he jotted down notions as they darted into his mind . . .'

^(London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1957), p. 16.

Dickens at Work, P. 16. 63Dickens at Work, P. 20.

64Dickens at Work, P. 18. ^Dickens at Work, P. 29n. 89

In other words Dickens was in the habit of working from notes and plans, 66 and as he went along these "rough" plans became more and more complex.

I believe that the tales and stories that show germ relationships demon strate that Dickens was working on his novels specifically, and generally on his craft of fiction. They are further evidence that Dickens was some thing of a systematic planner of his novels and a conscious craftsman.

^Dickens at Work, pp. 24-26. 4Ö

CHAPTER III

THACKERAY: GERMS AND CHIPS

The Tale, "The Eighteenth Century" and the Realistic Novel

Certain of Thackeray’s short works, especially those reviwed here, bear another special relationship to the novels, especially Vanity Fair and Pendennis. Thackeray was very interested in the satire of the eight eenth century; in fact his Book of Snobs is directly in this tradition of broadside and direct satire. It seems that when Thackeray "wrote short" these eighteenth century traditions became part of the product. In the tales there are burlesques and direct satires, sensational situations and some playing about with the thriving eighteenth century tradition of the gothic or the sportive gothic; and usually there are strong moral messages in the tales, along with morality "tempered with wit." The moral essay, often taking on aspects of the tale, was a strong eighteenth century tra dition and Thackeray is certainly working with this convention.

The novels, especially Vanity Fair and Pendennis, as developmental steps, are nineteenth century products. Vanity Fair, at least, is a novel that contains a great measure of social realism. In Vanity Fair Thackeray notes,

If ... we had taken a fancy for the terrible, and made the lover of the femme de chambre a professional burglar, who bursts into the house with his band, slaughters black Sambo at the feet of his master and carries off Amelia in her nightdress, not to be let loose again till the third volume, we should easily have constructed a tale of thrilling interest, through the fiery chapters of which the readers should hurry, panting. Byt my readers must hope for no such romance, only a homely story . . .

I’X'New York: The Modern Library, 1950), p. 49. 91

Thackeray’s "homely" story deals with ordinary love affairs, and ordinary people doing ordinary things. In the tales on the other hand there are robbers and out-and-out conmen, and gross schemes; characters are cheated; some fall passionately in love, and others are driven mad; there are threat ened duels, also timely rescues and supernatural incidents—to mention only a few out of the ordinary things. When Thackeray "steps out" of Vanity

Fair in the "middle," an eighteenth century product seems to result—A

Little Dinner at Timmins’s. The tremendous love or reconciliation scene in Vanity Fair where Amelia is subsumed into the cloak of Dobbin, if it had appeared in the tales, would have been parodied; pointedly it is not parodied in the novel.

Something of the same could be said of Dickens. Many of the Boz tales are reminiscent of the traditions of eighteenth century fiction.

"The Boarding House" and "Horatio Sparkins" are gossipy anecdotes full of direct satire. The gothic tradition comes from the late eighteenth century, as well as the sportive gothic. Pickwick Papers starts out in the tradition of the eighteenth century novel. It was to be a picaresque work peopled with no more than ludicrous conmen and filled with an uncon nected series of adventures. But of course it, too, turned into a nine teenth century product.

"The Devil’s Wager" and the "Story of Mary Ancel" both incorporated in The Paris Sketch Book are tales that represent, in Thackeray, elements of the eighteenth century tradition. "The Devil’s Wager" is a tale that concerns the soul of Sir Roger de Rollo. He complains as he is being carried off that one more ave would have saved him, or his soul from hell. The devil, in a sporting frame of mind, bets with Sir Roger that not one person 92

on earth will say a prayer for him owing to Sir Roger’s great "earthly" meanness to his friends and relations. Sir Roger with the help of the

devil visits his earthly friends and, of course, they will not pray for him. As a last resort he asks to be taken to see his brother, Father

Ignatius who is a Prior of the Lazarist Convent. It turns out that Father

Ignatius is a very wicked man and that the devil would like to have his

soul even more than Sir Roger's. As a further complication Father Ignatius

is safe from the devil as long as he never utters a prayer. Sir Roger is given leave to see his brother alone, and on a sudden inspiration Sir

Roger tells his brother that he has come from heaven with news that the devil is about to break his pact with him, and take him down to hell.

He further tells his brother that the only thing that can save him is saying one ave. The deluded Father Ignatius falls to his knees, prays, and of course, is snatched immediately by the devil. Sir Roger’s former tormentor is so glad to have Father Ignatius in possession that Sir Roger’s soul is allowed to rise "upward" apparently to heaven while the Father is taken in the opposite direction. This narration has the aspects of a clever anecdote and is filled with direct satire. Though it hardly needs restat ing, it tells also of a highly unusual situation, far from the realm of realism. For these and other reasons the tale is much in the eighteenth century tradition. The story of Sir Roger is a moral essay--the obvious message of the story is that we should prepare our souls by making friends while we are still alive—unless we are prepared with a clever stratagem.

Addison and Steele announced that their purpose in writing was "to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality," (Spectator No. 10) and this is what Thackeray has accomplished in this tale. Also, Addison 93

and Steele occasionally reverted to the anecdote to point a moral. In

fact Addison’s narrative "The Vision of Mirza," which appeared in the

Spectator is somewhat on the order of Sir Roger’s story. "The Vision of

of Mirza" is an oriental tale that is a fusion of sketch and essay, with

a strong moral message, and even though a narrative, it has no action moving

through time.

"The Devil's Wager" is also in the tradition of the sportive gothic,

a mode that first became popular, along with the serious gothic novel, in

the late eighteenth century. Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey was written

in 1797-98 even though it was not published until 1818. Father Ignatius,

the evil Lazarist Prior, seems a figure rought out of The Monk. Sir Rollo

was also apparently a grossly mean person--though not of a rank with Father

Ignatius—and therefore reminiscent of the evil noblemen who people the

gothic novel. Essentially the story of Sir Roger is a moral narrative with

a touch of the sportive gothic, told with a good deal of wit and clever

ness.

In No. 350 of the Spectator Steele wrote that courage displayed for humanity and manganimity was of a finer kind than courage displayed for personal motives. In like manner "The Story of Mary Ancel" (1838), incor porated in The Paris Sketch Book, is also a profile on a special sort of personal courage. It is a story of the Revolution which concerns a young girl who by a great deal of personal fortitude and trust in justice saves herself and her family from the evil designs of a member of the Directory.

This story gives Thackeray a chance to satirically attack the "romantic attitude." The public executioner in the story is always crying—not for the hundreds of souls he has sent winging with his guillotine, but rather 94

he is constantly bursting into tears over certain passages he is reading

in The Sorrows of Young Werther. Thackeray says the tale is historical

and that he had taken it from a newspaper account. But "The Story of Mary

Ancel" is most probably a manufactured tale: it is one of the oldest ploys

of fiction writers beginning with De Foe at least, to pretend that fiction

is fact; Thackeray, coming from the eighteenth century tradition and always

showing something of its characteristics, would quite naturally use this

technique. I am sure that the reader will see something of the eighteenth

century tradition in all of the tales to be treated in this chapter.

Germs

The bulk of Thackeray's shorter works were written before he began

with the novel. The shorter works are a curious collection of sketches,

travelogues, novelettes, tales, and essays. These works contain the char

acters, situations, themes, and motifs that Thackeray is to develop later

in the novels—especially Vanity Fair and Pendennis. For my purposes I will be concentrating on the shorter works, specifically the short tales and narratives. It is no secret that some of the characters sketched by

Thackeray in The Book of Snobs over fifty-three weekly installments between

February 28, 1846 and February 27, 1847 appear in the numbers of Vanity

Fair (January, 1847 to July, 1848). It might be significant to note that

Vanity Fair was first conceived in Thackeray’s mind as Pen and Pencil

Sketches of English Society. Thackeray once remarked that, "The characters 2 once created lead me, and I follow where they direct." This comment is

2 Gordon N. Ray, ed., The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, III: 1825-1856 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1946), p. 438. 95

is not only significant to Thackeray’s process of novel making, but it is also significant to the relation between the shorter works and the longer.

Others have noticed that Thackeray was in the habit of taking "old" 3 characters and later reworking them in the novels. Tillotson notes that,

"The truncated Shabby Genteel Story, which Thackeray foresaw, I think, as a long novel, provided the situation out of which with a little juggling 4 of dates sprang, a generation later the action of Phillip." Gordon N.

Ray makes a similar observation.

His /Thackeray*j>/ study of family relations among the Borsellens /"The Knights of Borsellen// anticipates in its closely packed acuteness his treatment of the same subject in the early chapters of Esmond. And his sketch of the shrewd old courtier Castel-Sarrasin introduces a new character to English fiction, a character which he was ¡.ater to develop into a finished portrait in creating Major Pendennis.

Ray, though, overlooks the inimitable Major British as a candidate for

Major Pendennis. Major British will be discussed later.

Thackeray’s tales for the most part lack a compact structure; they are overtly moral, and seem to lack any complexity, but at the same time they are entertaining, highly readable, some show excellent use of burlesque, and there is an occasional tour de force like "The Gambler’s Death." To demonstrate the germs in Thackeray's short fiction I would like to use

The Professor, Miss Lowe, Bluebeard's Ghost, Dennis Haggarty's Wife, "A

Caution to Travellers," and "A Gambler’s Death," and relate them to Vanity

Fair and Pendennis. To demonstrate the "chip" I will be using A Little

Dinner at Timmins's and its relations to Vanity Fair.

o Geoffrey Tillotson, Thackeray the Novelist (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.,1954), p. 6. ^Thackeray the Novelist, p. 6.

^Thackeray: The Uses of Adversity (New York: Me Graw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1955), p. 269. 96

The Centenary Biolgraphical Edition of the Works of William Make

peace Thackeray: With Biographical Introductions by His Daughter Lady

Ritche published in 1968 lists three of Thackeray’s works as "tales."

They are The Professor, Miss Lowe, and Bluebeard's Ghost. The Professor

was first published in 1837 in Bentley's Miscellany and then later in 1841

in a volume entitled Comic Tales and Sketches. It concerns a girls' acad

emy in the City of Hackney called "Bulgaria House," owned and operated by

the Misses Pidge, and especially a professor of Dancing and Gymnastics

at the school who goes by the name of Signor Dandolo even though he has

a barely disguised Cockney accent. Professor Dandolo's prize pupil is

Adeliza Grampus whose father is an alderman and shellfishmonger. A good

deal of Thackeray's heavy satire shows through here when we realize that

"Grampus" refers to a spouting fish related to the dolphin, and to a person who wheezes. There is, of course, also the combination of alderman and

shellfishmonger.

Adeliza has been so named by her "novel-reading" mother because of the name's romantic sound. Professor Dandolo professes his love for

Adeliza who reciprocates by falling into a fainting fit. Adeliza, in ap pearance at least, reminds the reader of Laura Bell. Adeliza is a Roman tic and a romantic; her mother has filled her head with all sorts of notions.

She is a female Pendennis—her infatuation is much like Pen's infatuation with Emily Costigan. Adeliza has read hundreds of romantic novels, and in her mind she has fallen in love with a mysterious Venetian nobleman.

She and her confidente, Miss Binx, often stroll out of the academy to meet

Professor Signor Dandolo and friend—on the sly. Thackeray adds, "May the mistresses of all the establishments for young ladies in this kingdom, 97 or queendom rather, peruse this, and reflect how dangerous it is for young ladies of any age--ay, even for parlour boarders--to go out alone!"0 Dándolo informs Adeliza that he had to disguise himself as a lowly dancing professor in order to follow her and maintain his love for her. Thackeray lets the reader know Dándolo is a traveling mountebank, but to Adeliza he is a "mys terious being." She says to Dándolo, "Who art thou?--what dire fate has brought thee hither in this lowly guise to win the heart of Adeliza?"?

Dándolo is aware of the ingredients for the perfect Byronic hero of the diabolic subcategory--and more truthful than Adeliza knows. "'Hadeliza,’ cried he, ’you say well; _I am not what _I seem. I cannot tell thee what

I am; a tale of horror, of crime forbids the dreadful confession! But dark as I am, and wretched, nay, wicked and desperate, I love thee Hade liza— love thee with the rapturous devotion of purer days--the tenderness of happier times! I am sad now, and fallen, lady; suffice it that I was g once happy, ay respectable.'" In the style of conversation Thackeray is satirizing the fiction of Catherine Gore, and burlesquing all lesser writers 9 who treated romantic love in an insincere manner. This passage from Cath erine Gore's novel Abednego, the Money-Lender will give some idea of the language Thackeray was satirizing.

"Last week," resumed Abednego, careless of the variations of her countenance, "there came hither to me a woman, young and lovely as yourself, who, like yourself, had exceeded her means, and broken her

g The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray, 26, (New York: AMS Press, 1968), p. 349. ?The Works, 26, p. 351.

8The Works, 26, p. 351.

9 John Loofburow, Thackeray and the Form of Fiction (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 16-17. 98

engagements. She came hither to me, not like your ladyship,--hoping to move me to pity by the sight of her loveliness and her affected despair,--she had other arms for the combat; and those arms, madam, prevailed! To her I assigned thrice the sum of her original debt, and at my own instigation."

"And of what nature were those arms?" demanded Lady Winterfield, colouring deeply, and, by casting down her eyes, showing that she was prepared for expressions of gallantry and admiration on the part of one whom she loathed like a harpy.

"It avails little to explain," replied Abednego, with an ill- repressed smile of exultation, as he rose from his chair and approached her; "for they are such as it were, perhaps, unbecoming so great a lady as the Countess of Winterfield to put to profit."

"I am willing to use any arms,--make any concession," faltered the fair bankrupt, a deadly paleness succeeding to her previous flush, as she contemplated the growing audacity of the Money-Lender.

Abednego folded his meagre hands carelessly before him, and, throw ing back his head, stood contemplating her from head to foot, with a smile of indescribable expression. It was impossible to behold a more lovely woman; and the Money Lender gazed upon her as if taking an ap praisement of her charms.

"The arms to which _I alluded, are not at your ladyship's disposal!" was at length his sarcastic reply. "For they were tears of genuine remorse for an involuntary breach of faith; they were the worn and haggard looks which labour and want impose upon the fairest face. She was a woman of the people, madam; like you, left young, a widow--like you, with helpless children dependent upon her prudence. She told me— and her mien attested her veracity—that for them she had toiled day and night,—for them abstained from food and rest. But the outlay that was to set her up in business, (borrowed of one of the agents of A. 0., and at usurious interest,) was still unrepaid. She was still poor, still insolvent, still needing indulgence; and came hither, like the fashionable Countess of Winterfield, to beg for mercy!"

This passage, though dealing with a conflict that is mighty and serious,

sounds like a parody itself.

Dandolo, assuming Adeliza is quite wealthy is taken a little aback to find out her father is an oystermonger. The reader further discovers

^^Sarah Josepha Hale, Woman's Record (1855; rpt. New York: Source Book Press, 1970), p. 697. 99

there is a love triangle between Dandolo, Adeliza, and Miss Zela Pidge.

