Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Roman Valenta

Identity, Capital and Redemption in Our Mutual Friend Master’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D.

2016

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Roman Valenta

I would like to thank my supervisor, Doctor Stephen Paul Hardy for his invaluable advice and comments he provided in the course of my writing.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter One: Identity and the Net Worth of a Man in Our Mutual Friend 10

1.1. Introduction to Identity 10 1.2. John Harmon – The Deceiver 17 1.3. Bella Wilfer – The Vain Daughter of a Clerk 25 1.4. Nicodemus Boffin – ‘The Golden Dustman’ 30 1.5. Eugene Wrayburn – The English ‘Superfluous Man’ 38

Chapter Two: Capital, Commodification and Blackmail in Our Mutual Friend 46

2.1. Introduction to Capital 46 2.2. The Veneerings and the Lammles – The New Capitalists and the Bankrupts 57 2.3. The Undesirable Effects of Capitalism – Usury and Commodification 61 2.4. Capitalist Code of Conduct, Contempt of the Working Class and Extortion 68

Chapter Three: Suffering, Punishment and Redemption in Our Mutual Friend 73

Conclusion 90

Works Cited 96

Summary 101

Résumé 102

Introduction

This thesis aims to explore the issues of identity, capital and redemption in Our Mutual Friend. It is split into three chapters and argues that in the novel, there exists a connection between one’s identity and the capital he or she possesses. The first chapter is concerned with the unstable identity of four major characters and inquires into their archetypal features. It stresses the importance of changing identity, which in this thesis is referred to as re- identification, and suggests that this transformation is represented as highly ambiguous, because it can be feigned. The second chapter asserts that the novel portrays and mocks the clash of the old money and the noveaux-riche characters, all of which results in the overestimation of capital and leads to commodification and blackmail. The final chapter addresses the issue of suffering and redemption and considers both of them from various points of view. It argues that Dickens presents redemption as non-religious and attempts to prove that it is mediated either through money and capital or through love.

Our Mutual Friend is the last finished novel of Charles Dickens. The idea for this work had existed since 1860, but due to his occupation with other projects and his continuing extramarital affair with Ellen Ternan the prolific writer did not start writing until 1864. The novel, which presents a considerable shift from his previous works in terms of perception of society, can be read as a

‘social chorus’ with an emphasis on the identity of its characters and their possession of property. In The Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens, Paul

Schlicke mentions that both the plot and the title of Our Mutual Friend were

1 foreshadowed in Dickens’ Book of Memoranda (Schlicke 442). Originally, the intention was to commit to paper a tale of “a man, young and perhaps eccentric, feigning to be dead . . . and for years retaining the singular view of life” (qtd. in Watkins 134) accompanied by a storyline of “a poor imposter of a man marrying a woman for her money, she marrying him for his money, after marriage both finding out their mistake, and entering into a covenant against folks in general” (qtd. in Schlicke 442).

Dickens’ plan was carried out according to his preliminary proposal.

However, John Harmon became the principal character, while Alfred and

Sophronia Lammle were overshadowed by other major characters such as the indolent lawyer Eugene Wrayburn or the naïve noveaux riche Nicodemus Boffin.

It might even be argued that the novel presents the reader with a number of heroes, out of whom John Harmon is the formal protagonist. Regardless of this,

Due to his meekness and civility, Harmon may be read as a very and morally commendable and Eugene Wrayburn can be understood as a disillusioned member of the mid-nineteenth century upper-class intelligentsia.

Like Harmon, Nicodemus Boffin is a character whose identity is highly unstable, for he comes from a working-class and his lack of education manifests itself no matter how inventive he becomes when trying to conceal it. John

Harmon’s identity may be perceived as even more ‘schizophrenic’ than that of

Mr. Boffin, but his pretense is far easier to detect. Geraldine Godsil in

“Reflections on Death and Mourning in Relation to Dickens’ Novel Our Mutual

Friend” calls the novel an “individual drama . . . enmeshed with multiple subplots, where money, possessions and status exercise a destructive

2 influence” (Godsil 474). This applies to a number of characters including the

Lammles, Wrayburn and his friend and co-lodger Mortimer Lightwood.

However, in accordance with the principles of moral harmony, John Harmon attempts to fight this destructive influence and to exercise love in one of its purest forms – a marriage unburdened by mammon and only then does he decide to disclose that for years he has been deceiving everyone around him with the intention to alter their perception of society.

Our Mutual Friend surpasses Dickens’ previous novel – Great

Expectations – in terms of both size and sophistication of character development, because those who seemingly develop might just pretend in order to catalyze development of others. During the course of the novel, the major characters are given enough time and space to evolve and many of them including Bella Wilfer, Eugene Wrayburn and Silas Wegg undergo a change that directs them towards love and understanding or results in their irreversible moral decline.

In certain aspects, Our Mutual Friend resembles Dickens’ unsatisfactory family life and his affair with Ellen Ternan. This applies to his depiction of marriages and relationships between children and their parents. The novel also changes the way Dickens’ characters deal with rejection in love. Instead of becoming reconciled with (temporary) rejection, like Pip does in Great

Expectations, both Eugene Wrayburn and Bradley Headstone become pathologically obsessed with Lizzie Hexam and start pursuing her until she is forced to leave the city and to seek shelter from their ‘love’. Eventually, the infatuation of the lovelorn Headstone results into him losing his self and turning

3 violent, all of which brings about his death and suggests that emotional greed is just as dangerous as avarice.

The story of Our Mutual Friend is set in nineteenth-century London, but the year is unknown. Dickens focuses on the identity of his characters and their property and thus the city itself takes second place. It can only be estimated that the novel takes place during the late 1850s or the early 1860s due to its depiction of economic opportunism and the rise of the noveaux-riche ‘class’.

During the course of the novel, the reader is acquainted with characters such as the Veneerings or the Lammles, whose fates vary from becoming a member of parliament to going irredeemably bankrupt. What might be called an

‘unscrupulous opportunism’ is also represented by the greedy persona of Mr.

Fledgeby. The young opportunist runs an undercover money-lending agency and attempts to raise himself socially by marrying Georgiana Podsnap – the daughter of this novel’s ‘rule-maker’ Mr. Podsnap. However, opportunism in Our

Mutual Friend is also inherent to the working-class characters such Silas Wegg and Roger Riderhood and their existence partially corroborates the legitimacy of contempt of the lower-working class.

The first chapter of this thesis deals with the unstable identity of four selected characters – John Harmon, Bella Wilfer, Nicodemus Boffin and Eugene

Wrayburn and argues that identity in Our Mutual Friend is largely formed by social status and property. Apart from their attachment to material things,

Dickens also analyzes his characters’ motivations, lack of taste and mocks their bad qualities or even questions their judgment. Greg Hecimovich in “The Cup and the Lip and the Riddle of Our Mutual Friend” contends that the novel deals

4 with the issues of “surface and substance [and] disguised identity” (Hecimovich

24). However, the identity of many characters can be accurately ascertained from their conversations regardless of their disguise. Every one of them has a distinctive manner of speaking ranging from the non-standard English of Hexam and Riderhood to the smooth upper-class English of characters such as Eugene

Wrayburn or Mr. Podsnap.

The narrator, however, also has a distinct identity. His language could be likened to that of John Harmon/Rokesmith, but there is an additional witty quality to it. In “Naming and Language in Our Mutual Friend”, G. W. Kennedy argues that “each Victorian novelist must identify himself in some way with t[he] collective consciousness” represented by his (or her) characters (Kennedy

165). Kennedy further stresses that in Our Mutual Friend, “Dickens uses his role of narrating voice to expose the dehumanizing effects of . . . an identification with the social voice” (Kennedy 165). Nevertheless, the narrator never truly identifies with the society and mocks the characters for their flaws while suggesting that they should refrain from worshipping what Kennedy calls “the false gods of money and work” (qtd. in Kennedy 165).

In addition, the chapter argues that the identities of some major characters are closely linked to their social status and that money and education are not always equal to intelligence and good manners. In Our

Mutual Friend, qualities such as cynicism, constant boredom or tendency to pontificate others are inherent to many members of the upper class and to those who consider themselves misplaced in the social hierarchy. In his article called “The Late Novels: Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend”, which is a

5 part of The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens, Brian Cheadle argues that “the novel consistently foreground the regulatory power of the ‘Voice of

Society’, whose final vigorous persistence . . . is a mark of the deepening pessimism which “darkens” Dickens’s late work” (Jordan 88). This power also reflects in the way the lower-middle class characters such as Bella Wilfer perceive wealth and predetermines them to pursue money in order to approximate the upper classes, all of which results in their unhappiness.

The second chapter aims to prove that Dickens’ last finished novel mainly focuses on the distribution of wealth among the classes and its relation to the formation of characters’ identity. In Our Mutual Friend, Dickens complains and his voice is the voice of the poor and the middle classes, for he himself has a personal experience with subsisting on an unsatisfactory income. Claire Tomalin in her biography of Dickens argues that when Charles was a child, “John

Dickens’s salary was not growing fast enough to keep pace with the needs of the children” (Tomalin 22), thus referring to John Dickens’ irresponsible behavior and to the fact that this poor resource management is criticized by his son in many of his novels including Our Mutual Friend where some characters live above their means until they are no longer able to meet their liabilities.

