Charles Dickens, Public Death, and the Amusements of the People
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
“THE DARK AND DREADFUL INTEREST”: CHARLES DICKENS, PUBLIC DEATH, AND THE AMUSEMENTS OF THE PEOPLE A Thesis submitted to the FaCulty oF the Graduate SChool oF Arts and SCienCes of Georgetown University in partial FulFillment oF the requirements For the degree of Master oF Arts in English By Katherine Brandwood, B.A. Washington, DC MarCh 4, 2013 “THE DARK AND DREADFUL INTEREST”: CHARLES DICKENS, PUBLIC DEATH, AND THE AMUSEMENTS OF THE PEOPLE Katherine Brandwood Thesis Advisor: ProFessor John PFordresher, Ph.D. ABSTRACT A vocal opponent of public execution throughout his career, Dickens deplores the dramatization of capital punishment in numerous letters and public statements; the culture of carnival surrounding the scaffold produces a corruptive theater, he claims, in which the criminal can attain a “monstrous notoriety” at the moral expense of the crowd (Letters 224). The “dark and dreadful interest” that drew such numbers of spectators to Tyburn and Newgate, according to Dickens, reflects “a law of our moral nature, as gravitation…in the structure of the visible world”; if this propensity is natural, however, its indulgence is nonetheless morally degenerative, “odious, and painful” (Letters 220, 218). Accordingly, the state’s exploitation of this morbid compulsion constitutes, for Dickens, a breach of dramatic ethics. In staging public death, the state makes a violent demonstration of power that depends upon its subjects’ moral susceptibilities: the “dark and dreadful interest” ensures an audience, but it concomitantly “produces crime in the criminally disposed, and engenders a diseased sympathy – morbid and bad, but… irresistible—among the well-conducted and gentle” (Letters 212). However, Dickens’s fictional representations of the condemned belie his rejection of the scaffold as a scene of dramatic entertainment and betray his own “dark and dreadful interest” in the gallows and the guillotine. Veiled in his statements against capital punishment as a political practice, then, is the assertion of a professional prerogative: as an artist, he makes an exclusive claim to the ethical representation of the scaffold scene. ii Acknowledgements I could not have written this thesis without the invaluable FeedbaCk oF my adviser, ProFessor John PFordresher; his words oF support and enCouragement helped me through the writing proCess, and his insights helped me to tie my ideas together with muCh greater CoherenCe than I Could have developed on my own. I had a wonderFul experienCe working with him, and I am inCredibly grateFul For all his help. I am indebted to the English department at Georgetown, and to all the proFessors who have helped me grow as a writer; I’m partiCularly grateFul to ProFessor Nathan Hensley (my seCond reader For this projeCt) For his thoughtFul FeedbaCk, Professor RiCardo Ortiz For his guidanCe in the Course oF the thesis seminar, and ProFessor Kathryn Temple For her constant support. iii Table of Contents IntroduCtion …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 1 Chapter 1 Dickens and the State: Discipline, Entertainment, and the RhetoriC oF SpeCtaCle ……………………………………………………… 8 Chapter 2 Terminal ExpeCtations: Sympathy, Censure, and the Psychology oF the Condemned ………………………………………………… 26 Chapter 3 “Policing the Crowd”: Popular Authorship and the Threat oF Revolution …………………………………………………………... 47 Works Cited ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 65 iv Introduction The closing chapter of A Tale of Two Cities opens to a “rumble, hollow and harsh,” as the revolutionary tumbrils “Carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine” (384). SpeCtators on the roadside and in the overlooking houses survey the anonymous Condemned, who respond variously to the ColleCtive gaze: OF the riders in the tumbrils…some are so heedFul oF their looks that they Cast upon the multitude suCh glances as they have seen in theatres, and in piCtures… One, and he a miserable Creature oF a Crazed aspeCt, is so shattered and made drunk by horror that he sings, and tries to dance. (385-6) In these impulses to perFormanCe, DiCkens registers the prisoners’ participation, even at this mortal extremity, in a Culture oF entertainment that ConstruCts sCaFFold as stage. IF the Condemned body Constitutes the prinCipal Feature in the Capital drama, the pathos oF these “Crazed” perFormanCes lies in the aCtors’ attempts to retain some agenCy in exeCuting the role. It is a Compelling role, though hardly an enviable one; in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), Edmund Burke invokes the scafFold-stage analogy to suggest the greater dramatiC gratiFiCation available From the Former: “Choose a day on whiCh to represent the most sublime and aFFeCting tragedy