Miss Pidge discovers Adeliza embracing Dandolo and dismisses him upon the

spot. Poor Adeliza is also sent home, but before she goes she tells of

Miss Zela's involvement with Dandolo; upon hearing this all the young, moral, English ladies desert the academy, leaving the Misses Pidge with

only two pupils at the end of term. At last the Misses Pidge are driven

to bankruptcy and must leave Bulgaria House.

Dandolo finds out Adeliza’s prison, actually her father’s house where she has been confined to protect her from her romantic notions.

They exchange secret letters of love; Adeliza to show him the depth of her passion sends kippered salmon, oysters, and anchovy paste. Dandolo, who by this time has promoted himself to "Roderick Ferdinand the 38th

Count of Dandolo," writes back that he has a starving mother and five sisters to support and would she please send more oysters, shrimp, and a half-crown. This, of course, only slightly disillusions Adeliza. Dandolo decides to visit her—more for oysters than for Adeliza, and when he does he attempts to make love to both mother and daughter. He eats and drinks to the tune of 1, 5s. and 9d. He refuses to pay, Adeliza faints, and her mother, being of a slightly more practical turn, runs for the watch man. "Dando" discovered to be a notorious thief, makes his escape after pocketing the silverware. When Adeliza awakes she is a raving maniac.

Thackeray says, "Gentles my tale is told, if it may have deterred one soul from vice, my end is fully answered; if it may have taught to schoolmis tresses carefulness, to pupils circumspection, to youth the folly of sickly sentiment, the pain of bitter deception; to manhood the crime, the mean ness of gluttony, the vice which it occasions, and the wicked passions it 100

fosters; if these or any of these, have been taught by the above tale, the

writer seeks for no other r eward. But there is a note attached to the

tale, "Please send the proceeds as requested per letter; the bearer being 12 directed not to give up the manuscript without."

There is, of course, a good deal of parody and burlesque in the

tale, but the most pointed result and motif is the destruction of "romantic"

illusions, even though this destruction may be recognized as a sad fact

by the author. In Vanity Fair and Pendennis one of the important aspects

that draws Thackeray's attention is the romantic stance—especially the

false romantic stance—of various characters. The tale is a germ for a

pervasive attitude in Thackeray's fiction. Thackeray has a strong tendency

to satirize romantic illusions. Some of the characters of Vanity Fair and

Pendennis will bear a direct relationship to the tale, and also Thackeray

will show the reader variations and developments on characters who exhibit

this romantic stance. Beyond this, however, Thackeray is doing something

else as well. In his fiction (from The Professor at least to Pendennis)

he seems to try to come to an understanding of romantic love, as if what

lay at the core of it were something valuable but elusive. Thackeray is a

bit of a sentimentalist himself; Amelia is more than a sympathetic character to him, and Dobbin, despite his stodginess, is a norm for the world of

Vanity Fair. Dobbin's loyalty and honesty are a constant criticism of all the shallow and self-seeking characters in the novel. Thackeray's

study of the characters of Vanity Fair is not only to satirize false ro manticism but also to search for the positive aspects of romantic love.

l^The Works, 26, p. 364.

l^ihe Works, 26, p. 364. 101

Adeliza Grampus has fallen in love with an idea. She has also idealized Dandolo and fallen in love with him. She is egotistical, seeing herself as a heroine, and self-deluded, and because of this she cannot recognize a conman when she sees one. Adeliza can only be disillusioned in Dando when he reveals himself by stealing and by attempting to make love to her mother. Dando must rudely crush Adeliza*s feeling by breaking what she had thought to be a bond of love. When Adeliza realizes what

Dando is, she goes mad. Because of her notions Adeliza draws both the writer’s and the reader’s ridicule. At the same time the situation itself has the potentiality for a serious treatment.

Amelia does suffer from romantic notions but she is not a burlesque figure, she is a more complex and sympathetic character. As Thackeray’s novel begins, Amelia has just been graduated from the Misses Pinkerton's academy. She is in effect leaving the eighteenth century and entering the nineteenth; as she does she carries with her a whole set of romantic notions, and an emblem of the past century. (It is significant that Becky, who seemingly has no illusion, flings her copy of Johnson’s "Dixonary" back at the feet of Miss Pinkerton.) Much of the complication of Vanity Fair is brought about by certain of the characters clinging to false romanti cism. It seems that no one in the novel follows his heart; they follow rather some unwritten but nevertheless tangible romantic code. After

George’s death Amelia can’t marry, even though she might have liked to, because heroines just didn’t do that sort of thing. If George had followed his fickle heart he would not have married Amelia but instead he follows a romantic code of constancy. Dobbin really loves Amelia but he feels as a "gentleman" he cannot step in George’s way because George "had given his 102 word." Dobbin even reluctantly promotes the marriage. It could be said that Amelia and Dobbin’s failings come out of the strength of their moral character.

Amelia loves an idea, she is egotistical and self-deluded. Amelia knows Dobbin loves her and is in great anguish; but at the same time she is cruel to him. She tyrannizes over him and shows him no affection.

Thackeray writes, "As for Emmy, had she not done her duty? She had her 13 picture of George for a consolation." When Becky tries to tell Amelia that she is behaving cruelly to Dobbin, "Emmy defended her conduct, and showed that it was dictated only by the purest religious principles; that a woman once, &c., and to such an angel as him whom she had the good fortune to marry, was married forever. . . . "'''4 She has of course idealized George as Adeliza has idealized Dandolo.

Amelia is too innocent or deluded to recognize when some conning is going on. She cannot recognize either conmen or conwomen. She fails to recognize what Becky is, all through the novel. When little Georgy says he has heard one of Becky’s friends saying, "’No, no, Becky, you shan’t keep the old buck /Jo_s7 to yourself. We must have the bones in, or dammy, I'll split.'" Amelia replies, even though they are going to 16 pick her brother clean, '"I'm sure I can't tell what he meant.'"

Rebecca who is a conwoman (or conperson) of the ilk of Dando, must rudely crush Amelia's idealization of George in the same way as Dando had

13Vanity Fair, p. 710.

14Vanity Fair, p. 712.

15 Vanity Fair, p. 719. ^Vanity Fair, p. 719. 103

crushed Adeliza’s. She reveals George and shows that he had made sexual

advances toward her.

"Couldn’t forget him!" cried out Becky, "that selfish humbug, that low-bred Cockney dandy, that padded booby, who had neither wit, nor manners nor heart, and was no more to be compared to your friend with the bamboo cane than you are to Queen Elizabeth! Why, the man was weary of you, and would have jilted you, but that Dobbin forced him to keep his word. He owned it to me. He never cared for you. He used to sneer about you to me, time after time; and made love to me the week after he married you." '

Amelia is greatly affected by this news, but instead of going mad she is

glad to be finally rid of the romantic burden of George's memory. Thackeray

writes,

Who shall analyse those tears, and say whether they were sweet or bit ter? Was she most grieved, because the idol of her life was tumbled down and shivered at her feet; or indignant that her love had been so despised; or glad because the barrier was removed which modesty had placed between her and a new, a real affection? "There is nothing to forbid me now," she thought. "I may love him with all my heart n_____ow • • • • it-LO

And of course she sends for Dobbin and they marry and live—though chas

tised—happily ever after. The important difference between Adeliza and

Amelia is that the latter draws the reader's and the writer's sympathy.

Adeliza is weak and vain and is completely blind to a true perception of

things. She authors her own "tragedy" because she lives by a set of stand

ards she has manufactured from her romantic inclinations. Amelia is a

strong character and that is part of the problem. She has certain blind

spots, is a largely good character, and one could say her behavior concern

ing Dobbin is reinforced strongly by the precepts of society. In other words Amelia does not receive all the blame.

•^Vanity Fair, pp. 720-21.

18 Vanity Fair, p. 721. 104

George Osborne in Vanity Fair is another character who is afflicted

by false romantic notions. George Osborne also represents a different

abuse of romanticism; he likes the romantic image of a rebellious son (as much as Adeliza likes the image of a rebellious daughter secretly sending

kippered salmon to a forbidden lover)—doing the right thing by his ovm

true love, and it feeds his ego to play out this role. Pointedly, in con

trast, Adeliza is burlesqued, and George is satirized; he is also somewhat of a more believable character. Thackeray makes the reader a party to

George's motives. "’He will be here again to-day,’ Amelia thought. ’He

is the greatest and best of men.’ And the fact is, that George thought he was one of the generousest creature alive; and that he was making a 19 tremendous sacrifice in marrying this young creature." George admires

Rawdon who had married "down" for the girl of his choice, much against the will of his family—in fact Rawdon is disinherited by his aunt. "And as

for Crawley, of the Life Guards, hang it, he’s a fine fellow: and I like 20 him for marrying the girl he had chosen." George, even in his appearance is the perfect image of the romantic hero.

George had an air at once swaggering and melancholy, languid and fierce He looked like a man who had passions, secrets, and private harrowing griefs and adventures. His voice was rich and deep. He would say it was a warm evening, or ask his partner to take an ice, with a tone as sad and confidential as if he were broking her mother’s death to her, or preluding a declaration of love.

In this appearance he is linked to Adeliza who is the perfect image of the romantic heroine.

9Vanity Fair, p. 193.

2®Vanity Fair, p. 201.

2^-Vanity Fair, p. 205. 105

Adeliza Grampus was in her nineteenth year. Eyes have often been de scribed; but it would require bluer ink than ours to depict the orbs of Adeliza. The snow when it first falls in Cheapside is not whiter than her neck,—when it has been for some days upon the ground, tram pled by dustment and jarvies, trodden down by sweeps and gentlemen going to business, not blacker than her hair. Slim as the Monument on Fish Street Hill, her form was slender and tall: but it is needless to recapitulate her charms, and difficult indeed to descri^g them. Let the reader think of his first love, and fancy Adeliza.

The difference in style of description represents the difference between the burlesque of Adeliza and the satire of George. It also represents the difference between broad parody and satire. The similes Thackeray is paro dying are, of course, as old as the Elizabethans and characteristic of super-romantic, cliche-ridden descriptions of heroines. A society that had witnessed Byron and "Byronism" would appreciate Thackeray’s Horatian satire of George.

George’s father is arranging all sorts of other marriages—other than to Amelia--for him, but to George rebellion is sweeter.

With his /John Osborne’^/ usual frankness and delicacy he told Mrs. Haggistoun that he would give her a cheque for five thousand pounds on the day that his son was married to her ward; and called that pro posal a hint and considered it a very dexterous piece of diplomacy. He gave George finally such another hint regarding the heiress; and ordered him to marry her out of hand, as he would have ordered his butler to draw a cork, or his clerk to write a letter.

This imperative hint disturbed George a good deal. He was in the very first enthusiasm and delight of tj^s second courtship of Amelia, which was inexpressibly sweet to him.

The reason that old Mr. Osborne rejects Amelia as a mate for his son is the fact that she is now penniless, and the daughter of a bankrupt and a swindler. It makes no difference to John Osborne that Mr. Sedley had

^The Works, 26, p. 347.

3Vanity Fair, p. 204. 106 given him his start in business. Mr. Osborne finally settles on Miss Swartz as a suitable mate for his son primarily because she is the richest avail able. George’s refusal of Miss Swartz is based on false romantic grounds, and by his rebelliousness, rather than by his love, he is driven into the arms of Amelia. John Osborne cannot understand why George should not want to marry Miss Swartz, thereby losing ten thousand a year and also thereby having to go abroad to risk his life in some military adventure. George replies, "’So that you would have shown me up as a coward, sir, and our 24 name dishonoured for the sake of Miss Swartz’s money.'" John Osborne then forcefully "lays it on the line":

"I ain't going to have any of this dam sentimental nonsense and humbug here, sir," the father cried out. "There shall be no beggar- marriages in my family. If you choose to fling away eight thousand a year, which you may have for the asking, you may do it: but by Jove you take your pack and walk out of this house,^sir. Will you do as I tell you, once for all, sir, or will you not?"

Of course George refuses to marry Miss Swartz. Thackeray writes,

"I've done it," said George, coming into the Slaughter's an hour afterwards, looking very pale.

"What, my boy?" says Dobbin.

George told what had passed between his father and himself.

"I'll marry her to-morrow" he said with an oath. "I love her more every day, Dobbin.

George is forced into the marriage by his romantic set of mind. The im portant point is that he does not love Amelia; this is the fact that takes any nobility away from his act, and Thackeray is telling the reader that

24yanity Fair, p. 205.

2^Vanity Fair, p. 210.

26yanity Fair, p. 210. 107 this is an unthinkable abuse of the idea of "love." It eventually turns out that George is a much better person dead than he ever was alive.

It is interesting that in the tale there is also a hint of mercenary marriage, that perennial topic of Thackeray. Adeliza despite all, and in her own mind "loves" Dando. When Adeliza is imprisoned by her father it is to protect her, but there is also the indication that Adeliza is being saved for a proper marriage, quite likely arranged by her parents. Thack eray detested mercenary marriages. J. Y. T. Grieg notes that, "loveless 27 marriages drove him into furious rages. . . ." Adeliza’s marriage to

Dando would be imprudent but the motive, however inpugned, was "love."

Actually Thackeray’s own first marriage could be said to have been impru dent although genuine love appears to have been the motive. In Vanity Fair

George besides living out some romantic ideal in marrying Amelia, also marries for the wrong reason. Grieg notes this about Thackeray, "Marriage for the wrong reasons--this was the burden of his thinking. It was a theme he had treated many times in fiction though only incidentally. It had now _ _ 2g /by the time of The Newcomes/ become central in his mind." This is one of the reasons old Osborne is satirized so--he would force "another" mar riage upon George for the wrong reasons. It is interesting to note that

Thackeray should first treat this idea, however tentatively, in a burlesque like The Professor.

Thackeray carries his attack (maybe equivocally) on the romantic stance into Pendennis. Pen is another male variation on Adeliza. The

2^J. Y. T. Grieg, Thackeray: A Reconsideration (1950; rpt. Archon Books, 1967), p. 61. OQ Thackeray; A Reconsideration, p. 174. 108

reader sees the young Pen romantically and foolishly (foolish maybe only

from the vantage point of maturity) infatuated with Emily Costigan. The

reader finds the ingredients of Pen’s romanticism and also finds, I think,

a sympathetic though vigorous treatment of his shortcomings. Major Pen

dennis, who sees to the heart of everything, knows What Pen's problem is.

"’The mother has spoiled the young rascal,’ groaned the Major inwardly, 29 ’with her cursed sentimentality and romantic rubbish.’" Pen’s early

reading, rather than forming his character, seems to feed his particular

sensibilities. "Besides the ancient poets, you may be sure Pen read the

English with great gusto. Smirke sighed and shook his head sadly both about

Byron and Moore. But Pen was a sworn fire-worshipper and a Corsair; he

had them by heart, and used to take little Laura into the window and say,

’Zuleika, I am not thy brother,' in tones so tragic, that they caused the 30 solemn little maid to open her great eyes still wider." Pen, like Adeliza,

is blinded to the true proportions of the object of his love.