In Our Mutual Friend, there exist two sources of capital – it can be either inherited or earned. This duality relates to the issue of the above-mentioned incessant struggle between the noveaux riches and the old-money families. The noveaux riches are represented by John Harmon’s deceased father, whose son is disrespected by the traditional upper-class families, the Veneerings, who attempt to climb the social ladder in order to gain respect and trust of other

6 noveaux-riche characters, the indigent Lammles and finally yet importantly the

Boffins, who distinguish themselves from the rest, for the property they inherit does not belong to their ancestors. Despite that, Mr. Boffin uses the inheritance to educate and raise not only himself but also Bella and thus he attempts to recompense her for the alleged loss of her husband to be.

The third and the last chapter of this thesis deals with suffering, punishment and redemption. Owing to the fact that the vast majority of characters of the novel can be understood as people who worship money rather than God, Dickens’ redemption may be perceived as secular. In Our Mutual

Friend, there exists no higher power to mediate redemption and thus Dickens’ redemptive ‘effort’ might be read as non-religious or simply secular. This assertion could also be supported by stating that unlike punishment, redemption in the novel cannot be earned and is distributed unevenly.

Haas, Jasper and Jay in The Oxford Handbook of English Literature and

Theology explain that it is crucial to differentiate between redemption and salvation. According to them, “salvation [is] generally understood as mediated by the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus”, but redemption is a much broader term, because unlike salvation, redemption does not require a sin prior to the

“elimination of suffering”. The authors also stress that redemption in literature utilizes “suffering as a meaningful element in the narrative” (Hass, Jasper and

Jay 760-761). In Our Mutual Friend, many characters including the disabled suffer, but redemption is available only to some and their relief is often merely partial. Prayers are very scarce, the expression God is used in collocations only and the name of Jesus in never mentioned, although the Son is referred to. All

7 this leads to the conclusion that Our Mutual Friend must be understood as a novel that portrays redemption rather than salvation, because none of the requirements for salvation mentioned by Haas, Japser and Jay is fulfilled.

This thesis utilizes fifty-four sources and analyzes them in order to provide the most accurate picture of the events and the characters presented in

Our Mutual Friend. Peter Ackroyd’s biography called Dickens contains information about nearly all aspects of Dickens’ life and like other Ackroyd’s works, it is impressively elaborate and extensive. Ackroyd stylizes the biography as if it were another one of Dickens’ novels and he inquires into Dickens’ life aspirations, dreams, childhood and family life and attempts to explicate his motivations. All the three chapters of this thesis draw on this biography as it provides much more information than Claire Tomalin’s journalistic biography where she focuses on Dickens’s movements, contracts and publications.

Daniel Scoggin’s “A Speculative Resurrection: Death, Money and the

Vampiric Economy of Our Mutual Friend” deals with death in relation to the economic system of Our Mutual Friend. The author contends that the novel depicts the “pursuit of riches” (Scoggin 100) and informs the reader about what he calls “the theme of blood-thirsty avarice” (109). Furthermore, the article argues that some of the characters may be perceived as parasites, deals with the ascension of the Veneerings and Mr. Boffin, stresses the importance of consumption and mentions the “increasingly unstable market economy” (102) of the mid-nineteenth century England, which, in his opinion, gave rise to economic opportunism (102).

8 Dickens: The Critical Heritage edited by Philip Collins consists of period reviews of various Dickens’ works including Our Mutual Friend. There is a whole scale of reviews, some of which praise the novel and others (such as that written by Henry James) pillory it for its sentimentality and recurring themes and contend that it is one of the poorest Dickens’ works. James Hannay’s review emphasizes the phenomenon of exaggeration and stresses the caricature-like depiction of the major characters. Overall, the book is an invaluable source of information about the attitudes of Dickens’ contemporaries and sheds light on why, despite its relative commercial success, the novel did not sell as many copies as Great Expectations did.

Garrett Stewart’s “The Golden Bower of Our Mutual Friend” closes the list of the sources this thesis utilizes most frequently. The article is a comprehensive analysis of the character of Jenny Wren and argues that her identity is not only unstable but also non-transparent. According to Stewart,

Jenny is forced to bear the wrongs done to her by both her father and the society she lives in. Even though she finds relief in her memories from the past,

Stewart argues that time and time again “what is beautiful in her life must inevitably evaporate” (Stewart 119), thus suggesting that she deserves redemption more than many other characters of Our Mutual Friend.

9 Chapter One: Identity and the Net Worth of a Man in Our

Mutual Friend

1.1. Introduction to Identity

This chapter will analyze the identity of several major characters of Our

Mutual Friend and consider it from miscellaneous points of view. These characters are selected based on the extent of their development and the degree of impact they have on the storyline of the novel. The following analyses will argue that the exaggeration Dickens employs when describing them might be seen as an attempt to establish new archetypes, all of which are

(at least to a certain degree) influenced by capital. According to J. Hillis Miller, the novel is all about “money, money, money and what money can make of life” (qtd. in Murray 152). However, the chapter will argue that despite its importance, capital is not the only factor pertinent to the issue of identity that in the novel is presented as highly unstable and multifaceted.

Examples will be provided in order to prove that the characters of Our

Mutual Friend are masterfully crafted representatives of all the three social classes – the working class, the middle class and the upper class. Furthermore, it will be argued that the above-mentioned exaggeration of personality traits lies predominantly in the way Dickens portrays and describes his characters.

Overall, the chapter will focus on John Harmon, who is in hiding under the name of John Rokesmith and at times also Julius Handford, Bella Wilfer,

Nicodemus Boffin also known as ‘the Golden Dustman’ and the shiftless lawyer

Eugene Wrayburn.

10 The “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy” divides the notion of identity into “the identity of things” and “personal identity”. Philosophically, the term

“identity” under certain conditions is tantamount to “sameness”. There exist two theories of identity that are referred to as “numerical” and “qualitative”.

Unlike numerical identity, philosophical qualitative identity does not require absolute sameness of the researched subjects. This way, the subjects can be compared and likened to each other, yet not regarded as the same. The quantitative theory is predominantly applied to things and the quantitative theory is typically utilized when analyzing personal identity (“Identity”).

Furthermore, there exists a division of identity into what the article calls

“absolute identity” and “relative identity”. However, only relatively identical subjects are to be found in the world, as no absolute identity exists outside of theory (“Identity”). It might be argued that due to the fact that this chapter analyzes and compares characters of a novel, an approach that utilizes both personal identity and relative identity is required, because finding two numerically identical characters is virtually impossible. However, the character of John Harmon/Rokesmith is an exception to this rule, for feigning a new identity does not equal to a real change. Thus, it might be argued that the protagonist of Our Mutual Friend is numerically and absolutely identical to himself.

Marya Schechtman in her article “Personhood and Personal Identity” suggests that the question of identification “Who am I?” might be asked by both “an amnesia victim or by a confused adolescent”. According to her, the victim asks the question “which history [his/her] life is a continuation of” and

11 the adolescent “knows [his/her] history but is asking which of the beliefs, values, and desires . . . are . . . expressive of who [he or] she is” (Schechtman

71).

The professor of philosophy also argues that the issue of personal identity in recent philosophical publications is closely linked to “reidentification”

– meaning a change in identity. Those who work with this concept “attempt to spell out the necessary and sufficient conditions for saying that a person at time t1 is the same person as a person at time t2”. Even the slightest difference between these two periods can consequently be interpreted as “reidentification”

(72).

It is necessary to note that this change needs to be observable or measurable in order for the re-identification to be confirmed. This reduces the effort of any reader to determine the re-identification of a character of a novel, because the change is often presented by its narrator and sometimes (as in the case of Charles Dickens); it is even magnified and mocked. Many characters of

Our Mutual Friend undergo re-identification either due to capital or due to love.

Some of them morally ameliorate and others deteriorate. In terms of the aforementioned qualitative theory, they become ‘more equal’ or closer to somebody else. A working-class dustman deliberately re-identifies himself as a member of the upper class and the wealthy Harmon becomes a working-class clerk. Yet, unlike in philosophy, re-identification in Our Mutual Friend is always induced by external factors including capital, milieu or a mere coincidence.

In his article “Character and Contradiction in Dickens” Brian Rosenberg contends that Dickens was initially perceived as an “icon and entertainer” who

12 consequently became much more serious in the 1840s. His popularity stemmed from the fact that he “tended to share the sense that he knew what he wanted to say and said it directly”. On the one hand, his mockery of the nineteenth- century English society led to accusations of “exaggeration” (Rosenberg 145) and on the other, some critics such as George Santayana defended the realistic nature of his characters stating: “When people say Dickens exaggerates, it seems to me they can have no eyes and no ears” (qtd. in Rosenberg 147).

Nevertheless, only “few would insist, or have ever insisted, that the best

Dickens characters are examples of verisimilitudinous representation” (145).

The dominant theme of Our Mutual Friend, which is both movable and immovable capital, reflects in the identity of the vast majority of the characters.