we have,” he submits, “and when you have ColleCted your audienCe… let it be reported that a state Criminal… is on the point of being exeCuted in the adjoining square; in a moment the emptiness oF the theatre 1 would demonstrate the Comparative weakness oF the imitative arts” (qtd. in Faulk 78). To pose a striCtly Competitive relationship between the Capital speCtaCle and the “imitative arts,” however, is to obsCure their Complex interaCtions. In DiCkens’s “death-Carts,” For example, the “imitative arts” beCome the imitated, as the doomed passengers borrow “glanCes…they have seen in theatres, and in piCtures” to FulFill the aesthetiC expeCtations those same sourCes have produCed. The “miserable Creature,” likewise, aware that his role is to entertain, “sings… and tries to danCe,” reverting in his “Crazed” ConFusion to the Conventions oF stage perFormanCe. A voCal opponent of public execution throughout his career, Dickens deplores the dramatization oF Capital punishment in numerous letters and publiC statements; the culture oF carnival surrounding the sCafFold produces a corruptive theater, he Claims, in whiCh the Criminal Can attain a “monstrous notoriety” at the moral expense of the crowd (Letters 224). Public hangings in Victorian London routinely drew audiences of 3,000 – 7,000, with partiCularly inFamous Criminals attraCting 30,000 – 40,000 and even, by some reports, up to 100,000 spectators (Gatrell 7). The “dark and dreadFul interest” that drew suCh numbers to Tyburn and Newgate, aCCording to DiCkens, reFleCts “a law oF our moral nature, as gravitation…in the structure of the visible world”; if this propensity is natural, however, its indulgence is nonetheless morally degenerative, “odious, and painFul” (Letters 220, 218). AcCordingly, the state’s exploitation oF this morbid Compulsion Constitutes, For DiCkens, a breaCh oF dramatiC ethiCs. In staging publiC death, the state makes a violent demonstration oF power that depends upon its subjeCts’ moral susceptibilities: the “dark and dreadful interest” ensures an audience, but it 2 ConComitantly “produCes Crime in the Criminally disposed, and engenders a diseased sympathy – morbid and bad, but… irresistible—among the well-conducted and gentle” (Letters 212). DiCkens deCries the Capital speCtaCle, ultimately, as soCially irresponsible dramatiC entertainment. IF the Capital drama borrows From the “imitative arts,” however, the reverse is equally true; in his fiction, Dickens exploits the rhetorical and affective power of the sCaFFold to aChieve narrative drama, From the prophetic gravity of Sydney Carton’s sCaFFold speeCh to the poignant horror oF Fagin’s “Last Night Alive” (Oliver Twist 441). DiCkens’s FiCtional representations oF the Condemned belie his rejeCtion oF the sCaFFold as a sCene oF dramatiC entertainment and betray his own “dark and dreadFul interest” in the gallows and the guillotine. Veiled in his statements against Capital punishment as a politiCal praCtiCe, then, is the assertion oF a proFessional prerogative: as an artist, he makes an exClusive Claim to the ethiCal representation oF the sCafFold sCene. Dickens’s chief contributions to the debate on capital punishment Comprise two series oF letters, the first published in The Daily News in 1846 and the second appearing three years later in The London Times. From 1846 to 1849, as CritiCs have widely noted, his position evolved From one oF CategoriCal opposition to capital punishment under any CirCumstanCes to a more moderate proposal that exeCutions be ConduCted in “Comparative privaCy within… prison walls” (Letters 253). This revision demonstrates DiCkens’s Far more urgent objeCtion to the Capital spectacle than to the Capital penalty itselF; in advoCating For the removal oF the sCaFFold From 3 the publiC eye, he advoCates For a popular Culture oF entertainment that privileges (rather than subordinates) the “imitative arts.” In its soCial and politiCal impliCations, DiCkens’s revised position reFleCts and antiCipates a trend in modern Western penal administration CharaCterized by practices of surveillance, incarceration, and rehabilitation rather than spectacular punitive violence. Michel Foucault charts these developments in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975), resisting a humanitarian narrative to explain the retreat From publiC torture and exeCution to pose, instead, an account of punishment’s transition “From… an art oF unbearable sensations… [to] an eConomy oF suspended rights” (11). The tools and praCtiCes oF the modern CarCeral bureauCraCy Constitute new regulatory “teChnologies oF power,” FouCault submits, that no longer rely on speCtaCular demonstration oF the state’s ultimate prerogative with respeCt to the Criminal body (131). DiCkens’s liFetime saw what V. A. C. Gatrell Calls the “great[est and most] sudden revolution in English