Miss Costigan was a paragon of virtue and delicacy! she was as sensi tive as the most timid maiden; she was as pure as the unsullied snow; she had the finest manners, the most graceful wit and genius, the most charming refinement, and justness of appreciation in all matters of taste; she had the most admirable temper and devotion to her father, a good old gentleman of high family and fallen fortunes, who had lived, however, with the best society in Europe: he was in no hurry, and could afford to wait any time—till he was one-and-twenty. But he felt (and here his face assumed an awful and harrowing solemnity) that he was engaged in the one only passion of his life, and that DEATH alone could close it.

Adeliza believes that Dando is a mysterious Italian nobleman. Pen believes that the Costigans are descended from Irish kings. The difference is that

29Pendennis, I, (New York: Dutton, 1967), p. 5.

30pendennis, I, p. 25.

31 Pendennis I . 71. 109

Adeliza is deceived and Pen wants to be deceived. In his love affair Pen's mind is working overtime.

His papers on his desk were scattered about, and more were lying on the bed round him. He was biting a pencil and thinking of rhymes and all sorts of follies and passions. He was Hamlet jumping into Ophelia's grave: he was the Stranger taking Mrs. Haller to his arms, beautiful Mrs. Haller, with the raven ringlets falling over her shoulders. De spair and Byron, Thomas Moore and all the love-songs he had ever read, were working and seething in this young gentleman's mind, and he^as at the very height and paroxysm of the imaginative phrenzy . . .

Adeliza sees herself as the heroine of the many romantic novels she has read. Pen does something of the same thing, except his reading matter is a little better.

The Major would allow Pen a "fling" but not what the young man had settled on. "The Major surveyed the state of things with a sigh. 'If it were but a temporary liaison,' the excellent man said, 'one could bear it.

A young fellow must sow his wild oats, and that sort of thing. But a vir tuous attachment is the deuce. It come /sic/ of the d—d romantic notions 33 boys get from being brought up by women.'"

After Pen is rescued from Emily Costigan, the next problem is Blanche

Amory. She touches something sympathetic in Pen because she too is a false romantic.

She was familiar with the idea of suicide. Death she repeatedly longed for. A faded rose inspired her with such grief that you would have thought she must die in pain of it. It was a wonder how a young crea ture should have suffered so much—should have found the means of get ting at such an ocean of despair and passion (as a runaway boy who will get to sea), and having embarked on it, should survive it. What a talent she must have had for weeping to be able to pour out so many of "Mes Larmes!"^

32 Pendennis, I, p. 72. 33 Pendennis, lj pp. 93-94. 34pendennis, I, pp. 225-26 110

Blance, of course, is another developmental outgrowth of Adeliza. Adeliza

seems only to harm herself. Blanche’s romanticism leads her to morbidness, and she is overtly dangerous to others; she will trifle with the most genu ine affection, because she either cannot or will not distinguish between reality and her sentimental illusions.

Pen sends her his whole repertoire of love verses, only blotting out the name of Emily Costigan before sending them along, but Blanche’s romanticism seems to be self-consuming. She cannot form any true relation ships. She throws Pen over easily, and when newly married she is bored in a few weeks. Pen eventually sees what she is.

Pen had never heard or known so much about her in all the years of their intimacy as he saw and knew now: though he saw more than existed in reality. For this young lady was not able to carry out any emotion to the full; but had a sham enthusiasm, a sham hatred, a sham love, a sham taste, a sham grief, each of which flared and shone very vehe mently for an instant, but subsided and gave place to the next sham emotion.35

Pen of course can go on to form lasting, rewarding relationships although he never entirely outgrows his own romanticism. Thackeray treats Pen sym pathetically. In fact the two volumes of Pendennis are something of an apologia for Pen and for Thackeray. He says at the end of Volume 2, "let us give a hand of charity to Arthur Pendennis, with all of his faults and short comings, who does not claim to be a hero, but only a man. and a broth- 36 er."

Miss Lowe

Miss L'dwe first appeared in Fraser's Magazine in October of 1842, and primarily concerns one George Fitz-Boodle, a young graduate of Oxford

35pendennis, II, p. 364.

^Pendennis, II, p. 394. Ill

who is making a tour in Germany. In Bonn George meets a very beautiful

young woman by the name of Minna Lowe, and falls madly in love with her.

Minna’s attraction to George is not without motive. Her father has been

imprisoned for bankruptcy and Minna is running a scheme to bilk English

travellers by selling them overpriced goods. George eventually finds this

out and that Minna is engaged to someone else. It is possible to see in

the character of Minna Lowe the germ of Rebecca Sharp and the germ of Emily

Costigan. Like Minna, Emily Costigan is beautiful on the surface, but she

is not what she appears to be. And like Becky, Minna is on the make fi

nancially; but the difference is that Rebecca is also on the make socially:

she is willing to use her sexuality as well as her wits for social purposes.

Becky is easily a more sophisticated character--she is seduced as much by

the values of Vanity Fair as the others are seduced by her. Becky had the

potentialities of goodness if she had lived in a different society. Her

downfall is the result of her accepting the values of the world in which

she lives rather than struggling for something higher.

Miss Lowe is narrated in an unusual way. George Fitz-Boodle is

recalling his infatuation with Minna from a vantage point of fifteen years

later. In the course of recounting his experience he takes some time to reflect on the intricacies of courtship and marriage and their effect on

family relationships. He advises parents, "young men fall in love with people of a lower rank, and they are not strong enough to resist the dread of disinheritance, or of the world's scorn, or of the cursed tyrant gen tility, and dare not marry the woman they love above all. But, if prudence is strong, passion is strong too, and principle is not, and women (Heaven 112 37 keep them!) are weak." George then goes on to tell the reader of paren

tal reaction to "imprudent" courtships putting himself in the role of the

imprudent lover. "’George will sow his wild oats soon, he will be tired of that odious woman one day, and we’ll get a good marriage for him: mean while it is best to hush the matter up and pretend to know nothing about 38 it.’" George is also primarily aware of what happens when an imprudent marriage is made: "then what a cry you have from parents and guardians, 39 what shrieks from aunts and sisters, what excommunications and disinheriting!

Above all George is very sympathetic to the idea of marriage, and is ready to aid the poor Mrs, in these "unfortunate" matches.

There is a distinct parallel between George Fitz-Boodle and George

Osborne, and there is a distinct parallel in the situation in the tale and the novels. The marriages arranged by the parents, alluded to by George

Fitz-Boodle, are mercenary marriages—marriages entered into only for some specific gain or mo'tive, or at least without love. John Osborne wants

George to marry Swartz because she has the most money. Becky marries Rawdon because she assumes he will inherit money. Emily Costigan is willing to marry Pen for gain, and later in the novel she makes just such a marriage.

Fitz-Boodle contemplates marrying "below" himself (to Minna) and considers the effects it might have on his family. To Fitz-Boodle it would be a romantic thing to marry the woman he chose. (In the tale, of course, there is no actual marrying.) It has already been pointed out that George

Osborne feels he is marrying below himself (Amelia's father is bankrupt

^^The Works, 26, p. 367.

88phe Works, 26, p. 367.

^^The Works, 26, p. 367. 113

as is Minna’s) but at the same time "doing the right thing." In George

Osborne’s case this decision only serves to nourish his special self-image.

In the tale George Fitz-Boodle seems to argue for a position that

Dobbin takes later in Vanity Fair. Dobbin is the greatest champion of

George Osborne, of Amelia, and of their marriage. When poor "Mrs. George"

is shunned by the rest of the family, it is Dobbin who offers comfort.

Dobbin on a number of occasions attempts to intercede with old John Osborne

to have him accept George and his new wife, and pointedly Dobbin is unsuc

cessful until late in the novel--long after George has been killed.

In the tale George Fitz-Boodle is tempted to an "imprudent" mar

riage, something like Rawdon Crawley who makes an imprudent marriage at least

in the eyes of his family. Rebecca finds she has made an imprudent marriage-

especially when old Crawley asks her for her hand, and she is genuinely

chagrined to think of what she had lost. George Osborne makes an imprudent marriage, at least in the view of John Osborne.

In the tale Fitz-Boodle was tempted to "marry down." George Os borne also feels he is marrying down, and when he finds he has certainly been disinherited he blames himself for being a sentimental fool. Rawdon has also married down, considering the position of his family; also, if old Crawley could have married the governess—Becky, in this case—he cer tainly would have been marrying down by the usual standards of English society. Thackeray reflects,

And who on earth, after the daily experience we have, can question the probability of a gentleman marrying anybody? How many of the wise and the learned have married their cooks? Did not Lord Eldon himself, the most prudent of men, make a runaway match? Were not Achilles and Ajax both in love with their servant-maids? And we are to expect a heavy dragoon with strong desires and small brains, who never controlled a passion in his life, to become prudent all of a sudden, and to re- 114

fuse to pay any price for an indulgence to which he had a mind? If people onlv made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be!4

The whole early action of Pendennis concerns Arthur's desire to make an

imprudent marriage to Emily Costigan and, more importantly than this, it

seems that the central concern of the novel is with finding a prudent mar

riage for Arthur. In Thackeray's view, "prudent" requires some qualifica

tion. Thackeray does not argue for practical, or economical, or even wise marriage, he only argues for a marriage based on genuine feelings rather

than false affections, and for a marriage to a partner who will mutually

return those genuine feelings.

George Fitz-Boodle is eminently aware of what happens when a young man marries against the will and aims of his parents. He speaks of the

"cries from parents and guardians," and "the shrieks from aunts and sisters," and, of course, the "excommunications and disinheriting." When Rawdon mar ries Becky and the marriage is found out, there are cries, if not shrieks, and much disinheriting. When John Osborne finds that George has gone ahead and married Amelia he is "excommunicated" and disinherited.

Then he /John Osborne/ opened the bookcase, and took down the great red Bible we have spoken of—a pompous book, seldom looked at, and shining all over with gold. There was a frontispiece to the volume, representing Abraham sacrificing Isaac. Here according to the custom, Osborne had recorded on the fly-leaf, and in his large clerk-like hand, the dates of his marriage and his wife's death, and the births and Christian names of his children. Jane came first, then George Sedley Osborne, then Maria Frances, and the days of the christening of each. Taking a pen, he carefully obliterated George's name from the page; and when the leaf was quite dry, restored the volume to the place from which he had moved it. Then he took a document out of it, crumpled it up and lighted it at one of the candles, and saw it burn entirely away in the grate. It was his will; which being burned, he sat down

40 Vanity Fair, p. 153. 115

and wrote off a letter, an^rang for his servant, whom he charged to deliver it in the morning.

The symbolism of the frontispiece escapes John Osborne; he has literally

made a burnt offering, and an offering of his son; he has sacrificed his

Son on an altar to Mammon. George is truly stricken from communion in the

family by having his name removed from that weighty religious instrument—

the Osborne family Bible.

Bluebeard's Ghost

Wendell V. Harris, musing about the lack of quality in the short

stories of the early part of the nineteenth century in England, makes this

comment:

The peculiar value of most short stories depends on unity of ef fects; the typical tale of the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century completely lacked any such unity. Broad generalizations are subject to the liabilities of any attempt neatly to summarize an area of literary development; but wherever one looks among the short fiction of the first three-quarters of the century, including that of Dickens, Collins, Mrs. Gaskell, Trollope, and Thackeray, one is more likely than not to discover a diffuseness that displays itself in lack of economy and uncertainty of tone. The successful exceptions to this well-nigh universal defect were most often of three kinds: the out- and-out ghost story; the humorous, perhaps satirical story; and the retold legend. The reason is, of course, obvious. In all three the effect to be achieved requires no calculation; it is the very raison d' £tre of the piece.

Actually Bluebeard's Ghost meets all three of Harris's above-mentioned requirements for exception. It is a ghost story—of sorts—it is a humor ous-satirical story--Thackeray pokes fun of the marriage game--and it is a retold legend—the story is about the Bluebeard. The reader though, might find the tale particularly diffuse because Thackeray is not con-

41 Vanity Fair, pp. 233-34. / 9 "English Short Fiction in the 19th Century," Studies in Short Fiction, 6 (1968), 3. 116

cerned with climactic action, he is more concerned with the extraordinary way people behave.

Bluebeard's Ghost appeared first in Fraser's Magazine in October,

1843. The story primarily centers on Mrs. Bluebeard—Fatima by first name.

The late Mr. Bluebeard has been killed by soldiers and is buried with great splendor and pomp. Fatima’s sister, Anne, refuses to wear mourning clothes; for there is a nasty rumor abroad that the Mr. might have done away with his previous wives. His widow, though, staunchly believes all of his pre vious wives have died of natural causes. Says the story teller:

Whether it is that all wives adore husbands when the latter are no more, or whether it is that Fatima's version of the story is really the correct one, and that he no more murdered his wives than you and I have, remains yet to be proved, and, indeed, does not much matter for the understanding of the rest of Mrs. B.'s adventures. And though people will say that Bluebeard's settlement of his whole fortune on his wife, in event of survivorship, was a mere act of absurd mystifi cation, seeing that he was fully determined to cut her head off after the honeymoon, yet the best test of his real intention is the profound grief which the widow manifested for his death, and the fact that he left her might well to do in the world.

The widow, in mourning, turns away suitor after suitor. She receives though, after a decent interval, a young lawyer by the name of Mr. Sly who comes into conflict with a Captain Blackboard over the attentions of Fatima.

When the widow rejects Mr. Sly he hangs himself--unsuccessfully. Mr. Sly alsocattempts to drown himself--unsuccessfully. At this point in the story the widow begins to hear a voice in the night—apparently Mr. Bluebeard's ghost is beginning to stir. She is advised that the best way to quiet the ghost is by getting married again. Fatima decides to consult a con juror in Hangman's Lane about her late husband's ghost. She temporarily

"lays" the ghost by throwing a horseshoe into the garden and by wearing

43'The Works, 26, p. 392. 117

a sprig of rosemary. The conjuror also tells Mrs. Bluebeard that the ghost

can point out her future husband, and she gives the conjuror leave to ask

the ghost when it next appears. It turns out that Sly is "Bluebeard’s

ghost." In league with the conjuror, actually'an actor, and with the help

of some theatrical devices he had hoped to win the widow’s hand. As a

result of her discovery of the deception she marries Captain Blackbeard.

Thackeray concludes the story with a little apology: "You will say that the

story is not probable. Psha! Isn’t it written in a book? And is it a 44 whit less probable than the first part of the tale?" This is something

of the same "disclaimer" that Thackeray makes in Vanity Fair. It is a way

of reminding the reader that it is after all only a story; that it has been

something of a performance showing the virtuosity of the author. Thackeray

is also making a comment on realism—that if something is "written in a

book" a certain license is given. Thackeray reminds us that his first novel is an exhibition; it is a fair at which people will perform for the

reader, and these people will do the strangest things. Thackeray says,

"There are scenes of all sorts; some dreadful combats, some grand and lofty horse riding, some scenes of high life, and some of very middling indeed;

some love making for the sentimental, and some light comic business: the whole accompanied by appropriate scenery, and brilliantly illuminated with 45 the Author’s own candles." The reader is reminded that the novel is a performance and that a certain virtuosity can be expected.