For some, capital (or lack thereof) defines what they are, decides their aspirations and their overall stance towards the society that treasures unnatural behavior and restraint. In his biography of Dickens, Peter Ackroyd suggests that in Our Mutual Friend, “all social life is seen in terms of a game, a preposterous game in which the counters are false values and in which the players are merely actors” (Ackroyd 944). These false values are predominantly money and property, after which many characters of the novel chase with unquenchable thirst. This results in superficiality, inability to act naturally and to acknowledge some of the true values such as kindness, love or devotion.

However, Rosenberg argues that many Dickens’ heroes seem to serve

“some deeper purpose” (Rosenberg 148). This purpose is a moral one. Despite the fact that the reader may discover John Harmon’s deception early in the novel, it is apparent that the heir could pass for Rokesmith for the rest of his

13 life if he wished to do so. His ‘schizophrenia’ is time-limited and his real identity is restored after he instigates and successfully completes the re-identification of

Bella Wilfer, who by that time is no longer bound by the “Voice of Society” (the title of the very last chapter of Our Mutual Friend). Similarly, the innocent Lizzie

Hexam induces the moral change of Eugene Wrayburn even though she initially does not plan to do so.

The diverse identities of characters of Our Mutual Friend and their interrelations create one of the most sophisticated literary systems witnessed in literature so far. In Dickens: The Critical Heritage, Philip Collins presents the reader with a critique of Dickens’ last finished novel published in London

Review, where the author pays homage to Dickens and states that “the characters he has invented would almost people a town” (Collins, “Dickens: The

Critical Heritage” 454). Despite the fact that this mention addresses his whole works, it may be argued that Our Mutual Friend features a number of highly developed characters, out of whom many could replace John Harmon in the role of this novel’s protagonist.

With regard to Dickens’ novels and Victorian literature, in Dickens the

Novelist, F. R. Leavis stresses the importance “to introduce delicately complex perceptions and a social civilization of which that literature is a flower, to a brutally callous generation as to sensibility” (Leavis 362). The further and farther from the Victorian age the readers find themselves, the more difficult it is for them to fully grasp the meaning of Dickens’ characters, many of whom are not intended to be mere caricatures of the nineteenth-century Englishmen and Englishwomen. Instead, they ought to be perceived as both constituents

14 and representatives of the society the live in, because Dickens concentrates in them both the virtues and the vices of people he met during his lifetime.

Our Mutual Friend may be understood as one of the most pronounced examples of Dickens urge to create patterns and to examine the influence of society and environment on an individual. In her journalistic biography of

Dickens, Claire Tomalin expresses the opinion that “the pattern, structure and setting of human lives was the stuff of his books, and he saw the structure and pattern of his own life as closely related to place” (Tomalin 16). It was Kent but predominantly London where Dickens observed people of all classes and formed his own picture of society that, however, could have been distorted by the fact that he was forced to leave school recently. Nevertheless, Tomalin sees that period as one of the highlights of Dickens’ childhood and suggests that

“For . . . six months he continued without formal education of any kind, but instead was free to wander about London, learning the layout of districts and streets and observing contrast[s]” (Tomalin 22). The influence of these six month can still be felt in Our Mutual Friend where both the environment and the milieu may be perceived as the catalyst of the majority of decisions and events.

In Dickens the Novelist, F. R. Leavis asks the question whether there is

“such a thing as free will admitting the force of heredity” and argues that

“Dickens has always been asking the question as to the why of human conduct”. He suggests that there are two factors – “heredity” and “nurture” that often influence the way Dickens’ characters behave (Leavis 364). In Our

Mutual Friend, free will is represented by John Harmon, who for a considerable

15 period of time denies his roots and impersonates somebody else in order to achieve various goals. Other characters such as Bella Wilfer or Eugene

Wrayburn are examples of the diminishing force of heredity and nurture, because at the beginning of the novel, both of them adhere to the principles they were taught, and at the end of it, their lives are most influenced by people whom they did not even know before.

In 1865, an unsigned contribution was published in London Review, where the author suggested that Dickens’ characters seem to have a “life of their own” and “the substance and the freedom of actual existences” (Collins

“Dickens: The Critical Heritage”, 455) (London Review 468). The persona of

John Harmon is the most prominent representative of this freedom. Many of his actions are pre-meditated and he is fully aware of their ramifications. The protagonist of Dickens’ last finished novel is able to overcome many obstacles and inconveniences and after being assaulted, he, as Daniel Scoggin puts in “A

Speculative Ressurection: Death, Money, and the Vampiric Economy of Our

Mutual Friend”, “reenters the close dark streets of the business world as a secretary to watch over the fortune he left unclaimed” (Scoggin 101).

Cathy Shuman in “Invigilating Our Mutual Friend” contends that the two most prominent representatives of the intelligentsia found in Dickens’ last finished novel are John Harmon and Eugene Wrayburn, both of whom she calls

“normative intellectual workers” and adds that the novel provides “a model of professional expertise” (Shuman 154). Dickens appears to create pairs of characters who on the one hand share some characteristics but on the other fully contrast on other levels. As suggested earlier, it can be argued that both

16 Harmon and Wrayburn are intellectuals. Yet, Harmon actively uses his education and intelligence to pursue goals, whereas Wrayburn remains idle and indifferent. Similar ‘doubling’ may be also observed in other characters such as

Silas Wegg and Mr. Venus, Mr. Fledgeby and Mr. Riah, Headstone and

Wrayburn and the Veneerings and the Lammles, descriptions of whom will be a part of the ensuing chapters.

Even though Our Mutual Friend does not lack in action, there is a scarcity of truly dominant characters. As suggested in London Review in 1865, John

Rokesmith “must . . . be regarded as the hero, but he is certainly not the chief character” (Collins, “Dickens: The Critical Heritage” 456) (London Review 468).

Despite his deception, Harmon’s behavior is not overtly criticized and mocked by the narrator and unlike several other characters; the ‘protagonist’ has neither a nickname, nor a soubriquet. It might be said that his character undergoes little development apart from the initial deception. As the reader ascertains later, there is no need for him to change, for right at the outset of the novel he is portrayed as polite, serene, tenacious, purposeful and most of the time also inconspicuous.

1.2. John Harmon – The Deceiver

John Harmon is drugged and mugged, but he survives the assault and recovers. Being considered dead, he immediately takes advantage of the situation and re-identifies himself as a secretary who is looking for a job and lodging. The supposed death offers him a chance to ingratiate himself into his own house (now owned by his father’s former employee Mr. Boffin) and to win

17 favor with the readers of Our Mutual Friend by means of “toiling” as a lower middle-class secretary named John Rokesmith (Scoggin 101). Even though

Harmon’s deception is very transparent to the reader, other characters are unable to expose his true identity for a long period of time. This is predominantly caused by the fact that his disguise is very convincing, because he is able to subordinate most of the aspects of his life to sustaining the image of a secretary.

Susie L. Steinbach argues that during the reign of Queen Victoria “most people sought not to break barriers or rise as high as possible, but to find happiness at the level at which they found themselves” (Steinbach 114-115).

Yet, the persona of Harmon is in stark contrast with this concept. He does not much mind the superficial artificiality that surrounds him and he attempts to prove that unconditional love exists regardless of class. In Our Mutual Friend, the society is critical to those who marry a spouse of a different class. In the very last chapter called “Voice of Society”, the narrator conveys what the wife of the owner of “Podsnappery” (the title of the eleventh chapter of book one) thinks about marriage: “Mrs. Podsnap is of opinion that in these matters there should be an equality of station and fortune, and that a man accustomed to

Society should look out for a woman accustomed to Society and capable of bearing her part in it” (Dickens 818).

Therefore, it might be suggested that instead of reasoning for themselves, the upper-class characters of Our Mutual Friend merely reproduce what they were taught about class division, thus further spreading a norm of acceptable and desirable behavior. Even though this excerpt is a comment on

18 the marriage of Eugene Wrayburn and Lizzie Hexam, the same applies to the relationship of John Rokesmith and Bella Wilfer up until to the point when John discloses his true identity. It is insinuated that Rokesmith is not worthy of Bella

Wilfer due to the fact that he is merely an ordinary secretary, whereas Bella is a pretty daughter of an ordinary secretary. This further intensifies the feeling that the social hierarchy of Our Mutual Friend does not have any rules and is modified on the go according to the needs of some of its characters.

John Harmon, impersonating the meek secretary, might ultimately resemble Dickens’ grandparents, who despite their probable intellectual capacity were servants. In Dickens, Ackroyd claims that servants such as butlers or personal secretaries were considered members of a “fluid class”

(Ackroyd 5), because they spent time with the upper classes but at the same time were not members of it. By contrast, they belonged to the upper-working class or the lower-middle class, but did not spend much time among their peers

(5) apart from their families. These characteristics apply to both Rokesmith and

Bella Wilfer’s father with the exception that Rokesmith no longer has a family.

However, Dickens takes the concept of “fluid class” one step further, showing that even a secretary who merely pretends to be a servant can do a fine job.