He is proud to think that his puppets have given satisfaction to the very best company in the empire. The famous little Becky Puppet has

44The Works, 26, p. 414.

45yanity Fair, p. xxx. 118

been pronounced to be uncommonly flexible in the joints and lively on the wire: the Amelia Doll, though it has had a smaller circle of admirers, has yet been carved and dressed with the greatest care by the artist: the Dobbin Figure, though apparently clumsy, yet dances in a very amusing and natural manner: the Little Boys’ Dance has been liked by some; and please to remark the richly dressed figure of the wicked Nobleman, on which no expense has been spared, and whigja Old Nick will fetch away at the end of this singular performance.

And, if the reader has become too engrossed in the novel, he is reminded again at the end that this is after all a story. "Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum!

Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, hav ing it, is satisfied?—Come, Children, let us shut up the box and the pup- 47 pets, for our play is played out."

Bluebeard's Ghost is filled with all sorts of improbable events.

There is Bluebeard himself, or at least his memory, which seems improbable

The story deals with "passions," and there are no less than two suicide attempts, there is a plot concerning false ghosts and a counterplot con cerning false ghosts, and midnight rendezvous, and midnight unmaskings.

As noted above Thackeray feels constrained to say by way of explanation,

"Isn’t it written in a book?" And this indeed explains a great deal. A

"book" in a sense means license from reality and this is part of what

Thackeray is satirizing in this particular tale. In Vanity Fair Thackeray lets the reader know what to expect as far as "realism" is concerned in 48 his book. "I know that the tune I am piping is a very mild one ..."

He goes on to tell the reader that his subject is a very ordinary one, and that there will be no Lords and Ladies, no comic scenes about the servants

48Vanity Fair, p. xxx.

47yanity Fair, p. 730.

48yanity Fair, p. 48. 119

and no romance, especially robbery, kidnapping, and murder. Thackeray

not only makes a comment about Victorian fiction but he also reminds us

that this is an author at work upon a story. In both the tale and the

novel Thackeray satirizes--among other things—the romantic mode of fic

tion.

It should be noted that Bluebeard's Ghost also deals with the

intricacies of courtship among people in a vanity fair of lesser scope.

The younger Mr. Sly is attacked as a false romantic—there seems to be

no question of real love to him, only a question of the widow's money.

When the widow refuses him he attempts suicide, very much like Werther;

but of course he is not very much intent upon it, again very much like

Werther. Also, Fatima, very much like Amelia, adores her husband when

"the latter /is/ no more."

Dennis Haggarty's Wife

Dennis Haggarty* s Wife, a sketch that is accidentally a narrative, appeared in Fraser's Magazine in October, 1843. Dennis Haggarty is an honest assistant surgeon with the 120th Regiment. He is madly in love with Jemima Gam who will not have him. He considers suicide, demurs, and is somewhat surprised a few years later then Jemima's mother seeks him out and asks him to visit her daughter who is ill. In the dim light of the sick room Haggarty professes his enduring love for Jemima and later begs Mrs. Gam for her hand in marriage. Mrs. Gam fails to tell Dennis that Jemima is blind, disfigured, and made invalid by an attack of small pox. She also does not tell him of her family's financial troubles, and

^Vanity Fair, p. 49. 120

that she, Jemima, is penniless. But when Dennis marries Jemima and dis

covers all, he is never in the least disappointed in his great love for

her. In this instance Dennis Haggarty lives rather than professes a ro

mantic ideal of love. Jemima keeps Haggarty on the edge of poverty by

her requirements for the genteel life. Dennis by ill luck settles his

fortune on Jemima, and to top everything Dennis is deserted by his wife,

or rather kicked out of his own home by wife and mother-in-law, penniless

himself. The charge leveled at Dennis by his wife and mother-in-law is

that he is not worthy enough a husband. Thackeray says,

His troubles are very likely over by this time. The two fools who caused his misery will never read this history of him; they never read godless stories in magazines; and I wish, honest reader, that you and I went to church as much as they do. These people are not wicked because of their religious observances, but in spite of them. They are too dull to understand humility; too blind to see a tender and simple heart under a rough, ungainly bosom. They are sure that all their conduct towards my poor friend here has been perfectly right eous, and that they have given proofs of the most Christian virtue. Haggarty’s wife is considered by her friends as a martyr to her savage husband, and her mother is the angel that has come to rescue her. All they did was to cheat him and desert him. And safe in that won derful self-complacency with which the fools of this earth are endowed, they have not a single pang of conscience for their villany towards him, and consider their heartlesggess as a proof and consequence of their spotless piety and virtue.

There is in Jemima a small parcel of Amelia—someone who cannot appreciate a really good man. Dennis Haggarty is easily a model for William Dobbin.

Dobbin is not the hero of Vanity Fair, he is only a true gentleman. Even

Becky recognizes that Dobbin is a good man. Both Dobbin and Dennis are army officers, and Dennis—though an Irishman—is a gentleman as well.

Dennis is described as rough and ungainly, and George Osborne says of

Dobbin, "There's not a finer,fellow in the service not a better officer,

50 The Works, 5, p. 352. 121

though he is not an Adonis." Dobbin lets himself be used as does Dennis

Haggarty, both are generous and constant—-the difference is that Dobbin

finally asserts himself and Dennis does not. In Dennis Haggarty*s vanity

fair the virtuous person is a weak fool, and the happy person is a fool

among knaves. This is pointedly also true of Thackeray’s larger vanity

fair.

There is another germ relationship in the Dennis-Jamima and Dobbin-

Amelia parallel. In the tale Thackeray is dealing with a question of the

quality of a love relationship once the "bloom is off," once the object

of one’s love has changed substantially. The bloom is certainly off Jemima

when Dennis meets her for the second time. She is now blind, disfigured,

and lame. Dennis may have been tricked, but the point is he never demurs

in the marriage though Jemima is not what she once was. Dennis’s love

remains constant. It could be said of Amelia that after George, and "little

George, after many years, and after much ill-treatment of Dobbin, her bloom

is off as well--she has changed substantially from what she once was. It

could also be said that their early "relationship" had changed significantly

by the end of the novel. The point is that Dobbin realizes that his re

lationship to Amelia has changed as well, and he does not regard her in

the same way he had. In spite of this, Dobbin does his duty, so to speak,

and he marries Amelia. "It was gone indeed. William had spent it all

out. He loved her no more, he thought, as he had loved her. He never

could again. That sort of regard, which he had proffered to her for so many faithful years, can’t be flung down and shattered, and mended so as to showeno scars. The little heedless tyrant had so destroyed it."^

5^Vanity Fair, p. 717. 122

Thackeray realizes that Dobbin’s love cannot remain constant. Dobbin seems

a much more realistic figure than Dennis even though the parallels exist.

The differences between Dennis and Dobbin reveal other things as

well. Dennis seems a passive character who is tricked (if he is) and then

badly used by two very petty and mean people. Thackeray is not using indi

rect satire or mild satire on Jamima and Mrs. Gam, he is attacking them

frontally with what, for Thackeray, is pretty strong language. He seems

genuinely sorry for Dennis Haggarty who is no target for Thackeray. Dobbin

is the author of his own fate. He dotes on George Osborne, and of course,

Amelia’s happiness means everything to him. Dobbin sacrifices his happiness

for what he thinks is the happiness of others. In this manner Dobbin is

not entirely blameless--as is Dennis--and for this reason Dobbin comes in

for a little gentle satire from the pen of Thackeray. Of course, Amelia

as well is satirized, though, with a good deal of understanding on the

part of the author. In Dennis Haggarty1s Wife Thackeray is strongly at

tacking the attitudes and actions of two women. By the time of the novel

Thackeray seems to be able to see better both sexual viewpoints. His greater understanding in the novel has led him to indirect satire, and by degree

to a gentler treatment of human weakness.

"A Caution to Travellers"

"A Caution to Travellers" is another tale from The Paris Sketch Book

Thackeray narrates a story of one Sam Pogson ostensibly to warn travellers of the dangers of Paris. Pogson is a handsome, self-proclaimed devil-may- care-man-about-town. He is also a travelling salesman. On his rounds near Paris he meets a dowdy-looking Baroness and is immediately attracted to her. He admits a liking for nobility even though he is an Englishman. 123

He finds later that the "Baroness" has a husband, but this little discour ages Pogson. In a card game with the "Baron" and friends Pogson loses thirty-eight pounds and drinks too much. The next day another of the card players produces notes Pogson allegedly signed when drunk for a total of five-hundred and ninety-eight pounds. The narrator states that Pogson got himself into trouble because of an "intense respect and longing for rank 52 . . ." He has also been led astray by too often reading Byron’s Don

Juan. This allows Thackeray an oblique blow against another manifestation of the romantic stance. The narrator, in order to help Pogson, turns to one of his acquaintances called "little Major British." The narrator says of Major British that:

He loved and respected, like a good staunch Tory as he is, every one of the English nobility; gave himself certain little airs of a man of fashion, that were by no means disagreeable; and was, indeed, kindly regarded by such English aristocracy as he met in his little annual tours among the German Court, in Italy or in Paris, where he never missed an ambassador’s night: he retailed to us, who didn't go, but were delighted to know all that had taken place, accurate accounts- of the dishes, the dresses, and the scandal which had fallen under his observation.

He is, moreover, one of the most useful persons in society that can possibly be; for besides being incorrigibly duelsome on his own account, he is, for others, the most acute and peaceable counsellor in the world, and has carried more friends through scrapes and pre vented more deaths than any member of the Humane Society. British never bought a single step in the army, as is well known. In ’14 he killed a celebrated Fench fire-eater, who had slain a young friend of his, and living, as he does, a great deal with young men of pleasure, and good old sober family people, he is loved by them both, and has as welcome a place made for him at a roaring bachelor’s supper at the "Café" Anglais," as at a staid dowager’s dinner table in Fauborg St. Honoré. Such pleasant old boys are very profitable acquaintances, let me tell you; and lucky is the young man who has one or two such friends in his list.53

52The Works, 22, p. 29.

53The Works, 22, pp. 30-31. 124

Thackeray then describes the Major, and the reader catches the Major pol ishing his boots.

The little gentleman was in his travelling jacket, and occupied in painting, elegantly, one of those natty pairs of boots in which he daily promenaded the Boulevards. A couple of pairs of tough buff gloves had been undergoing some pipeclaying operations under his hands; no man stepped out so spick and span, with a hat so nicely brushed, with a stiff cravat tied so neatly under a fat little red face, with a blue frock coat so scrupulously fitted to a paunchy little person, as Major British . . . 4

Thackeray describes Major Pendennis on his way to breakfast.

At a quarter-past ten the Major invariably made his appearance in the best blacked boots in all London, with a checked morning cravat that never was rumpled until dinner time, a buff waistcoat which bore the crown of his sovereign on the buttons, and linen so spotless that Mr. Brummel himself asked the name of his laundress . . . Pendennis’s coat, his white gloves, his whiskers, his very cane, were perfect of their kind as specimens of the costume of a military man en retraite.

Major British is the germ or one of the germs for Major Pendennis. Major

Pendennis has a special reverence for the English nobility. He is the intimate of many an English Lord, and he is a fixture at the most important and most chic social gatherings. More importantly he rescues Arthur from his scrape, and Arthur is indeed lucky to have "such a pleasant old boy" to help him out even though Pen for the most part is blithely unaware of his "danger." By a masterful stroke Major British discovers the Baron and

Baroness to be impostors and frauds. Major Pendennis by a masterful stroke

(or strokes) rescues Pen from his entanglement.

The differences between Major British and Major Pendennis show the later Major to be a more developed character. Pendennis is a more refined character. Major British occupies a "modest apartment" and Major

34The Works 22, p. 31.

55 Pendennis, I, p. 1. 125

Pendennis lives at his club. It seems hard to believe that Pendennis would

black his own boots. Even though Major British hobnobs with aristocracy

it is hard to imagine he would be invited to dine with a Bishop. Pogson's rescuer is feisty and rough, probably in compensation for his small, stature.

He makes the conmen and conwomen back down by a show of strength. Major

Pendennis seems to be an "addition" or an "accretion" on Major British.

Major Pendennis's problem is a little more complex. He is faced with a conman, in a manner of speaking, but in this case the victim is willing, and must be persuaded as well. The Major, though disturbed at being inter rupted by his sister’s summons and the impudence of Captain Costigan, oper ates in a much cooler manner. He rescues Pen by a show of finesse. Major

Pendennis has a subtle way of "illuminating" Emily Costigan. By cutting through Pen’s romanticism he makes him see reality.

Pen was glad enough, we have said, to listen to his elder’s talk. The conversation of Captain Costigan became by no means pleasant to him, and the idea of that tipsy old father-in-law haunted him with terror. He couldn’t bring that man, unshaven and reeking with punch, to associate with his mother. Even about Emily—he faltered when the pitiless guardian began to question him. "Was she accomplished?" He was obliged to own, no. "Was she clever?" Well, she had a very good average intellect: but he could not absolutely say she was clever. "Come, let us see some of her letters." So Pen confessed that he had but those three of which we have made mention--and that they were but trivial invitations or answers..

"She is cautious enough," the Major said drily. "She is older than you my dear boy;" and then he apologised with the utmost frank-' ness and humility, and flung himself upon Pen’s good feelings, begging the lad to exggse a fond old uncle, who had only his family’s honour in view ...

The Major has a special way of making Pen feel guilty.

Pen never rode over to Chatteris but the Major found out on what errand the boy had been. Faithful to his plamMajor Pendennis gave his nephew no let or hindrance; but somehow the constant feeling that

56 Pendennis, I, p. 90. 126

the senior’s eye was upon him, an uneasy shame attendant upon that inevitable confession which the evening's conversation would be sure to elicit in the most natural simple manner, made Pen go Less frequent ly to sigh away his soul at the feet of his charmer than he had been wont to do previous to his uncle’s arrival. There was no use trying to deceive him; there was no pretext of dining with Smirke, or reading Greek plays with Foker; Pen felt, when he returned from one of his flying visits, that everybody knew whence he came, and appeared quite guilty before his mother and guardian, over their books or their game at piquet.'5'

Pendennis has a much more sophisticated method of action in rescuing Pen,

and of course, it also is a more difficult task. 58 Thackeray calls Major British a "half pay philosopher" but the

fact is the Major talks very little and his philosophy is blunt and to the

point. About all he offers is given when he is especially peeved at Pogson,

a "commercial traveller," because Pogson has remarked that British merchants

are Nature’s gentlemen.

"Hold your tongue, sir," bounced out the Major, "and don’t lecture me, don’t come out to me, sir, with your slang about Nature’s gentlemen-- Nature’s tomfools, sir! Did nature open a cash account for you at a banker’s, sir! Did Nature give you an education, sir? What do you mean by competing with people to whom Nature has given all these things? Stick to your bags, Mr. Pogson^and your bagmen, and leave barons and their like to their own ways."

Major Pendennis is not only a man of action, he is truly a philoso pher as well. The Major not only saves Pen from a scrape but he also has

a great deal to teach in the line of social and family theory. The Major advises, "Remember, it’s as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman: and a devilish deal pleasanter to sit down to a good dinner than to a scrag of mutton in lodgings. Make up your mind to that. A woman with a good

57pendennis, I, p. 92.

5^The Works, 22, p. 35.

^The Works, 22, p. 33. 127

jointure is a doosid deal easier a profession than the law, let me tell 60 you." The Major notes, "That is the benefit of knowing rich men; — I dine for nothing, sir;--I go into the country, and I'm mounted for nothing. Other fellows keep houds and gamekeepers for me."^ The Major's philosophy and advice seems to center on rich women.

Marry a woman with money. I've told you before it is as easy to get a rich wife as a poor one; and a doosid deal more comfortable to sit down to a well-cooked dinner, with your little entries nicely served, than to have nothing but a damned cold leg of mutton between you and your wife. We shall have a good dinner on the 14th, when we dine with Sir Francis Clavering: stick to that, my boy, in your relations with the family. Cultivate 'em, but keep 'em for dining, more of your youthful follies and nonsense about love in a cottage.

The Major also believes in keeping "sentiment" out of marriage; his alterna tive is to bond it by "means." He also wisely warns Pen away from Blanche

Amory.

Look at your love-marriages, my dear young creature. The love-match people are the most notorious of all for quarrelling afterwards; and a girl who runs away with Jack to Gretna Green, constantly runs away with Tom to Switzerland afterwards. The great point in marriage is for people to agree to be useful to one another. The lady brings the means, and the gentleman avails himself of them. My boy's wife brings the horse, and begad Pen goes in and wins the plate. That's what I call a sensible union. A couple like that have something to talk to each other about when they come together. If you had Cupid himself to talk to--if Blanche and Pen were Cupid and Psyche, begad--they'd begin to yawn after a few evenings, if they had nothing but sentiment to speak on.

The Major's philosophy is more developed, but Thackeray makes him do double duty: (1) the Major expresses a wise attack on the folly of vacant senti-

^Pendennis, I, p. 292. ^Pendennis, I, p. 373. Z* Q ¿Pendennis, I, p. 384.

83pendennis, II., p. 221. 128 mentality, and (2) he also embodies an example of the overemphasis on the mercenary. Major British is the germ but Major Pendennis has grown as a fictional creation.

The "Conning" Motif

In all of the tales, The Professor, Minna Lowe, Bluebeard's Ghost,

Dennis Haggarty1s Wife, and "A Caution to Travellers" there is a common motif of conning, or gulling, or some other form of misrepresentation!'

Dando cons and gulls Adeliza, George Fitz-Boodle is cheated by Minna, Mrs.

Bluebeard is fooled by Sly masquerading as a ghost, Jemima and Mrs. Gam have a scheme to entrap Dennis, and Sam Pogson is cheated at cards by a fake Baron and Baroness. The motif of conning or gulling is central to

Vanity Fair and Pendennis. Rebecca Sharp is, in a special sense, the arch

"conwoman." Armstrong Altamont Avery, though not as interesting as Rebecca, is nevertheless a professional conman. In Vanity Fair it must be pointed out that Rebecca is only the chief of a great number of characters who trade in deceit and misrepresentation. Avery is only one of the "conper- sons" who abound in Pendennis. If conning or gulling is basically some sort of deceit or misrepresentation, I believe this "conning and gulling" in the tales is a germ for a cardinal motif or an organic symbol, in the characters of the novels who misrepresent, and, or who are not what they appear to be. The novels abound with social hypocrites who are conmen and conwomen in another sense. Rebecca seems to be the link between the real conmen and the social conmen. There is John Osborne who will not let his son marry Amelia Sedley because she is the daughter of a bankrupt. Old

Osborne forgets that Sedley had given him his start in business. The 129

Osbornes, especially George, originally looked down upon Dobbin because

he was a "grocer," and actually the Osbornes are "commercial" people.

Rawdon and George misrepresent themselves as men but they are no more than

schoolboys. Jos Sedley attempts to give himself the look of a "beau" or a

"blood" yet the appearance of a lady frightens him. I think Thackeray

symbolizes this "hiding" of the truth by enclosing Jos in folds of ill-

fitting clothes and folds of ill-fitting flesh. Lord Steyne misrepresents himself as a benevolent aristocrat; Thackeray paints him as an absurd Sa

tanic figure. The Costigans misrepresent themselves: Emily as a clever actress and both Emily and Captain Costigan as descended from Irish kings.

Sir Francis Clavering misrepresents himself; he hides the fact of his com pulsive gambling and must cheat and con his debtors. Thackeray calls him a "swindler" and a "shuffler." Blanche Amory misrepresents herself when she claims she loves Pen—in fact, she could love no one.

A conman's actions are intended to deceive, and the actions of the characters in Vanity Fair and Pendennis are meant to deceive as well.

The motives of their actions are not the ostensible ones. For example flattery is almost always given to benefit the flatterer. George Osborne tells himself and proclaims to his friends that he loves Amelia and will marry her. In reality he is following some romantic code to feed his ego, and he is also motivated as an adolescent striking out against adult pro hibitions. Rawdon Crawley and Rebecca pay a great deal of attention to

Rawdon's aunt, not because they like her but because she has seventy-thou sand pounds. Mrs. Clapp is friendly to the Sedleys until the rent is in arrears, when she reveals her friendship has been false. Mrs. Bullock pays court to Amelia not because she likes her but because Amelia has in 130 herited most of old Osborne's money. Mrs. Bute Crawley engineers the mar riage of Rawdon and Becky, not because she is a matchmaker and likes to see young people happy, but rather to estrange Rawdon from his aunt. Mrs.

Bute Crawley takes over Aunt Crawley's household not to help her but to manipulate her against Rawdon. She nearly poisons the old lady to death, relenting only when she realizes Aunt Crawley had not yet changed her will.

The young Sir Pitt Crawley fawns before Aunt Crawley not out of any defer ence to her but because he wants to be willed her money. Sir Francis

Clavering marries Mrs. Amory not because he is in love with her but bedause she is rich and he needs her money. Costigan helps the relationship be tween Pen and Emily along not because he wants to see the young people happy but because he thinks there is something to gain by it. Thackeray uses all of these characters to do the work of the satirist. He points out the discrepancies between appearance and reality; he draws the reader's attention to the difference between real motivation and ostensible motiva tion.

Another tale, "A Gambler's Death" from The Paris Sketch Book, will serve to illustrate another aspect of the "conning motif." Thackeray says the tale is based on fact. It is a sordid story of a young soldier who takes to gambling, which becomes a compulsive habit with him. He ration alizes his habit by seeing all life as a game. The gambler ends in abso lute poverty; he must steal an acquaintance's pistols to commit suicide.

Thackeray, of course, would know of the gambler's motivation first hand.

At the same time gambling plays a significant part in the novels. Soldiers and gambling seem to go together. Both George Osborne and Rawdon Crawley gamble themselves into financial disaster. In Pendennis, Sir Francis 131

Clavering is a study in compulsive, ruinous gambling. The gambling, though,

is not the most significant aspect of the tale—it is rather "seeing life

as a game," and of course the conman sees life as a game. There are certain

rules he must abide by; there are misrepresentations he must make in order

to get ahead, or in order to secure his place in vanity fair. Again, the motives in the game are not genuine, the motive is to "play it out" for

gain or loss. To George Osborne "life is a game," war is a game, even

Amelia is a game. When Arthur Pendennis sees life as a game, that is,

living by some sort of romantic code, he is able to deceive himself about what he sees and about the motives for his actions.

A Little Dinner at Timmins's: A Chip

In the novel Vanity Fair the characters are not only concerned with their position in or at the Fair, they are also entwined in the web of the cash nexus--their relationships are dictated by the laws of exchange in money and goods. In vanity fair "pounds, shillings, and pence were the 64 only cement that pretended to hold society together." When Amelia re marks on the coldness of Miss Swartz's retainers to her, George says, "My dear child, they would have loved you if you had two hundred thousand pounds,

. . . That is the way in which they have been brought up. Ours is a ready- money society, we live among bankers and city bigwigs, and be hanged to them, and everyman, as he talks to you, is jingling his guineas in his pocket."65

^^Richard D. Altick in a preface to Carlyle's Past and Present (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965), p. xi. 65Vanity Fair, pp. 200-1. 132

Thackeray in one of his editorial comments further explains the

cash nexus as it appears in his book.

People in Vanity Fair fasten onto rich folks quite naturally. If the simplest people are disposed to look a little kindly on great prosperity (for I defy any member of the British public to say that the notion of Wealth has not something awful and pleasing to him; and you, if you are told that the man next you at dinner has got half a million, not to look at him with a certain interest)—if the simple logk benevolently on money, how much more do your old worldlings regard it!

Again Thackeray intrudes to ironically note: "If every person is to be banished from society who runs into debt and cannot pay--if we are to be peering into everybody’s private life, speculating on their income, and cutting them if we don’t approve of their expenditure—why what a howling 67 wilderness and intolerable dwelling Vanity Fair would be!" The irony exists because for those who are in debt or spending above their means

Vanity Fair is a "wilderness." Also Thackeray does a great deal of peering into everybody’s private life.

In Vanity Fair there is a panoply of characters who scheme, who plot, who actually steal, who intrigue, who prevaricate, who deceive, who attempt impostures, who falsely ingratiate themselves, and who hope fondly for ill-fortune to beifall others so that they may improve themselves fi nancially and/or socially as if social success and financial gain followed each other in ascending cycle. Part of Thackeray's intent in Vanity Fair is to show how facile, hollow, and destructive this grasping for money and place is. There is, however, an even more powerful and more subtle influence of the "pound" in Thackeray’s book. The reader knows just how many pounds everyone is worth. Thackeray takes care to describe the wealth

66yanity Fair, p. 202.

^Vanity Fair, p. 526. 133

and the riches of all the aristocracy down to the last gold plate and sil

ver spoon. The reader finds out how many pounds, shillings, and pence

everything costs. We know how much everyone is in debt. The reader knows

the exact amounts that Amelia gets when she pawns her possessions. The

reader is party to inventories of valuables whether Lord Steyne’s or Re

becca’s. We know almost to the pence how much money the principals are

carrying in their pockets. Just below the level of comic satire the book

reads like an account ledger; in short there is literally much peering

into bankbooks and pocketbooks. Thackeray by this device shows us the

materialism in which most of these people wallow, and how most are mired

in the cash nexus.

Vanity Fair was published in numbers from January 1847 to July 1848

A Little Dinner at Timmins's was published in Punch from May to July 1848.

I would like to use A Little Dinner at Timmins1s as an example of a "chip

from the workbench"--something that has the same grain and texture and is

of the same material as the longer work.

Mr. and Mrs. Fitzroy Timmins live at Lilliput St. which runs at

right angles with Brobdingnag Gardens. Mr. Timmins is a barrister and an

Oxford man; Rose besides being a mother and a housewife is an indifferent poet. Mr. Timmins has just received a case that is paying him fifteen guineas a day. Rose Timmins calculates that this is about four-thousand

five-hundred pounds a year. The complication is that the case lasts only a week. Rose decides they must have a dinner as a reflection of the new wealth, and to try for a more favored position in vanity fair. Her hus band is afraid they cannot afford the dinner. Rose has her way and making the invitations says, "Sir Thomas and Lady Kicklebury, 2. No saying no! 134

we must ask them Charles. They are rich people, and any room in their

house in Brobdingnag Gardens would swallow up our humble cot. But to

people in our position in society they will be glad enough to come. The 68 City people are glad to mix with the old families." The reader recalls

Thackeray’s statement from Vanity Fair about people’s reaction to wealth.

Mrs. Timmins says they must also invite their Member from Topham. The

Tophams feel the invitation is impudent but they also feel they must ac cept.

The Topham Sawyers had just come down to breakfast: Mrs. T. in her large dust-coloured morning dress and Madonna front (she looks rather scraggy of a morning, but I promise you her ringlets and figure will stun you of an evening); and having read the note, the follow ing dialogue passed:—

Mrs. Topham Sawyer. "Well, upon my word, I don’t know where things will end. Mr. Sawyer, the Timminses have asked us to dinner."

Mr. Topham Sawyer. "Ask us to dinner! What d___ impudence!"

Mrs. Topham Sawyer. "The most dangerous and insolent revolutionary principles are abroad,. Mr. Sawyer; and I shall write and hint as much to these persons."

Mr. Topham Sawyer. "No d___ it, Joanna; they are my constituents and we must go. Write a civil note, and say we will come to their party."89

General Gulpin is invited--even though he is loud and eats too much he looks good at table with his ribbons and stars. They decide not to invite the Hodges because they drag their H's. All totaled they invite twenty people hoping only ten will show up because the dining room will only ac commodate the latter number.

6^The Works, 8, p. 401.

^^The Works, 8, pp. 402-3. 135

When Mr. Rowdy, a banker, accepts he also takes the opportunity to inform Timmins that his account is overdrawn by $ 28, 18s. and 6d., and also will he send immediate payment. There is pointedly a glimpse into Timmins's bank book. People are offended by being asked and by not being asked. They do not invite the Simmins's because Rose is jealous of

Mrs. Simmins. Mr. Simmins therefore cuts Mr. Timmins the next time he sees him. There is also a nosey, antagonistic, domineering, mother-in-law—

Mrs. Gashleigh--who besides being a snoopy nuisance steals little odds and ends from around the house. There is not enough tableware, so they have to buy more to the tune of ^“6, 14s. 6d. Rose beguiles her husband into buying new curtains and a new dress for herself. When they decide to hire a French chef Mr. Timmins consults his club chef Monsieur Mirobolant

(appearing again in Pendennis and modeled after the great Alexis Sayer, chef of the Reform Club) and is recommended Mirobolant's assistant. The new chef is too demanding and expensive so they decide to have the entire dinner catered by Fubsby’s.

Mr. Timmins meanwhile flirts with one of the shopgirls at Fubsby’s and makes every excuse he can to go there. On one unfortunate excursion he is spotted by his mother-in-law, Mrs. Gashleigh, and he is compromised thereafter. The reader knows the exact price of the wines—the champagne costing 42s. per bottle.

When the dinner finally takes place it is miserable. Mr. and Mrs.

Timmins are exceedingly nervous because they are in over their heads. The conversation is awful, a soup tureen is broken, the baby screams, and after dinner is an even greater disaster because of the lack of room. Thackeray near the end asks why they had given the dinner when these were the results: 136

(1) they offended old friends they did not invite (2) they did not please

those they did invite (3) the party was beyond their means (4) they went

into debt (5) Timmins' extravagance and prodigality would be talked about,

and (6) therefore business would be withdrawn from him, and all because . 70 Mr. Timmins wife "Would have a Little Dinner."