In Dickens: The Critical Heritage, Phillip Collins includes a part of James

Hannay’s chapter on the works of his contemporaries originally published in A

Course of English Literature where Hannay showed a lukewarm attitude towards Dickens’ characters, stating that “many of his portraits are exaggerations and caricatures” and expressing the opinion that “he depicts what used to be called ‘humours’ rather than persons, for the most part”

19 (Collins, “Dickens: The Critical Heritage” 477) (Hannay 322). The first part of

Hannay’s observation seems very apt. The usage of the expression caricature may be perceived as slightly excessive, but it can be claimed more definitely that Dickens revels in accentuating archetypal features of his characters. It is nearly impossible to put John Harmon out of countenance and thus he may be misread as a phlegmatic person. However, it is the complete opposite that characterizes him best, for he never accepts failure and thus he may be understood as one of the most persistent characters of Our Mutual Friend.

In Book the First, Chapter II, lack of reverence is shown towards Mr.

Harmon despite the fact that none of the parties involved in the discussion are acquainted with him personally. Prejudice vanquishes reason and Mortimer

Lightwood addresses the protagonist accordingly: “‘The man,’ . . . ‘whose name is Harmon, was only son of a tremendous old rascal who made his money by

Dust’” (Dickens 13). Lightwood continues accordingly, commenting on John

Harmon’s background in a condescending manner: “‘On his own small estate the growling old vagabond threw up his own mountain range, like an old volcano, and its geological formation was Dust’” (13).

Therefore, it becomes apparent that the old money is reluctant to accept the new money or even to acknowledge the formation of this new group.

Akcroyd confirms this in his biography of Dickens where he argues that in Our

Mutual Friend, the members of the working class are expected to “live off the waste and detritus of the rich” instead of raising themselves socially (Ackroyd

945). In the case of the Harmon family, this may be taken quite literally, because Old Harmon made most of his fortune sifting waste and his dust heaps

20 predetermine his son to become a noveaux-riche capitalist while never being accepted by the upper echelons of society.

Soon after ‘his’ body is found, John Harmon becomes a master of disguise and readily offers to confirm the death of himself. In order not to be suspected of anything, at the police station, he invents yet another name false name, because he wishes to remain anonymous in what Brian Cheadle in

Chapter VI of The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens titled “The late novels: Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend” calls the “extended canvas of Our Mutual Friend” (Jordan 85).

When asked to identify himself, he retorts “‘Mr. Julius Handford,

Exchequer Coffee House, Palace Yard, Westminster’” (Dickens 26). Despite the fact that Harmon disguises himself as Rokesmith, from the very beginning it is possible to infer that both of them are the very same person. John Rokesmith,

Esquire is introduced at the end of Book the First, Chapter IV. Soon afterwards, he becomes a secretary of Mr. Boffin - the man who inherited the Harmon property and takes a fancy to Bella Wilfer - the woman whom Harmon was supposed to marry. Despite that, Rokesmith’s identity is not disclosed until the last book of the novel and only clues and insinuations occur ever and anon.

However, as suggested in London Review, this confusion “is not compensated by any additional interest in the story” (Collins, “Dickens: The Critical Heritage”

456) (London Review 468), because Rokesmith establishes himself as a secretary and the investigation of John Harmon’s murder is closed.

In the following chapter, Rokesmith is further denigrated by Bella Wilfer

(his future wife) and her sister Lavinia: “‘Pa,’ . . . ‘we have got a Murderer for a

21 tenant.’” and in agreement Bella adds: “‘Pa,’ . . . we have got a Robber.’” The older of the two daughters of Rumpty Wilfer hastily denounces John based on her first impression and continues: “‘Pa, mark my words! Between Mr.

Rokesmith and me, there is a natural antipathy and a deep distrust; and something will come of it!’” (Dickens 40). Presently, the vain Lavinia remarks ironically: “‘. . . we shall have Mr. Rokesmith here, and shall be expected to have our throats cut’” (42). For no apparent reason, Rokesmith makes a bad impression on the prejudiced Wilfer sisters and the two girls condemn him with no foundation the same way Mortimer Lightwood condemned his noveaux-riche father.

Later, Rokesmith becomes a personal secretary of Mr. Boffin - a man who took care of him when he was a child. When reuniting with Boffin, he asserts: “‘If you would try me as your Secretary—’” and he is silenced by Mr.

Boffin, who considers it a “queer thing” (96). However, Rokesmith explains the whole situation further: “. . . I know you would find me faithful and grateful, and I hope you would find me useful.” Before Boffin is able to ask him what sort of remuneration he would demand, Rokesmith answers the question himself: “‘You may naturally think that my immediate object is money. Not so, for I would willingly serve you a year—two years—any term you might appoint—before that should begin to be a consideration between us’” (96).

After diverting the attention of Mr. Boffin from money, he is forced to answer the question about his origin. He equivocates skillfully: “‘I come . . . from many countries’” (96) and having successfully avoided all questions he did not wish to

22 answer, he merely asserts: “‘I have not mentioned my name. My name is

Rokesmith. I lodge at one Mr. Wilfer’s at Holloway’” (97).

Shortly afterwards, Rokesmith intentionally mangles his true name to

“Harmoon” and “Harman” (98) so that he can cover his tracks perfectly. The double repetition appears to be a little forced, but Boffin is apparently too naïve to suspect anything. Over time, Rokesmith lives up to his self-proclaimed reputation and Mr. Wilfer calls him a “very punctual, very quiet, a very eligible inmate” (111). Despite his respectability, Rokesmith is barely taken notice of by the men of property.

In “Naming and Language in Our Mutual Frined”, G. W. Kennedy argues that for the indifferent Mortimer Lightwood, Rokesmith is only a “collection of letters” (Kennedy 170). At one of the lavish parties which take place during the course of the novel, he tells the others that the Boffins have a new servant who is an “an individual of the hermit-crab or oyster species and whose name . . . is

Chokesmith” (Dickens 413). At this point, Lightwood returns with the same rhetoric he applied to Harmon and Dickens provides the readers with yet another clue that Rokesmith and Harmon are the same person or as explained in the theoretical part, they are absolutely identical.

Rokesmith’s written language belongs to the most formal texts that are to be found in the novel. When he is asked to “try a letter” (Dickens 180), the applicant comes up with a textbook clerical text that contains very little meaning, thus paradoxically confirming his qualities as a secretary. The letter goes as following:

23 Mr. Boffin presents his compliments to Mr. John Rokesmith, and

begs to say that he has decided on giving Mr. John Rokesmith a

trial in the capacity he desires to fill. Mr. Boffin takes Mr. John

Rokesmith at his word, in postponing to some indefinite period,

the consideration of salary. It is quite understood that Mr. Boffin is

in no way committed on that point. Mr. Boffin has merely to add,

that he relies on Mr. John Rokesmith's assurance that he will be

faithful and serviceable. Mr. John Rokesmith will please enter on

his duties immediately. (180)

At this point, John Harmon does not hesitate to suggest himself as a secretary and to serve a man who under normal circumstances would have served him. His motives are clear. He wishes to look respectable, to maintain his inheritance and at the same time to remain trustworthy and win Bella

Wilfer’s heart. Eventually, he accomplishes most of the goals he sets and wins trust of Mr. Boffin, who employs him for an indefinite period. Nevertheless,

Bella is extremely reserved when speaking to him. She tries to avoid him and at one point, she does not even want to allow him to deliver a message. The narrator captures the whole situation accordingly – Rokesmith says to Bella: “‘I am charged with a message for you, Miss Wilfer.’” Immediately, Bella retorts:

“‘Impossible, I think!’” (205). However, she does not merely refer to the message but also relates the word “impossible” to Rokesmith’s advances.

Having inexhaustibly courted and consequently married Bella, Harmon remains undercover until a baby is born. This is where the storyline takes up elements of a farce, for the deception should have already been discovered by

24 that time. It appears that Dickens does not mock only his characters but also the incapacity and sluggishness of the police, for in Our Mutual Friend, the police officers do not even attempt to solve the Harmon murder case and to identify the body they find, which is automatically presupposed to be Harmon’s.

In Dickens and Crime, Philip Collins argues that Dickens had “a curious and almost morbid partiality for communing with and entertaining police officers”

(Collins, “Dickens and Crime” 196). Allegedly, he found it entertaining to question their judgment and he even believed that “The affection was reciprocated” (196). In Our Mutual Friend, direct contact with the authorities is very scarce, but the establishment is criticized in between the lines. It is not only the inability of the police to solve the Harmon case but also the incapacity of the church and other authorities to discover that a ‘dead’ man married a woman who is perfectly alive, all of which intensifies the feeling that Dickens had a reserved attitude to both the authorities and the clergy.

1.3. Bella Wilfer – The Vain Daughter of a Clerk

In Understanding the Victorians, Susie L. Steinbach argues that unlike in the preceding periods, gender in the mid-nineteenth century England could be characterized to a lesser extent by the “description . . . of physiology” and increasingly by the “social roles in relation to one another” (Steinbach 132).

These “social roles” are, indeed, of great importance in Our Mutual Friend and they often overshadow appearance or, as Steinbach puts it, “physiology”.

Within the realm of social roles, pairs of characters are formed for the purposes of comparison. Based on this proposition, Bella is the most suitable character to

25 be compared with John Harmon. She is the most complex female character of

Our Mutual Friend and represents the transformation of vanity and ignorance into morality. Nonetheless, her abrupt and melodramatic reformation might just be a pose employed in order to win Harmon’s heart.

In her online series called “Counting Down Dickens’ Greatest Novels”,

Radhika Jones characterizes Bella as “the pretty, spirited, slightly petulant daughter of a humble clerk” (Jones). Being relatively poor, she has hopes of raising herself socially by marrying Mr. Harmon Jr., for whom his father chose her. In the novel, she provides a female counterpoint to John Rokesmith, whom

(as suggested earlier) she detests from the very beginning the novel. Slowly but surely, their personalities converge and Bella becomes aware of the

‘spiritual assets’ that are scarcely ever revered by the female members of her family. Her family forms a milieu consisting of a cocky and dominant mother, referred to almost exclusively as Mrs. Wilfer, and a “cherubic father” (Dickens

755) who allows the sisters to do whatever it is they want. The relationship of

Mr. Wilfer and Bella can be seen as one of a mother and a child in reversed order, for it is Bella who commands her father instead of the opposite.

In The Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens, Paul Schlicke argues that

Dickens’ perception of women was that of “the domestic woman”. Reputedly,

Dickens believed that women were “inherently different from men, formed for home-making and a life of the affection” (Schlicke 601). In Our Mutual Friend,

Bella initially embodies the very opposite of Dickens’ archetypal woman.

Apparently, she prefers marrying money to both affection and home-making.

Even though he is not yet fully acquainted with her personality, it is John

26 Rokesmith who offers the best depiction of Bella at the beginning of the novel in a single utterance: “‘So insolent, so trivial, so capricious, so mercenary, so careless, so hard to touch, so hard to turn!’” (Dickens 208). Despite all these negative attributes he cannot help falling for Bella and adds to her description

“‘And yet so pretty, so pretty!’” (208).

In her article called “Gender, Family, and Domestic Ideology”, which is a part of Jordan’s The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens, Catherine

Waters quotes an unnamed reviewer who in his review of David Copperfield praised Dickens for “his deep reverence for the household sanctities [and] his enthusiastic worship of the household gods” (qtd. in Jordan 120). By that time,

Dickens was yet to fall in love with Ellen Ternan. When their affair started, he no longer revered these “the household sanctities”, but it is important to stress that he took good care of his children. His unhappy marriage indirectly reflects in the relationship of Bella Wilfer’s parents that is depicted as partly dysfunctional, because the father supports the family and the mother dominates it. Owing to this, Bella gains first-hand experience of what a harmonious family should not look like and it appears that she is soon to replicate and possibly even enhance this ‘failure’ by marrying money.

Early in the novel, Bella introduces herself as a creature with insatiable longing for money induced by her background. Having been ‘purchased’ as a bride, she feels like “a dozen of spoons” betrothed to a person she does not know anything about and adds: “‘I love money, and want money—want it dreadfully’” (Dickens 37). Having lost her husband to be and predominantly his money, Bella feels annoyed and embittered and remembers her only suitor

27 George Sampson, whom she had banished some time ago stating: “I only say

George Sampson was better than nothing” (Dickens 37). Despite the previous complaints about feeling like “a dozen of spoons” she automatically considers

Harmon superior to George, whom she regards as a thing. At his point, the young Miss Wilfer hierarchically sorts the two men in a very cold, unwomanly manner, owing to which Dickens skillfully manipulates the reader to dislike her initially so that her latter development can take a more favorable direction.

During the course of the novel, Bella becomes aware of the changes she is going through and speaks about herself as “the most mercenary little wretch that ever lived in the world”. Her father tries to soothe her, but she explains her situation further: “It’s not that I care for money to keep as money, but I do care so much for what it will buy!” (Dickens 319). It might be argued that Bella is the character of Our Mutual Friend who undergoes the most significant positive development. It takes her several years to realize that money is not what makes her happy. Prior to this ‘enlightenment’, she is constantly occupied with hatred towards poverty and she explains that her behavior is “one of the consequences of being poor, and of thoroughly hating and detesting to be poor” (41).

Her final reformation is induced by John Rokesmith and Mr. Boffin, both of whom hatch two independent plots in order to ‘redeem’ Bella from her vanity. This “pious fraud” (Dickens 771) is, as David Kaplin suggests in

“Transparent Lies and the Rearticulation of Agency in Our Mutual Friend”, supposed to “teach Bella about her true generous nature” (Kaplin 245). Her relationship with Rokesmith ameliorates, signalizing that both the deceptions

28 are working as planned. Having called Mr. Boffin, who poses as a miser, a

“Monster”, Bella apologizes to Rokesmith in tears saying: “‘Pray Mr. Rokesmith, pray stay one moment. Pray hear one word from me before you go! I am deeply sorry for the reproaches you have borne on my account. Out of the depths of my heart I earnestly and truly beg your pardon’” (Dickens 597).

Apparently, Bella’s concern with Rokesmith’s well-being reflects in her speech and she cannot help it but defend him in front of Mr. Boffin, to encourage him and to articulate her growing sympathy. As William J. Palmer argues in “The Movement of History in Our Mutual Friend”, at this juncture,

Bella is finally able to see the advantages of “fully devoted love . . . awakened in her by John Rokesmith” (Palmer 490). Eventually, she becomes overly apologetic and attempts to restore the good relationship with her father even though he has never taken against her:

You are sure you quite forgive me, Pa? Please, Pa, please, forgive

me quite!' Half laughing at him and half crying to him, Bella

besought him in the prettiest manner; in a manner so engaging and

so playful and so natural, that her cherubic parent made a coaxing

face as if she had never grown up, and said, 'What a silly little Mouse

it is! (Dickens 671)

During this emotional outburst, the vain and proud “Pa” from the beginning of the novel changes into a grateful “Pa” and Bella can no longer be thought of as a person who despises poverty and love and gives preference to money and property. The mother/son relationship of these two finally turns into a father/daughter one and while behaving like (and being perceived as) a

29 defenseless child for a moment, Bella finally becomes a fully-fledged adult who is able to recognize the significance of emotional life and to understand that the bonds of family are not formed based on the ownership of bonds (or any other financial product) sold at the stock exchange.

1.4. Nicodemus Boffin – ‘The Golden Dustman’

In his article called “Victorian Moral Philosophy and Our Mutual Friend”,

Dominic Rainsford refers to Dickens as a “moralist” and a “moral philosopher”

(Rainsford 276). However, Rainsford also argues some “philosophers and their associates may have been reluctant to acknowledge Dickens’s intellectual capacities” and his characters. Allegedly, it was John Stuart Mill who “accus[ed]

Dickens of vulgarity” in his representation of intellectuals and Harriet Martineau who expressed the opinion that his characters are merely “proprietors grievously inadequate to their function, philosophically and morally” (275).

Therefore, it might be argued that in Our Mutual Friend, Dickens employs a strategy of making some of his characters into what might be called

‘peasant philosophers’ in order to compensate the lack of depth for which these critics reproached him. Rainsford contends that in the case of Mr. Boffin, the use of the world philosophy is “semi-ironic” and that it is used to refer to a

“homespun piece of advice” (Rainsford 277). In Book the First, Chapter IX, Mr.

Boffin admires the proposition of his wife to compensate Bella for the death of her husband to be and the narrator describes the situation accordingly: “‘Ne-ver once thought of the way of doing it!' cried Mr. Boffin, smiting the table in his admiration. ‘What a thinking steam-ingein this old lady is. And she don't know

30 how she does it. Neither does the ingein!’” (Dickens 100). In the following paragraph, the narrator states that: “[Boffin] pulled his nearest ear, in acknowledgment of this piece of philosophy” (100). However, it is highly unlikely that any reader would construe the persona of Mr. Boffin as a character capable of understanding philosophy and thus this mention may be read as a reference to common sense and the initial congeniality of the naïve dustman.

The Boffins, who used to be employees of Old Harmon, undergo an abrupt shift and all of a sudden, they become members of the upper class, having never experienced anything in between. Paradoxically, their marriage may still be perceived as very harmonious and their relationship as one that corresponds with the ‘norm’ established by Paul Shlicke which was mentioned in the previous subchapter. Initially, Mrs. Boffin is the dominant of the two, but later the husband starts ruling the household with a firm hand, pretending boundless avarice. However, it might be argued that despite his growing ego,

Mr. Boffin is depicted as a counterpoint to the intellectual characters such as

John Rokesmith or Eugene Wrayburn (Rainsford 278), whom this thesis present as a form of a ‘superfluous man’ (see subchapter 2.5).

At the outset of the novel, Mr. Boffin might be seen as a social model.

Along with his wife, he decides to raise Bella after they are unable to adopt an orphan who dies. However, most of the ideas Mr. Boffin agrees to are suggested by his wife and thus it is shown that the dustman is prone to manipulation. This issue was already touched upon in the subchapter devoted to John Harmon where Mr. Boffin hires him as a secretary without any additional questions or demur. Due to his interest in the well-being of others,

31 Mr. Boffin may be regarded as a local philanthropist. When his wife suggests the adoption and asks whether he has any objections, the dustman retorts: “‘I should be a Beast if I did’” (Dickens 101), thus confirming that he agrees to nearly every proposition his wife ever makes.