The Timmins attempt to climb socially as do many of the central

characters in Vanity Fair. In the shorter work the reader sees the "cash

connection" between people--the dinner is certainly ostentatious--their

relationship to other people is based on what the Timmins can pay. There

is the motif of peering into bank books and the cataloging of belongings.

We know what Timmins owes, and we know in detail his household possessions.

The reader sees the improvidence of Mr. Timmins in the same manner he sees

the improvidence of a Rawdon Crawley. The theme of A Little Dinner at

Timmins * s is as for the longer work, and as the preacher said, "Vanity,

vanity, all is vanity."

It might be significant to note that in the shorter work Thackeray

takes the part of a "writer character" just as he does in the novel; he

is a gentleman talking to other gentlemen. And as there is no hero in

Vanity Fair there is no hero in the shorter work.

There are a number of ways in which the "chip" differs from Vanity

Fair and these differences can be instructive as well. A Little Dinner at Timmins's has more of the ring of eighteenth century satire. The satire is more direct in the tale than in the novel, and the objects and results of that satire are more obvious than in Vanity Fair. In fact Thackeray goes so far as to actually list the '¿results" in the tale. There does

70 The Works, 8, pp. 432-33. 137

not seem to be any equivocal satire in the tale as there is in the novel.

Thackeray satirizes Amelia and Dobbin, but they are sympathetic characters—

as mentioned before, their miscalculations and mistakes actually spring

from the strength of their characters.

Rose, of course, bears some similarities to Rebecca although there

are some important differences. Rose is the main instigator of the little

dinner. Rose’s main motivation in giving the party is vanity. The dinner

is her attempt to gain a place in Vanity Fair. She, like Rebecca Sharp,

is on the make socially, though not on such a grand scale. Both use their

"sexuality" for social purposes--Rose "beguiles" Mr. Timmins into buying

her new curtains and a new dress, Becky succeeds in seduction for social

purposes, but the character she seduces are fools and knaves who are super

ficially attracted to her. Becky allows people to destroy themselves on

her because she sees their weaknesses, but they essentially destroy them

selves. Rose on the other hand knows her husband's weaknesses but she is harmless in comparison. Becky besides perpetrator is a victim as well--

she has a background that is a social handicap, and also is very poor during her childhood. She becomes adept at putting off creditors and playing the game of social climbing. Rose is "social climbing" but pointedly she or

"they" in contrast are of good family. Thackeray, in Becky, shows the reader a more complicated and qualified picture of a social climber. It is possible to see Becky as innocent, that is, as mentioned before as much seduced as the others are seduced. Becky comes from "below" Vanity Fair but the values of Vanity Fair are ultimately hers; her energy is spent getting shallowness. Becky may be the greatest seductress in all of litera ture but she may also be the most seduced. She can easily see others’ 138

weaknesses but not her own. If Becky is condemned by Thackeray, this con

demnation is at the very least qualified.

Some Conclusions

John W. Dodds noted that Thackeray, "as an author . . . was thrifty 71 and wasted nothing he could decently save." And indeed there are char acters and themes that are used over again, from the tales to the novels, but the point is that Thackeray has developed his characters and themes and this is more than a "thrifty" or "saving" process. Most of Thackeray’s major novels were, in his own words, "lisped by numbers," and it has been something of the fashion in the past to note the deleterious effect serial or multi-volume publication has on the art (especially unity) of a particu lar novelist. Geoffrey Tillotson has noted in Thackeray what he calls a 72 "oneness" of materials and a "oneness" of form and manner. He also notes 73 a certain "consanguinity" of the characters in the novels. When one looks at the relationship of the tales to the novels and notes how Thackeray has taken certain themes and developed them, and when one observes that there is a certain consanguinity between the characters in the tales and those in the novels, that does not preclude their growing and developing, I think one realizes a definite unity in the works of Thackeray. I believe the tales and their relationships to the novels show Thackeray, like Dickens, a very conscious maker of fiction deeply involved with the art of novel writing.

71 Thackeray: A Critical Portrait (New York: Russell & Russell Inc., 1963), p. 48. 72 Thackeray the Novelist, pp. 5-54.

?3Thackeray the Novelist, p. 5. 13<\

CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSIONS

I have attempted to demonstrate in the preceding chapters that

there is a definite and important relationship between the short fiction

and the novels of both Dickens and Thackeray. I have attempted to demon

strate that the fiction of Dickens and Thackeray is a preparatory prelude

to the novel in the form of a rehearsal, is preparatory to the novel as

concerns development in their writing of fiction; or is a by-product of

the novel, that more than anything else, demonstrates the novel-making

process. The short fiction of Dickens and Thackeray contains the themes,

characters, and motifs later developed in the novels. If this relationship

exists, what are the implications and conclusions that can be drawn? The

relationship may (1) offer another significant reason that the genuine

short story did not develop in England until much later in the century

(see Appendix B). The years 1820 to 1860 witness, in America, an early

flowering of the genuine short story. Most of the fiction of Dickens and

Thackeray, short and long, was written and published in the years 1832 to 1865, and yet these two giants of English fiction produced no genuine

short stories. This is doubly strange when one remembers that both Dickens and Thackeray wrote many short pieces before they began to write novels.

It is not that their short fictions are poor short stories and therefore not short stories, but rather that their short fictions are something else altogether different. They are part and parcel of their novel making pro cess. Both Dickens and Thackeray were successful writers of short pieces 140 of fiction in a financial sense. Why did they turn to the novel and why did they make their short fiction somehow subordinate to the novels? (Ac tually part of the answer is that they did turn to the novel.) Does Dickens have more artistic regard for the novel than for shorter fictions? Does

Thackeray have more artistic regard for the novel than for the shorter fictions? If relative accomplishment in both areas is significant, the answer would be--"of course." But relative accomplishment does not seem to be a sufficient answer. Dickens had an equal financial regard for the novel. As ambitious and as hungry for success as Dickens was, he would have been aware of what a novel could do for him as far as financial and artistic security was concerned. He entered upon the Pickwick project be cause it was, first of all, a chance to make more money. He realized that novel writing could be at least as lucrative as other things. Later, in

Dickens' career, the shorter pieces, especially the Christmas numbers, be came an onerous, but profitable burden. I believe they were onerous in an artistic sense. Dickens confessed in a letter that he would be glad to get the "Christmas stone" out of the road so he could dash on to the

"grander journey," presumably the novel. Dickens in a letter to John Forster

(February, 1854) complained of some of his difficulties in writing Hard Times

The difficulty of space is CRUSHING. Nobody can have an idea of it who has not had an experience of patient fictioy writing with some elbow-room always, and open places in perspective.

Although Dickens was complaining of the artificial limitations he had put on himself in Hard Times this seems a confession that he needed space to do his proper job.

I-Hard Times, ed. George Ford and Sylvere Monod (New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 1966), p. 274. 141

There is another way to view the problem; by seeing that Dickens

was a novelist "before" he was a writer of short fictions. "Dickens would

seem to have been, more than any other English writer, a 'born' or natural

novelist, with a unique power to create life and to transform what he has 2 seen, and an extraordinary freedom from inhibition." Dickens may have

always been "preparing" for the novel, and his short fictions are an at

tempt to get going, or in another sense to keep the pot boiling.

Dickens began Oliver Twist before he finished Pickwick Papers and

it would be safe to say he had Oliver Twist in mind before and during the

writing of the Pickwick Papers. If there are evident germs and incunabula

for Twist in the four gothic tales of Pickwick it would follow that as

Dickens wrote he had the longer fiction in mind (something that could pos

sibly be strung out or developed, or in some manner used in the novel);

and if this is true there is little chance that the shorter fictions would

have the artistic integrity that would be needed for the genuine short

story. Dickens’ purpose in writing the tales has more to do with the novel.

Dickens felt that "The Stroller’s Tale" from Pickwick Papers would 3 create a "sensation." This either means Dickens had a high regard for

the story or that he was certain of its creating a sensation among his

literary friends—even in a negative sense. The implication I draw from

the letter is that he is proud of the tale. He was extraordinarily con

cerned that the drawing for it be just right. When Dickens was writing

o Charles Dickens, Bleak House, ed. Albert J. Guerard (Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970), p. xxii.

^The Letters of Charles Dickens, Vol. I, 1820-1838, ed. Madeline House, and Graham Storey (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1965), p. 146. 142

"The Drunkard’s Death" for the Boz tales, his comments are very equivocal.

"The Little tale I am on, is a very good one (I think). I have taken great 4 pains with it, as I wished to finish the Volume with eclat." In other

words he has taken great care that the tale be "showy." The promise of

the story of "The Queer Client" Dickens calls "a very good bit to finish . . ."5 a number with. Again, the promise of the tale is something fairly

sensational-sounding to keep the reader’s interest up. Dickens makes this

unusual comment about "The Black Veil."

I have finished my sketch and dispatched it; but I must stay at home for two reasons. First because I am anxious to see Mitton if I possibly can, on business; and secondly because an extraordinary idea for a story of a very singular kind occurred to me this morning, and I am anxious to commit it to paper before the impression upon me is lost.

The significant word in this letter is idea. Dickens says he wants to get the idea down before it gets away from him. This tale serves as a notebook for Dickens.

Thackeray, of course, had the financial example of Dickens before him previous to the time he turned to the novel. He also had the artistic success of Dickens before him; it is no secret that Thackeray admired Dickens' creative talent. Thackeray tells the reader in Vanity Fair that his empha sis is now to be on the ordinary things in life rather than focusing upon

"high-life" or "low-life" or extremely romantic, flamboyant subjects. It is evident that the tale tradition Thackeray was working in was not suited

^Letters, I, p. 208.

^Letters, I, p. 176.

^Letters, I, p. 98. 143

to this. Thackeray satirized romantic-flamboyant subjects in his tales—

the irony is that those tales had to have romantic subjects.

In the short fiction of Dickens and Thackeray there is as noted

before the strong tradition of the tale and the sketch; and other elements

from the eighteenth century such as the picaresque novel, the sportive gothic,

and from earlier in the century the element of direct satire. The tale

tradition would demand certain things of an author. Tales of Dickens like

"The Boarding House" from Boz are in the eighteenth century tradition.

Pickwick began as a form of the "eighteenth" century novel. Thackeray

pictured himself as the witty, urbane, moral satirist, and essentially

Vanity Fair is satire, but it is different than the eighteenth century tradition in satire, and it is something more. If the tales are a develop mental step to the novels it is also possibly an indication of why the

Victorian novel is quite different than its eighteenth century or Romantic predecessor.

It is an observable fact that the genuine or literary short story did not develop in England as soon as elsewhere, and that the tale and sketch tradition persisted longer. Dickens and Thackeray both wrote tales and sketches although the short story was developing around them and con ditions in England such as the presence of the German literary fairy tales in translation could have led to the development of the short story. If they were planting seeds for their novels (essentially a new form) or re hearsing motifs and plots they would have used a comfortable and easy tra dition, "a known commodity" rather than striking out into another new literary form. If their eyes were always on the novel the throwaways were the tales and sketches that were germs and incunabula of their novels. 144

Anything short could easily be turned into part of a novel even though it might have nothing to do with the plot line of a particular novel (the best

example is Pickwick Papers).

If there is a strong relationship between the tales and novels some thing else is demonstrated as well. (2) It shows the novelist at work; it shows the shorter forms as testing grounds for the fictional imagination; it shows the combinations and permutations of motifs which resulted as he wrked; it illustrates the essential difference of "development" and "scope" between the tale and the novel. As brief reiterative examples there is the difference between the ludicrous prisoner in "A Brief Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle" and the tragic story of Mr. William Dorrit, the

Father of the Marshalsea. There is the difference between Rose Timmins and Becky Sharp. Thackeray toys with the morbidly romantic consciousness in The Professor and then devotes two novels to it. A humorous, fast-paced burlesque, satirizing the "romantic" stance becomes an extremely complex work, showing many facets of the "abuses" of the romantic approach to life.

Dickens, early tests a child-parent relationship in the tales, and it be comes a central concern to many of his novels. A quaint device like the vengeful goblins is developed into a precise picture of a mind troubled by its own internal burden of guilt.

If there is a strong relationship between the tales and the longer works (3) the favorite devices, motifs, and especially themes, of the au thors are revealed in greater relief. They are more precisely known by seeing them grow and develop, or by carefully examining them when they are a byproduct; the relationships especially reveal the novel. As re iterative examples there is in Dickens the cardinal motif of the parent 145 vs. child developing through the tales into the novels; in Thackeray mun— dane conmen people the tales; by the time of the novels they have developed into extraordinary social conmen revealing one of Thackeray's cardinal motifs.

I believe the tales and the novels in their essential differences

(4) reveal the primary contrast between the traditions of eighteenth century fiction, the traditions of Romantic fiction, vs. the Victorian social- realistic novel. Again, very early in Vanity Fair Thackeray announces his purpose in novel writing. He tells the reader the tune he is piping is a very "mild" one, compared essentially with the usual subjects of fiction. Pointedly Thackeray’s tales satirize these "usual" subjects and, ironically, in a manner associated with the eighteenth century—by broad, direct satire. The differences between Pickwick Papers and Oliver

Twist may demonstrate the differences between earlier traditions and the

Victorian social-realistic novel. In fact it would not be unwarranted to say Pickwick Papers begins in an eighteenth century tradition and ends in the tradition of the social-realistic novel.

The relationship of the tales to the novels shows that (5) Dickens and Thackeray were very involved in the craft of fiction, were very con scious artists of the novel, and were, in a sense, systematic planners of their longer fictions. Although this conclusion about the novel-making art of Dickens and Thackeray may be abundantly clear in the light of the last two decades of scholarship, the relationship is further evidence along this line. 146

A Last Word

Hugh Walker in his introduction to Selected English Short Stories,

speaking generally along the line of the relationships between tales, short

stories, and novels makes this whimsical comment: "The wind of genius blow-

eth where it listeth. Science can imperfectly explain the direction of

the winds, and criticism can explain still more imperfectly the activities of genius."? This is what I hope I have done--in one sense--that I have

in some small measure imperfectly explained the activities of genius as

concerns the tales and sketches of Thackeray and Dickens, and in another more important sense, explained something of the activities of genius of

two nineteenth century novelists.