Catherine Waters expresses the opinion that Dickens tries to document the shift of English families from “lineage” towards “domesticity” where the genders form a complete household rather than a family (Jordan 122). Overall, personal evolution and the evolution of family is one of the substantial issues presented in Our Mutual Friend and Waters even argues that “Dickens’ fiction is one of the discourses which helped to formulate normative definitions of the family” (122). Yet, in Our Mutual Friend his perception of the family is already influenced by his own life’s experience and the affair with Ellen Ternan and thus the Boffins might be understood as the only family that adheres to these

“normative definitions”.

Along with Bella Wilfer, Nicodemus Boffin – “a smiling creature” (Dickens

99) - is the character who undergoes most development. At the outset of the novel, he is an illiterate representative of the new money and using his inheritance, he attempts to ascend to the upper echelons of society. Even though his effort to grow intellectually is inexhaustible and admirable, he remains a persona whose perception of surroundings is rather simplistic. His submissive nature is beneficial to the preservation of his marriage, but it causes him to be overly credulous. During the course of the novel, the reader notices that Boffin is growing increasingly miserly and he as Audrey Jaffe puts in

32 “Omniscience in Our Mutual Friend” “exhibits . . . [a] falsely grounded sense of knowledge and power” (Jaffe 96).

William Palmer suggests that Boffin belongs to such characters of Our

Mutual Friend who have a “concretely realized past” (Palmer 487). Palmer argues that the dustman who used to be a “foreman at the Bower” became its owner by a stroke of luck (487). However, his perception is already sharpened by years of effort to salvage whatever valuables remained in the dust heaps and the sudden change incites his interest in the past. Of all the available education, he chooses history – specifically The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (487) and in his utter literary ignorance he simplifies its title to “Rooshan Empire” (Dickens 58).

Receiving no prior literary tutelage, Boffin is highly unlikely to comprehend a history book that examines centuries of various historical developments. Eventually, he understands some portions of it and wishes to eschew the mistakes of historical figures mentioned in it - especially the viciousness of the Romans towards one another (Palmer 487). Later in the novel, Boffin discovers that unlike Gibbon in the “Rooshan Empire”, Plutarch in

Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans “might not expect him to believe them all” (Dickens 476).

Mr. Boffin entrusts his literary education to Mr. Wegg, who reads to him regularly, and thus Boffin’s vocabulary improves noticeably. Simultaneously, he becomes nothing short of an actor. As he progresses with what Palmer calls his

“eccentric education” (Palmer 488), Mr. Boffin decides to bring back to life some of the characters he was acquainted with during Mr. Wegg’s readings.

33 This assertion may be supported by Palmer’s claim that Mr. Boffin “employs the histories of misers as a ruse” (488) in order to indirectly reprimand his female protégé Bella. In the course of his ‘metamorphosis’, Boffin experiences a shift from a benighted dustman through a miseducated noveaux riche to a miser and a misanthrope. Eventually, his true identity is disclosed along with that of John

Harmon and thus both of their deceptions come to an end. At this point, the congenial and caring dustman returns and hands back the inheritance to its rightful owner. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the ruse Boffin employs is far more difficult to discover than that of the ‘secretary’.

Jack Lindsay in Charles Dickens expressed the opinion that “the picture of the perversion through wealth has been too true, too effectively done” and he adds that “In fact, we feel two Boffins” (qtd. in Mundhenk 42) (Lindsay

382). It could be argued that the miserly inheritor appears more convincing than the good-natured dustman. In addition, A.O.J. Cockshut expresses the opinion that Dickens wrote the ‘miserly passages’ with great enthusiasm. In The

Imagination of Charles Dickens, the British critic argued that “There can be no doubt that in the miserly passages, especially as Boffin listens to the grotesque stories of misers past, a very deep excitement spreads into the writing” (qtd. in

Mundhenk) (Cockshut 181). This excitement is “in a special way, personal to the author, in excess of the literary requirements of the story” (181) and, as

Rosemary Mundhenks puts it in “The Education of the Reader in Our Mutual

Friend”, it might even signify that “Dickens originally intended Boffin’s avarice to be real, but changed his mind at the last minute” (Mundhenk 42).

34 In Book the First, Chapter V, the Golden Dustman introduces himself as

“Noddy Boffin” (Dickens 48). When he meets Silas Wegg for the second, he speaks about how in the morning at the time of their first encounter he

“listened with hadmiration amounting to haw” (49) to what Wegg was saying.

The naïve and convivial Boffin starts explaining that he and his wife “live on a compittance, under the will of a diseased governor” and consequently grows even more sociable and adds that his education was “Neg—lected”. However, he realizes that at his age, it is “too late for [him] to begin shovelling and sifting at alphabeds and grammar books” (50).

In his naiveté, the Golden Dustman is unaware of the fact that such information should not be communicated to strangers. Moreover, his manner of expression may be perceived as a deterrent example. Apart from mangling of words, his language could be described as non-standard English imbued with expressions he was likely to learn from his former master. However, his English is still in stark contrast with that of the educated characters such as Eugene

Wrayburn or John Harmon, whose vocabularies are incomparably more extensive.

In Book the Third, Chapter V, Boffin’s language improves noticeably and he is able to avoid misspellings, but colloquial and incongruous expression still occur in his speech. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the Golden Dustman is able to play the part of a miser more than persuasively:

‘As to Rokesmith, that young man of mine’ . . . ‘it’s the same with

him as with the footmen. I have found you must either scrunch

them, or let them scrunch you. If you ain’t imperious with ‘em,

35 they won’t believe in your being any better than themselves, if as

good, after the stories (lies mostly) that they have heart of your

beginnings. There’s nothing betwixt stiffening yourself up, and

throwing yourself away; take my word for that, old lady.’ (464)

Slowly but surely, Boffin becomes a stringent master and starts feeling the need to rein his subordinates in. It is unclear, whether his wife is acquainted with his intention to eradicate Bella’s ‘money-hunger’ or not, because she might be a part of his ruse. Nevertheless, his strategy appears to be working perfectly. When Bella articulates her angst of being perceived as

“vain”, Mr. Boffin advises her to accept money as the most important thing in life suggests she find an affluent suitor saying: “‘Go in for money, my love.

Money’s the article’” (465).

There Boffin, who for the past few months has been biding his time, perfects his act. He artificially escalates the ongoing conflict between him and

Mr. Rokesmith in order for the secretary to leave. A few months after he counsels Bella to save her affection for a wealthy man, Mr. Boffin starts at the secretary who cannot help it but longingly watch Bella from time to time: “‘How dare you, sir,’ . . . ‘tamper unknown to me, with this young lady? How dare you come out of your station and your place in my house, to pester this young lady with your impudent addresses?’” (590). Mr. Rokesmith does not even attempt to fight back and in accordance with Boffin’s plan he (though only verbally) hands in his notice saying goodbye to both Mrs. Boffin and Bella and leaves.

Garrett Stewart in his article “Dickens and Language”, which is a part of

The Cambridge Companion of Charles Dickens, mentions a quality of Dickens’

36 narrative that he refers to as “mock-heaviness”, thus adverting to the means of expression no other author could use again and stay unsuspected of copying

Dickens. He contends that Dickens’ language employs elements of “verbal- irony” and “stylistic comedy” (Jordan 136-137). In Our Mutual Friend, Mr. Boffin is the main target of this mockery and even the moniker he is given refers to the duality of his identity. In his case, the stylistic comedy lies especially in his naïve perception of the world, his credulity and the fact that he is unable to comprehend the complexities of the rich men’s world even though, like them, he keeps spending considerable sums on various items. The verbal irony, on the other hand, is traceable in his speech and in Dickens’ effort to make his transformation look real but at the same time to maintain some of his bad habits in order the show that no working-class individual can become upper- class within the period of several months or years.

Overall, the Golden Dustman equals or even surpasses John Harmon in terms of mysteriousness and the degree of development. The difference lies in the way both of them approach their deception. Boffin maintains his name and feigns his change into a “scrooge”, whereas Harmon rids himself of the past and his second name and impresses his personality upon a secretary. In “The

Cup and the Lip and the Riddle of Our Mutual Friend”, Hecimovich pays heed to their deceptions. In his view the Harmon plot emerged accidentally in the course of writing and the “plotting of Boffin’s disguise is planned and executed so that the reader—like Bella, Wegg, and Venus—is deceived” (Hecimovich

967). Regardless of this, both Boffin’s identities are highly distinct and he could

37 be regarded as another one of the candidates for the protagonist of Our Mutual

Friend.

1.5. Eugene Wrayburn – The English ‘Superfluous Man’

A significant portion of the novel is devoted to the relationship of Eugene

Wrayburn and Bradley Headstone, who are presented as irreconcilable adversaries. This subchapter, however, aims to introduce Eugene Wrayburn as the second hero of the novel. Unlike Boffin and the ‘late’ Harmon, both of whom represent the noveaux-riche group, Eugene is a member of the old money (though not fully upper-class in terms of capital wealth) and evinces both similarities and differences to John Harmon. Like Harmon, he is educated and his demeanor in public is that of a gentleman. However, the lawyer is, as

Linda M. Lewis puts it in Dickens, His Parables, and His Reader, “disdainful of others, disenchanted with the career chosen by his father, and disengaged from his fellow humanity” (Lewis 242), hence it is possible to perceive him as a loner who shares his worldview and sarcasm with his only friend and co-lodger in one person – Mortimer Lightwood.

In “The Superfluous Man and the Necessary Woman: A Re-Vision”,

Jehanne M Gheith discusses the concept of a “superfluous man”. According to her, such characters were created due the universal “desire to reform on the societal and personal level”. Gheith adds that “The[ir] alienation from society could be regarded as a positive attribute, a confirmation of [their] inner nobility,

[and] if society could not accept [them], so much the worse for society” (Gheith

229-230). Based on this, it might be argued that Eugene shares many

38 personality traits such as idleness, insolence and indifference with the heroes of

Russian novels such as Eugene Onegin or A Hero of Our Time. In addition to this, he approaches this ‘model’ formed in the nineteenth-century Russia in terms of his class (even though he is not a nobleman). Nevertheless, in some ways, he differs from Pechorin or Onegin and thus it would be apt to liken him to the late ‘superfluous man’ - Goncharov’s Oblomov - an idle and indifferent farmer who, like Wrayburn, is forced to become more active owing to the fact that he falls in love. However, unlike the Russian heroes, Eugene is later punished for his indolence and consequently redeemed by love, all of which

Lewis calls “the most extreme reversal in the novel” (Lewis 242).

It is necessary to stress that Wrayburn is a modified version of the model mentioned by Gheith. He does not merely symbolize the desire to reform, but he himself is reformed during the course of the novel similarly to Bella Wilfer.

The lawyer may be read as a character who is alienated from the society as a whole but particularly from the working class mainly due to the influence of his peers. In the novel, he is a counterpart to three male characters at once - he surpasses his colleague Mortimer Lightwood in terms of being superfluous, is on par with John Harmon in terms of intelligence and later in the novel, he rivals

Bradley Headstone in the pursuit of Lizzie Hexam, with whom both of them fall in love.

At the outset of the novel, we are acquainted with “Eugene, friend of

Mortimer; buried alive in the back of his chair, behind a shoulder—with a powder epaulette on it—of the mature young lady, and gloomily resorting to champagne chalice whenever proffered by the Analytical Chemist” (Dickens 11).

39 Further in the narrative, he is repeatedly depicted as a man whose life has no purpose and Rainsford expresses the opinion that the lawyer “seems ambivalent or indifferent about almost everything” (Rainsford 278).

Eugene is not merely stoical, but rather cynical and sarcastic and there hardly exists anything in the world that would interest or even move him. In

Book the First, Chapter III, Eugene and Mortimer meet Charley Hexam for the first time and Dickens describes the demeanor of the lawyer accordingly: “The gloomy Eugene, with his hands in his pockets, had strolled in and assisted at the latter part of the dialogue; when the boy spoke these words slightingly of his sister, he took him roughly enough by the chin, and turned up his face to look at it” (Dickens 18). As this excerpt shows, Eugene’s cynicism unites with arrogance and he perceives the working-class characters as undesirables, who disturb him when he wishes to remain idle. It might be suggested that he becomes even more overconfident among working-class women and children, because he understands that they are unlikely to oppose him. His haughty behavior, however, is groundless, for the lawyer himself has no qualities to be proud of other than his intelligence.

Despite Eugene’s great expectations, Dickens describes his attitude towards the law accordingly: “I hate, said Eugene, putting his legs on the opposite seat, I hate my profession” (19). Later in the novel, he sees himself as

“the idlest and least of lawyers” (237). He grows more and more hostile towards the common people and his insolence increases gradually. In the chapter called “The Bird of Prey Brought Down”, he starts at Riderhood, reducing both him and Mortimer to silence as he does not mince his words:

40 “‘And vermin may be silent,’ . . . “‘Hold your tongue, you water-rat’” (170).

Nevertheless, when berating Riderhood, he does not realize that he is soon to marry a girl of a similar social class and it is not likely that he would ever refer to her father (former Riderhood’s colleague) as a “water-rat”.

During the course of the novel, the ‘superfluous man’ pattern is maintained and it is falling in love with Lizzie Hexam (a working-class girl) that changes Eugene even though he initially does not admit it. Despite the fact that he appears insolent and his behavior is in stark contrast with Lizzie, eventually the lawyer is presented as a gentleman who marries the waterman’s daughter no matter what her class or social standing is. Yet, prior to that, he enjoys leading Bradley Headstone all across the city in order to drain his pockets while making him raving mad. It is shown that the lawyer holds power over the teacher and delights in his frustration. To accentuate the significance of his newfound ‘sadistic’ identity, Dickens lets Eugene become the narrator for a while:

‘Then soberly and plainly, Mortimer, I goad the schoolmaster to

madness. I make the schoolmaster so ridiculous, and so aware of

being made ridiculous, that I see him chafe and fret at every pore

when we cross one another. The amiable occupation has been the

solace of my life, since I was baulked in the manner unnecessary

to recall. I have derived inexpressible comfort from it. I do it thus:

I stroll out after dark, stroll a little way, look in at a window and

furtively look out for the schoolmaster. […] Having made sure of

his watching me, I tempt him on, all over London. One night I go

41 east, another night north, in a few nights I go all round the

compass. Sometimes, I walk; sometimes, I proceed in cabs,

draining the pocket of the schoolmaster who then follows in cabs.’

(Dickens 542)

It is this part where Eugene is unbearably jeering and his mockery of his social-class inferiors goes too far. The lawyer exercises no self-restraint when dealing with the working and the lower-middle class similarly to his friend

Mortimer, who at the beginning of the novel defames John Harmon at one of the upper-class banquets. When Headstone becomes the target of his derision,

Eugene relishes the torture and recounts his revenge with leisure taking considerable pride in it; and because he is acquainted with Bradley Headstone’s mental instability, his actions might be seen as pure villainy. At his point, the lawyer defies his previous claims that he is indifferent towards Headstone, whom he mockingly names “schoolmaster” and thus reduces him to a mere

“social function” (Kennedy 172). Nevertheless, Eugene’s vengeance is just as obsessive as Headstone’s behavior with the exception that he is reluctant to resort to violence.

Like his friend Mortimer Lightwood, Wrayburn is a sardonic man who enjoys hurting others, since he is in possession of both the money and the time to do so. Hecimovich calls him simply “bored” and suggests that his pleasures merely consist of visiting Lizzie and causing great suffering to Headstone.

Therefore, his identity may be perceived as “incomplete” (Hecimovich 966) until he falls for Lizzie the same way Headstone did. Eventually, Eugene undergoes a change from a man who is too indifferent to pursue women and becomes what

42 nowadays could be called a stalker. Despite all that happens during the course of the novel, eventually, he does the right thing and marries the working-class girl. Paradoxically, it is insinuated by Dickens that Lizzie charms him long before he falls for her even though he first sees her in a doleful state of mind:

She sat on the ground, looking at the brazier, with her face

leaning on her hand. There was a kind of film or flicker on her

face, which at first he took to be the fitful firelight; but, on a

second look, he saw that she was weeping. A sad and solitary

spectacle, as shown him by the rising and the falling of the fire.

(Dickens 163)

Dickens’ extramarital relationship with Ellen Ternan who, as Ackroyd puts it, came from “a family of struggling actresses who have been caught in the brilliant light which has fallen around Charles Dickens” (Ackroyd 786) reflects in the relationship of Eugene and Lizzie. It was suggested by Ackroyd that

Dickens, having seen Ternan perform portions of The Frozen Deep, “was embroiled in a state of intense restlessness, dreariness [and] misery” (792).

Despite their age difference, Dickens followed Ternan everywhere he could

(793) and was not satisfied until she became his mistress. This resulted in

Dickens’ separation from his wife, because his passion for Ternan (like Eugene’s passion for Lizzie) was too strong to overcome.

In the early parts of the novel, Lizzie attracts Eugene to such a point that he decides to pursue her and reminds relentlessly himself by repeatedly offering tuition. Despite despising the “schoolmaster”, Eugene proceeds in exactly the same way. He remains so persistent and persuasive that Lizzie

43 eventually distantly accepts his offer and utters: “‘I will not hesitate any longer,

Mr. Wrayburn. I hope you will not think the worse of me for having hesitated at all. For myself and for Jenny—you let me answer for you, Jenny dear?’”

(Dickens 238). To reduce the lawyer’s enthusiasm, Lizzie consults with her friend Jenny Wren and adds: “For myself and for Jenny, I thankfully accept your kind offer” (238, emphasis added). When Lizzie leaves London to rid herself of the insane Headstone (and also Eugene), Eugene cannot help it but think about her all the time. However, due to his restrained nature, he is not as obsessive as his rival is.

When Jenny’s father, Mr. Dolls, attempts to sell him information about

Lizzie’s location and requires “Fifteen shilling—Threepenn’orths Rum”, Eugene does not mind his conditions and offers him four times as much and adds that

Mr. Dolls can drink himself to death for all he cares (539). When the departs, both Eugene and Mortimer sarcastically comment on Mr. Dolls appearance and immorality: “‘I’ll wash my hands of Mr.. Dolls—physically—’ said Eugene ‘and be with you again directly, Mortimer.’ After Mortimer suggests Eugene should also wash his hands “morally”, Eugene retorts. “‘So would I,’ . . . ‘but you see, dear boy, I can’t do without him’”(540).