^Selected English Short Stories, (1914; rtp. London: Oxford Uni versity Press, 1967) p. xxv, The introduction was written in 1914. W9

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APPENDIXES ISif APPENDIX A

TALES: THEMES, MOTIFS, FICTIONAL TENDENCIES, DEVELOPMENTS, CHARACTERS AND NOVELS

DICKENS

Sketches by Boz

"The Boarding House" caricature (series)—possibly pervasive opening dining scene—Our Mutual Friend breach of promise suit—Pickwick Papers ' mistaken identity, "bedroom comedy"--Pickwick Papers

"Sentiment" attacks sentiment--position reversed in Hard Times Cornelius Brook Dingwall--Mr. Podsnap, Mr. Dombey, specifically Thomas Gradgrind parliamentary prerogatives—Hard Times Easter Monday observance—parliamentary boondoggling in Hard Times, and other of the novels

"The Black Veil" gothic trappings—pervasive tendency boy who listens at keyhold--"fat boy" revealing journey that sets mood—"Drunkard’s Death," "Stroller’s Tale," Oliver Twist, Hard Times, pervasive tendency son "punishing" parent—pervasive, dominant theme surrogate parent-child relationship--dominant theme crime--especially Oliver Twist, pervasive

"A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle" temporarily forlorn debtor—developed into "forlorn" debtor in Pickwick Papers, and then into William Dorrit prisons--pervasive

"The Bloomsbury Christening" curdudgeon (unchanged)—Mr. Sowerberry, Mr. Dombey apparent curmudgeons: Jarndyce, Pancks changed curmudgeon: Scrooge developmental steps to the "changed curmudgeon" are: Mr. Lobbs and Gabriel Grub

"The Drunkard's Death" parent-child relationship—pervasive revealing journey--pervasive indirect patricide—pervasive peculiar physical and mental reaction to guilt--"Stroller's Tale" Fagin, Oliver Twist 155

Pickwick Papers (Interpolated tales)

"The Stroller’s Tale" revealing journey--Oliver Twist, pervasive mistreated child—pervasive indirect patricide--pervasive "eyes" as agent of punishment of the guilty—"A Madman's Manuscript" Sikes, Oliver Twist peculiar physical and mental reaction to guilt--Fagin, Oliver Twist

"The Convict’s Return" symbolic matricide—prevasive symbolic patricide—pervasive guilt--pervasive mistreated child—pervasive "Sociological criminal"—especially Magwitch, Great Expectations

"A Madman’s Manuscript" "eyes" as agent of punishment of guilty—Sikes unmotivated madman—Jonas Chuzzlewit, Orlick,Quilp, developed into motivated madman, Bradley Headstone

"The Bagman's Story" inanimate made animate as reflection of the "thingness" of people--pervasive, especially Oliver Twist, Great Expectations

"The Parish Clerk: A Tale of True Love" parent-child conflict—pervasive denied child--pervasive curmudgeon who changes slightly—Gabriel Grub, Scrooge

"The Old Man's Tale about the Queer Client" "direct" patricide—pervasive implacable animosity--Sikes, developed in Monks, Oliver Twist gratuitous chance—pervasive, or developed into order seen in cosmic proportions

"The Goblins Who Stole a Sexton" curmudgeon who changes slightly--Scrooge mysterious experience causing a personality change--Scrooge, A Christmas Carol victimized child--pervasive

Nicholas Nickleby

"The Baron of Grogzwig" theme: preponderance of good over evil--Pickwick, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, developed into "islands of goodness" 156

Hunt ed Down (a plot chip) poisoner, murderer who commits suicide after apprehension, means of suicide is poison, unravelling scene, more developed in the element of detective motif or clever counterp1ot--Martin Chuzzlewit, especially Jonas

THACKERAY

The Professor attack on "sickly sentiment"—pervasive, especially Vanity Fair and Pendennis Adeliza Grampus--Amelia, Arthur Pendennis, George Osborne, Blanche Amory Dando--Rebecca Sharp, related to: the "conning motif"--tales, Vanity Fair and Pendennis burlesque—developed into satire mercenary marriage—Vanity Fair and Pendennis imprudent marriage—Vanity Fair and Pendennis intricacies of courtship--Vanity Fair and Pendennis

Miss Lowe Miss Lowe--Rebecca Sharp George Fitz-Boodle--George Osborne imprudent marriage--Vanity Fair, Pendennis John and George Osborne relationship "excommunications and disinheriting"—Vanity Fair, John and George Osborne "conning motif"—Vanity Fair and Pendennis

Bluebeard1s Ghost attack on "sickly sentiment"--pervasive, especially Vanity Fair and Pendennis motif of reminding the reader a work is, after all, only a story--Vanity Fair "conning motif"—Vanity Fair and Pendennis idolizing husbands once they are dead—Vanity Fair burlesque or satire on romantic fiction--Vanity Fair intricacies of courtship—Vanity Fair and Pendennis

Dennis Haggarty's Wife Dennis Haggarty—William Dobbin Jemima Gam—possibly Amelia motif of love after "bloom is off"—Vanity Fair, Dobbin and Amelia "conning motif"—Vanity Fair and Pendennis intricacies of courtship—Vanity Fair and Pendennis 157

"A Caution to Travellers" Major British—Major Pendennis "conning motif"—Vanity Fair and Pendennis attack on "sickly sentiment"--Vanity Fair and Pendennis

"A Gambler’s Death" "seeing all life as a game"--related to "conning motif" in Vanity Fair and Pendennis "conning motif"--Vanity Fair and Pendennis

A Little Dinner at Timmins's "fascination with wealth" social climbing peering into bankbooks and pocketbooks motif of inventories of possessions fascination with position indiscretion and prodigality--Vanity Fair Rose Timmins social seduction or sexuality used for social purposes—Rebecca Sharp APPENDIX B

THE BRITISH SHORT STORY: ITS LATE START

Before offering what I feel to be important reasons for the non development of the short story or the predominance of the tale in England

I would like to briefly review the methods of publication in England and also the market that existed for short fiction. If the question is asked

"Why was the tale still the predominant form of short fiction in England when the short story was reaching a stage of sophisticated development in the United States?"—the usual answer is that it had something to do with the peculiar methods of publication of the novel. For example most of the novels in England at this time were published serially (and usually part numbers were issued simultaneously with serialization), and the explanation would follow that this fact somehow precluded the development of the short story by taking up magazine space and by essentially monopolizing the mar ket. Actually this is only minimally true. The methods of publication had other particular effects on the short fiction of the era and there was actually a large market for short fiction, in fact the market was larger than the supply.

Methods of Publication

Most of the novels published in the nineteenth century in England were issued one of three ways. The novel might have come out as a "three- decker," that is, in three volumes selling for around one and one-half guineas. It might have come out as a part issue, that is, a collection of several weekly or monthly installments, or it might have been serial 159

ized in a magazine. These methods of publication have one important im plication. Most of the Victorians or nineteenth century Englishmen read their novels in segments, and most of the nineteenth century novelists wrote in segments. The subsidiary implications were that the novel had to be of a certain "length," and that something of a tradition of serializing fic tion was established. The fact that the novel was in most cases written and read in segments has an important implication to the "taste" for short fiction, and to the effects it might have had on the short fictions that were published. These implications will be taken up later in this appendix.

The first edition of Waverly (1,000 copies, 1814) sold out in five weeks. It took six months to sell 6,000 more copies, and actually Waverly was a popular novel. By the time of part 15 (1836), the Pickwick Papers was selling 40,000 copies per issue, and the first number of Nicholas Nickleby sold 50,000 copies.'*' Similarly, Fielding’s novel Joseph Andrews sold only about 6,500 copies during its most popular time. Even consider ing that the population of England was much smaller at the time, this is still not a wide sale. In the 1770’s a book-seller who bought a copy of

Tom Jones to retail could expect it to be on his shelves from four to six 2 years, whereas by the 1830’s and 40’s much wider and more rapid sales were usual. In other words a very profitable financial market for the three-decker novel had developed in the Victorian period. With the advent of the popular reader there was a huge market that the energetic publisher could sell to in inexpensive monthly parts or in serial form in magazines.

■'•Richard D. Altick, The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public 1800-1900 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 383. 2 Altick, p. 50. 160

The novel could be, or the publisher demanded it be, "strung" out with

something to continue the interest. If the novel caught on it was a

guarantee of a salable market. Dickens’ introduction of Sam Weller to

the numbers of Pickwick caused a spurt in monthly sales.

The Short Fiction Market

Richard D. Altick has named the three ingredients for a mass read- 3 ing public: "literacy, leisure, and a little pocket money . . ." These

three ingredients were more and more in supply as the nineteenth century

progressed. Also strangely enough in the first half of the nineteenth

century there was a great concern about just what the people did read.

Altick observes that, "the specter of insurrection /in the early part of

the century/ could not easily be forgotten. Jacobinism, though temporarily

defeated, could rise again. Thus the problem remained: How could people's

reading be made safe? It was a question which was to occupy some of the — - 4 best minds of England for the next half-century /1800-1850/." The history

of reading and publication in the first half of the century was character

ized as often as not by a great deal of difficulty, and even sometimes by outright suppression. But significantly enough the mass reading public did grow and along with it the supply for that public.

Generally speaking, there had always been something of a market for the novel ever since the 1740's, and also a vehicle--in most cases the very

expensive single volume. The same was not true of short fiction. Its vehicle primarily had to be the magazine, and English periodicals at first were made up traditionally of reviews of literature and politics, literary

3 The English Common Reader, p. 306.

4Altick, p. 76. 161

criticism, and political satires. With the establishment of Blackwood's

Magazine in 1817 this picture changed considerably. Blackwood's was fol

lowed by The New Monthly Magazine and Fraser's Magazine in 1830. With

Dickens' Household Words, and in 1859 MacMillan*s Magazine, and in 1860

The Temple Bar and The Cornhill there was a significant demand and vehicle

for short fiction.

By this time there was a great deal of the "popular" brand of short

fiction as well. Margaret Dalziel in her book Popular Fiction 100 Years

Ago includes a long list of cheap periodicals from the mid-nineteenth cen

tury. Some examples are The Family Herald (1843-1939), The Halfpenny Maga

zine (1840-41), The Home Magazine (1856-66), The Penny Magazine (1832-45),

and The Penny Post (1851-96).The general impression that one receives

from her book is that popular fiction one-hundred years ago was just as

bad as it is now. The "penny dreadful" stuff of one-hundred years ago

compares favorably with the "eighty-five-cent dreadfuL" now (she would

give a slight edge to the older fiction). Another evident fact from her

book is that there were literally tons of the popular short fiction being printed. It is also important to note that she uses the term "short story"

in an indiscriminate manner. Richard D. Altick notes the fact that The

Penny Magazine in 1845 had a circulation of 40,000, and The Family Herald 6 had a circulation of 300,000 in 1855. It is also a fact that most of the things done in the prolific popular press were reprints. There was just not enough original material available. The point is, there was a market for short fiction, and its publication could be a profitable ven-

5(London: Cohen and West, 1957), p. 183.

6The English Common Reader, p. 394. 162

ture. Also some of the most profitable of all fiction in the nineteenth

century were the Christmas and gift books, which contained shorter pieces

in collections.

Long before weekly or monthly periodicals had come to occupy an important place in English household life, the well-to-do class had been entertained at the Christmas season, and often for months there after, by gift-books—the "keepsakes" and "parlour albums" whose an nual issue, in their period of greatest vogue during the 1820's and 1830's, had enriched publishers,printers, binders, writers, and il lustrators. In one season, 1828, it was estimated that 100,000 copies were produced, at a retail value of over 4^70,000. Smith, Elder's Friendship's Offering, priced at 12s., alone sold between 8,000 and 10,000 a year. These annuals, important though they are in Regency and early Victorian literary and cultural history, were priced too high to affect the mass audience. But with the coming of mass-circulation periodicals, the gift annual was transformed into the special Christmas number or supplement, bulging with verse, stories, and pictures. From about 1860 to the end of the century, activity in the periodical trade reached its feverish peak in December. The sales of some of these annual supplements were tremendous, eclipsing even the records set by the Christmas numbers of All the Year Round under Dickens' editor ship. They were admirably fitted to the tastes of those whose pocket books were opened a little wider than^usual under the mellowing in fluence of the Christmas season . . .

The American Publishing Situation

Brander Matthews in his work on the short story named the American

short story as superior in development primarily because in America there was a market for the short story, and in England there was only a market g for the three-decker novel. I think one can see that this is not entirely the case. On the other hand the publishing situation in America in this era was somewhat different. Most of the important American novels of this time were published in single volume editions. American publishers pirated freely from English literature, sometimes to the detriment of American

7Altick, pp. 362-63. g The Philosophy of the Short Story (New York: Longman, Green and Co., 1917), pp. 56-57. 163 writers and novelists. They occasionally ignored American writers and novelists because they could make more profit by not having to pay royal ties. However,

during the forty years between 1820 and 1860 the short story flour ished in America, for although the country remained predominantly an agrarian republic with no large cities and a rural population thinly scattered over a million square miles, hundreds of literary periodi cals were founded, many of them dedicated to bringing the work of American writers before the public. Among the most noteworthy of these were the North American Review, Knickerbocker Magazine, Graham* s and Southern Literary Messenger. Next to poetry, the short story was perhaps the type of literature most adaptable to magazine publication, and, as it quickly proved to be the most popular, developed as a dis tinctive art form with extraordinary rapidity. By 1860, thousands of short stories had been written and published in America, and the tech nique of the short story had been raised to the highest level of nine teenth-century art. 9

The Americans had a "gift book" tradition as well as the English, and it seemed to have a similar level of quality. The English gift books and

Christmas numbers were full of insubstantial stuff like ghost stories and the usual sentimental Christmas fare. The American books were filled with sensational hair-raisers, sentimental stories, and stories with hackneyed themes. An American phenomenon was the "lady’s books" or the "slicks"; they were usually filled with "sentimental tales culled from British maga zines and annuals,but they later turned to solicitation of original stories.

The point of all of this is that in Britain the novel was at least as financially attractive to the author as other lengths of fiction. Dickens discovered this in the first few pages of Pickwick Papers. The British novel published in serial form had the added element of security because

Q Eugene Current-Garcia, and Walton R. Patrick, American Short Stories 1820 to the Present (Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1964), p. xii.

■^Current-Garcia and Patrick, p. xvi. 164

the novels could become a popular fad. Pickwick, for example, became a

national pastime for the British. The British novelist had a better chance

for profit than the American novelist considering only national markets.

The strong "tradition" of serializing in England may have had an

effect on shorter fiction that is important to consider when looking at the

development of the short story. For example, even some of the shorter works

were published in serial form. Thackeray’s A Little Dinner at Timmins's,

which runs to around thirty-three pages, was published serially in Punch;

and his work The Bedford-Row Conspiracy, which runs to around fifty pages,

was published in three parts in The New Monthly Magazine. If the short

story's major commodity is unity of effect, then magazine serialization

would certainly have had a deleterious effect on this "property." If

serialization led to discursiveness in the novel it may also have led to

discursiveness in the shorter works. In the Victorian era there is the

phenomenon of the "long short fiction" characterized by the novelette and

the long story (something over fifty pages).

Further Reasons

As well as looking for reasons why the short story did not develop as early in England as in America, one could take the other approach and try to discover why the novel was, in other than a financial sense, the predominant literary form of the nineteenth century, or how its predominant position seemed to militate against the development of the genuine short story.

In the nineteenth century (especially the first three-quarters) most fiction writers took the novel to be a form critically superior to 165

other forms of narrative fiction. In this view a novel would certainly

require more artistic ability and energy than the narrative sketch or the

anecdote. Much of the short fiction of the early part of the nineteenth

century dealt with ghosts, or other supernatural-gothic paraphenalia--all

the way from Scott's "Wandering Willie's Tale" to Dickens' "The Goblins

Who Stole a Sexton." This is evidence of critical relegation of the subject matter of the shorter fiction to "lighter" things, or fantasy, or at least to something less weighty than the novel might deal with. Ensaf Thune and

Ruth Prigozy in their survey of the history of short fiction make this statement: "History clearly shows that the short story has never held a secure position in the literary hierarchy. Many of the critics and com mentators who shaped and molded it regarded the short story as a stepchild in the family of prose fiction, outshone by its older and weightier rela tive, the novel."'*'''' Wendell Harris makes this comment when talking about the tales of George Meredith.

But it won't do to regard "The Tale of Chloe" as a flawed short story any more than to regard a long poem as a flawed sonnet because a portion of it could have been reduced to more concentrated form. The richness of such a story is a merit not to be dismissed because it is not the characteristic virtue of the short story. The trouble with the great mass of English short fiction in the nineteenth century is not that the authors did not know that what they should be writing was the short story, but that it was rare for a writer to take fiction less than novel-length (in general, of course, three volume length) seriously. Of the good short fiction of the first three quarters of the century, a small part anticipated the usages of the short story; the rest, of whatever length, took its value from merits different from those we associate with the genre. Most of the better stories are the longer, partly because the shorter the story the more it demands the unity of effect and ^kill of construction that belongs by defini tion to the short story.

11 Short Stories: A Critical Anthology (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1973), pp. 3-4.

■^"English Short Fiction in the 19th Century," Studies in Short Fiction, 6, (1968), 46. 166

The various forms or "lengths" of narrative fiction seem to be rivals to

one another when it comes to the author’s dispensing of artistic quality.

Historically, and socially as well, the Victorian novel held a

dominant position. "Although the short story gained enthusiastic accept

ance in America, France, and Russia after the middle of the nineteenth

century, it was neglected in England almost until the end of the century.

The reasons why England did not take up the short story are many, begin

ning no doubt with the fact that the country was enjoying the high noon 13 of that great rambling structure called the Victorian novel." Louis

James in an article called "The Rational Amusement: ’Minor’ Fiction and

Victorian Studies" points out that the novelist sermonized, educated, and

strengthened contemporary feelings enough that one could call the novel . , . . . 14 the primary means of communication in Victorian society. James says,

Trollope declared that by the eighteen sixties, fiction had become omnipresent. Novels were in the hands of all, from Prime Minister down to scullery maid, and that they were to be found in libraries, drawing-rooms, bed-rooms and most significantly nurseries. Pldts and characters informed the Victorian memory, and so became ways of see ing the present. "Poetry we also read and history, biography and the social and political news of the day. But all our other reading put together hardly amounts to what we read in novels." /Anthony Trollope, Four Lectures, ed. M. L. Parrish (London, 1938), p. 108^/15

The novel seemed to have a sympathy to the age; it was a reflection

of the values of the age. Carlyle, Ruskin, and Arnold in their prose at

tacked the age, and so did Dickens, but in Dickens there is sympathy as well. Many of these statements about the relation of the middle class

■^Douglas A. Hughes, ed. Studies in Short Fiction: Five Novels and Twenty-Five Stories (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1971), p. xvii.

14yictorian Studies, 14 (1970), 193-99.

Hu-phe Rational Amusement: ’Minor’ Fiction and Victorian Studies," p. 198 167

to the Victorian novel are commonplaces, but in this instance they need

restating. The Victorian novel was a middle-class genre. It usually dealt

with middle-class characters and the middle-class experience of life.

It usually reinforced middle-class values, and usually had a middle-class

setting in residences and places of work. The novel contained for the nineteenth century a formation of the great legend of the age—that the

conventional succeeds and the unconventional fails, and the hero, "though demonstrating human weaknesses, is molded to the bourgeois ideal of the

rational man of virtue."

If the English-Victorian novel is somehow a reflection of the mid dle class it was actually very limited in what it could do. The Americans broke away from the English tradition with the short story that treated very different subjects.^ on the other hand what was done in the Victo rian novel could not be done in the short story. The Victorian novel was 18 panoramic--it could be used to create fictional "worlds."

It should also be noted the novel was, during its early years, suspect: "light" literature for light minds, particularly the ladies, and that it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that it gained respecta bility, and then not so much as poetry or "improving" prose. The tradi tion and the traditions of the Victorian novel, as strong as they were, may have created a disregard for the possibility of any other serious fictions. Under puritan influence leisure time could not be spent at the

1^Martin S. Day, History of English Literature 1837 to the Present (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1964), p. 170.

^Harris, p. 5.

13Harris, p. 2. 168 theater or dancing, or reading frivolous things. When there was not a religious meeting people stayed home to read instructive things like the 19 Victorian novel.

One could say that for the British the novel is a nineteenth century art form and the short story is a twentieth century art form. It has been observed earlier in this work that as the Victorian novel gives way the

British short story develops. Once the traditions and formulas are eroded, the short story is free to develop. It is possible that the short story developed in conjunction with the "new" novel which was first manifested as the "psychological" novel. Again, it has been pointed out earlier in this work that Robert Louis Stevenson's stories first developed in the direction of focusing on internal action. It may have been that in America we were earlier free of traditions and formulas (or we never had them) and therefore the short story was free to develop on its own.

Still Further Considerations

One could say that the dominance of the three-decker novel in the nineteenth century simply precluded the development of a strong short story tradition in England—and this statement would be partially true. There are, though, some other things to consider. Actually, as noted before, there were thousands of "short pieces" published; when Dickens and Thackeray began to write they were doing shorter pieces, and many of the segments and numbers of the novels have the characteristics of good short fiction.

It has often been observed of the novels of Dickens and Thackeray that they wrote in episodes or in a series of dramatic incidents. A reader

19Altick, pp. 81-89. 169

recalls certain memorable segments of the novels like "Christmas at Dingley

Dell," or Pen's infatuation with Miss Fotheringay. If one could assume that there was a taste for short fiction in Victorian England, he could also assume this taste was satisfied by an abundance of an inferior product and

also by the "segmenting" of most of the Victorian novels; the segmented novels would be something for the more sophisticated tastes. Also, occa sionally, segments of the novels were published independently. "Side by side with the familiar shockers /penny bloods, cheap thrillers/ . . . were to be found such items as Miss Braddon's heroic condensations of Scott's novels into penny-worths, and excerpts from Dickens vended under such titles as 'Joe the Fat Boy,' 'Mr. Winkle's Wooing,' 'The Artful Dodger,' and 'Bardell 20 v. Pickwick.'" Altick makes this comment about the taste of the British public for "capsule" literature.

There was little doubt that this rage for capsule literature could be attributed as much to the limitations of the ill-educated mass audience as to the increased pressure of daily life. Frederick Rogers, the London journeyman bookbinder, said that "the average workman, as I knew him, was not capable of sustained read/ng and the short story and crisp paragraphs inaugurated by G. R. Sims /in the Referee/ were much more to his palate than the long stories I loved." /Labour, Life, and Lit erature, p. 138_./ Not even the sketches of Washington Irving, short though they were, appealed to Roger's fellow craftsmen. "It was not from dislike of literature, or lack of intellectual energy, it was rather custom and habit, which might be and was broken down when the time came to do so."

It might be observed here, though, that the readers observed by Rogers wanted to feel they were getting what the longer things had to offer, but in this case, in capsule form—literally a reader's digest. Also it is a fact that the novel did then compete for "space" with the shorter pieces of fiction.

20 Altick, p. 314. 21 The English Common Reader, p. 369. 170

I believe that the short story was also associated with what was

"unrealistic" such as the "gothic" tale or the gothic "German student"

tale, and was therefore generally rejected as not the stuff of true art

like the novel. The evidence for this might be that serious English writ

ers only poke fun of the gothic tales. It may also be that the British

simply misuse fantasy and that this somehow caused the stories to be in

ferior. The Americans turned the German stories into other stories. The

British simply poked fun of them, or ignored them, or used them for other 22 purposes.

A novel can be appreciated by an unsophisticated audience as well as a sophisticated one. Is it possible that the genuine short story could only be appreciated by a very sophisticated audience—an audience that read the quarterly reviews, Macaulay, Meredith, George Eliot, and John Stuart

Mill. This would have the effect of excluding as a financial and "critical" market the workers and the middle class--in other words the mass of the

Victorian reading audience. But actually this speculation has more to do with why the three volume novel was popular. People under low church or puritan influence found the Victorian novel—generally speaking—instruc-

22 Some critics recognize a special kinship between the short story and lyric poetry, for example, Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 63. Dante Gabriel Rossetti was in fluenced by the poetry and the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. Rossetti read widely in the Gothic romances and pointedly he also read E. T. A. Hoffman. Christian Rossetti "enjoyed the eerie fantasies of German Romanticism. In several poems she played variations upon the theme of the spectre bride or bridegroom, imparting to it a Christian interpretation." from Albert C. Baugh, ed. A Literary History of England, 2nd edition (New York: Apple- ton-Century-Crofts, 1967), p. 1427. Ludwig Tieck’s "The Spectre Bridegroom" was used by Irving for his tale-,"The Spectre Bridegroom." William Morris in his Earthly Paradise (1868-70) used "The Hill of Venus" from Ludwig Tieck’s Erzsahlen, Baugh, p. 1432. 171

tive. Also in the great age of "practicalism" the novel found a welcome

place as a vehicle for middle class ideas and values. The short story would

be inadequate on both counts. Under the puritan-low-church-evangelical

influence any story that was short was probably per se sensational, lurid,

or evil—at least it was not instructive. It is possible that the short

story was rejected simply because of its short length, rather than on sound

artistic or moral grounds; something of the length of the short story would

be considered too frivolous for serious attention.

Social Concern vs. Moral and Aesthetic Issues

It is possible to see another reason for the non-development of

the British short story, or the predominance of the novel, by comparing

the general nature of British and American fiction. American fiction,

which did not have the same materials to work with, had to resort to sym

bolism and studies of moral issues. Neither Poe, Hawthorne, nor Melville

dealt in the concerns of society, as did the Victorian novelists, but with

the concerns of the spirit. They also seemed to have been more conscious of aesthetic effect, and quite frequently the themes of their stories deal with aesthetic questions. The Victorian novel has been characterized as 23 a "massive, temperate, moralistic rendering of life and thought . . .," and as "a kind of imperial enterprise, an appropriation of reality with 24 the high purpose of bringing order to disorder."

Irving considered that his stories had a very special moral effect, but that there was no overt moralizing. He also realized that a certain

23 Richard Chase, The American Novel and Its Tradition (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1957), p. 4. 9 / ^Chase, p. 4. 172

compactness was required in the short story. He observed how a novelist

could be dull for pages if he closed the chapter with an exciting event.

Irving is aware of the higher visibility of art in the short story. Haw

thorne confessed an "inveterate" love of allegory, and of course allegory

deals with moral issues. Melville’s concerns are cosmic rather than social.

Like Hawthorne, Melville was concerned with the darker side of human fate. Both insisted upon the reality of evil in the world; both were skeptical of the optimism of Emerson and his benevolent theory of the universe; both presented the tragedies of the mind and soul. Hawthorne agreed with Bunyan’s Pilgrim* s Progress, where man is repre sented as going through life weighed down by a burden of sin. Melville called Ecclesiastes "the truest of all books . . . the fine hammered steel of woe."

Melville dwelt much upon the evil in the world. He had seen at first hand the brutality of ship captains, the depravity of Old World cities, the vices brought to the South Sea islanders by "civilized" invaders. More than that, evil appeared triumphant (as in Pierre), even when man’s motives were virtuous. Why, Melville asked, did a good God—if indeed He is good—permit evil in this world? Melville could not accept the Universe with as much resignation as his friend Hawthorne.„He persisted in challenging the sphinx riddle, courageously, defiantly.

It is Poe who argues for, in the short story, a special unity of effect.

Poe reasoned that actually the tale should be written "backwards" so that anything that did not superintend to the effect of the story would be left out. Poe is a master of creating atmosphere in his tales, but it is also he who established that the short story should have two levels of meaning-- a symbolic one and a literal one.

Almost as emblems of another element of the artistic concern, the themes of many of their short stories, in this particular American era, deal with aesthetic questions or subjects. Irving’s Rip Van Winkle serves out the function of the artist in the Romantic view. Rip is a chronicler

2 S Walter Blair, et al., The Literature of the United States, Vol. I, 3rd ed. (Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1966), p. 712. 173

of the times "before." He can recall and recount the nostalgic times before

the Revolution. Hawthorne's Alymer (The Birthmark) shows the effect of man’s troublesome striving for perfection which reflects not only on the

scientist but on the artist as well. Poe's Roderick Usher is an artist

(composer and painter) who because he isolates himself produces an inces

tuous art that is a hybrid, and also decidedly unhealthy. In Melville's

Bartleby the Scrivener we see a study of a closed mind (the lawyer’s) and his calculated and mercenary "charity." In another sense the story deals with artistic concerns. Melville often expressed a desire for a place of isolation from the world, where no demands, other than artistic, would ever be placed upon him. In another sense Bartleby the Scrivener is a symbolic complaint about the commercialization of art that took place at the end of the American Romantic period.

As the Americans had different concerns and fewer traditions the novel and the short story seemed to develop with more freedom. In a sense, for the British, the great concern with social issues needed the proper vehicle; a serious subject needed a serious medium. In the view of most novelists of the era the tale or short story was simply too frivolous, or light, or limited for such a serious subject.

Summary

My main thesis is that mos t of the short fiction of Dickens and

Thackeray were preparations for, or by-products of the novel, and it could be further argued that for this reason these two authors produced no genuine short stories. In addition to this there is a combination of factors which slowed or impeded the development of the British short story. The primary 174

fact would be the predominance of the novel. It was profitable, it was

better received critically, and it seemed to have a special sympathy to

the predominant middle class. The Victorian novel was flexible and com

pendious; but its subject was focused on a rather limited area, especially

on society or such social concerns as acceptance (in society) and financial

success; and as the Victorian novel loses its hold after the first three

quarters of the century, the British short story begins to develop. Near

the last half to three quarters of the century a quality market in periodi

cals was available. Also, most publishers were going to single volume edi

tions of the novel.

Giving reasons for the popularity of the novel, the predominance of

the tale, and why the short story did not develop in England until later

in the century, is truly not a scientific process. Any taste for short fic tion may have been satisfied by an abundance of an inferior product or by reprinted short segments of the novels. Some short fiction was serialized in the tradition of the novel, thereby almost entirely precluding a "unity of effect." This may have also demonstrated the popularity of the tale, or a disregard for the literary short story. The whole ethos of the British middle class and the peculiar make-up of the British reading audience seemed against the short story. The workers consumed indiscriminately and in an unsophisticated manner. The short story may have been viewed by the middle class as too artistic in concept, or as not being instructive, or it was viewed as something that was not weighty enough for serious consideration.