When Eugene finally traces Lizzie, he promises to do for her “anything within the limits of possibility” (692) only to ascertain that Lizzie abandoned

Jenny just to get rid of him and Headstone. Nevertheless, at this point, Eugene is still not determined to marry Lizzie and is unable to find the courage to ask her to be his wife until he finds himself on the verge of death where the regulatory power of the ‘Voice of Society’ no longer matters.

44 After he finally decides to get married, Eugene’s moral transformation is complete and his identity changes from that of a ‘superfluous man’ to a caring husband when he praises Lizzie for being a “brave devoted girl” and a “heroine”

(753). Overall, Eugene belongs to the characters of Our Mutual Friend whose identity changes most abruptly and his life only starts making sense after he is nearly depraved of it. Even though the society starts looking down on him, the attorney knows that it were the working-class girls who nursed him back to life and showed him the way to joy and happiness.

45 Chapter Two: Capital, Commodification and Blackmail in

Our Mutual Friend

2.1. Introduction to Capital

As often mentioned in the previous chapter, the issue of capital significantly interferes in the plot of Our Mutual Friend. For some characters, capital defines their identity and others are characterized by their possession of property instead of their personality or appearance. The following chapter will present evidence that in the novel, capital dependence and materialism lead not only to intrigues and multiple deceptions but also to commodification and blackmail. It aims to prove that Our Mutual Friend is a criticism of some aspects of the superficial capitalism that was to be observed in the mid-nineteenth century England where the possibility of social ascension was limited by capital accumulation.

This chapter will provide examples of various ‘social maladies’ in order to show that an exaggeration of dependence on property and the code of conduct which accompanies it can be traced in the novel similarly to the exaggeration of personality traits mentioned in the previous chapter. The capitalist archetypes this chapter operates with include a fierce businessperson who makes money by means of pretense, a blunt usurer, an extortionist who exploits other people’s labor to enrich himself and two despicable opportunist newlyweds. It is important to stress that capital in in Our Mutual Friend is presented in the simplified form of money and moveable and immoveable property and the

46 novel does not feature a more sophisticated system that would consider the means of production.

In this chapter, this perception of capitalism will be compared with two

Marxist definitions of capital and several ideas of John Stuart Mill. Furthermore, the chapter will discuss commodification that will be split into the commodification of human relationships and the commodification of the body and its parts. Finally yet importantly, the chapter will focus on the exploitation of the power of capital through blackmail. Two cases of blackmail that are to be found in the novel will be elaborated in order to prove that the destitute blackmail the affluent in order to approximate them in terms of income.

It might be argued that capital in Our Mutual Friend is depicted as an asset that can both alleviate the burden of poverty and corrupt in equal measure. Therefore, the analyses of characters utilized in the first chapter will be continued with a focus on property instead of identity. Various ideas on economics and financial criminality will be compared with some of the events that take place in the novel. Apart from all the above mentioned, the chapter will also inquire into the issue of usury, which in Our Mutual Friend, as Lewis puts it, “exploits the stereotype of Jews and usury” (Lewis 267).

The term capital is hard to delineate and its definitions often somewhat intricate. Dickens’ contemporaries created several definitions of capital and capitalism. However, only selected passages of these definitions are applicable to Our Mutual Friend. Marx and Engels in Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations define “the formula “capital”, in which living labor stands in the relation of non- property to raw material, instrument and the means of subsistence required

47 during the period of production” (Marx and Engels “Pre-Capitalist Economic

Formations”, 115). Land as a part of capital assets is a crucial factor of the manufacturing process and “the ownership of land includes both property in raw materials, and in the original instrument of labor, the soil, as well as in its spontaneous fruits” (115).

Nonetheless, this definition was invented in order to criticize capitalism and the production process, but the novel is a not a direct critique of capitalism as such. Instead, it criticizes some implications of the capitalist system such as the overreliance on capital and social status and mocks the hierarchy in which capital decides nearly all aspects of human lives. This chapter will argue that a system of this kind leads to increasing animosity and instigates attempts to enrich oneself, not refraining from remorseless elimination of both material and living obstacles. After all, Scoggin argues that the novel is “a place in which those who aggressively seek to accumulate wealth vampirishly hover over the present and the living” (Scoggin 102).

Mr. Veneering, whose boundless greed effectively eliminates both of his associates, is one of the best examples of the aggressiveness mentioned by

Scoggin. Nevertheless, Mr. Fledgeby seconds him skillfully and on and top of that he derides most of the people he meets. Therefore, it might be argued that Dickens attributes the wealth of the noveaux riches to undesirable or illicit activities. It is briefly mentioned that Mr. Veneering operates a drug house and at this point, narrator already insinuates that his business undertaking will eventually violate the law. Mr. Fledgeby, on the other hand, operates within the law. However, his money-lending agency does not have the best of reputations.

48 In the novel, it is shown that the usurer enjoys bringing his clients to utter bankruptcy after feigning interest in their financial rehabilitation. Therefore, several paragraphs will be devoted to both Veneering and Fledgeby in order to explicate their stance towards society. These paragraphs will try to prove

Veneering’s acumen in matters of business, his miscomprehension of the old- money/noveaux-riche system and Fledgeby’s talent for making money by means deception.

Even though loan sharking may be perceived as a sort of extortion, it is still partially justifiable as a means of subsistence. However, some characters such as Roger Riderhood and Silas Wegg resort to fully-fledged blackmail in order to get their share of capital. Scoggin argues that Wegg “cherishes the notion of finding a stash of papers in the mounds and environs of the decaying house of the deceased” (Scoggin 109) in order to gain some leverage to be able to extort Mr. Boffin. In addition to what Scoggin claims, Shuman argues that Boffin perceives their acquaintance as a “conventional capitalist/worker relationship” (Shuman 155), not knowing that Wegg has ulterior motives.

Therefore, it might be argued that the novel depicts working-class people as those who often myopically perceive money as the only form of capital and do not recognize the importance of the traditional factors of production – land, labor, and (other forms of) capital.

It is important to note that manual labor in Our Mutual Friend is often typical of either villainous characters such as Roger Riderhood, or those who are uneducated or even illiterate - again Riderhood but also Gaffer Hexam, and

Mr. Boffin (before he inherits the Harmon property). When we consider Marx’s

49 and Engels’ perception of labor, we ascertain that living labor in Our Mutual

Friend does not merely stand “in the relation of non-property to raw material” but nearly all other forms of capital. The production process remains in the background and there are very few mentions or descriptions of manual labor with the exception of Jenny Wren’s doll dressmaking workshop. On the other hand, Shuman notes that intellectual work in Our Mutual Friend is depicted as a

“Part of a realm of luxury and leisure” that “may not be labor at all” (155).

However, this statement can only be applied to the upper-class intellectual workers such as Eugene Wrayburn or Mortimer Lightwood. Lower-middle class/upper-working class secretaries such as John Rokesmith or Rumpty Wilfer work intellectually, but there is no hallmark of “luxury and leisure” to their work and they are often scorned by the upper classes.

In Capital: Volume One, Marx presents the public with a definition of capital that focuses on the role of money. There, the philosopher argues that

“The circulation of commodities is the starting-point of capital” and that “If we abstract from the material substance of the circulation of commodities, that is, from the exchange of the various use-values . . . we find its final result to be money: this final product of the circulation of commodities . . .” (Marx, “Capital

Volume One”, 163). Apparently, Our Mutual Friend is all about this “final product”. Throughout the novel, the word ‘money’ appears two hundred and forty-four times, the broader term ‘property’ ranks second with seventy-five entries, whereas the word ‘capital’ in the sense of property can only be found in four instances. It may be observed that in Our Mutual Friend, Dickens largely abstracts from the circulation of goods, but services such as accommodation in

50 the house of Rumpty Wilfer or Wegg’s literary ‘service’ are discussed throughout the novel on a regular basis.

In “The Importance of Class in the Political Theory of John Stuart Mill”, J.

E. Broadbent suggests that most fundamental theories of Mill are in favor of free-market capitalism and that they often contradict Marx’s ideas on the issue of possession of property. In the Principles of Political Economy, Mill argued that “the institution of private property rested essentially on the individual’s right to exclusive control over what he has produced or what has been produced by another but given to him either by gift or fair agreement” (qtd. in

Broadbent 271) (Robson 215). Broadbent rephrases four basic points Mill made about labor and property. These principles go as follows: “(1) labor justifies property; (2) short of doing violence to another, a man may dispose of his property as he desires; (3) reward for labor should be proportionate to productivity; (4) a man may sell his labor power to another (Broadbent 272).

In Our Mutual Friend, the property of characters such as the Veneerings,

Mr. Podsnap, Mr. Fledgeby or Eugene Wrayburn is never justified by manual labor. The Veneerings and Fledgeby are in business, but their work can be seen as immoral. Veneering “is the head of a drug-house in Mincing Lane” (David

108) and Fledgeby runs an undercover money-lending service while hiding behind Mr. Riah - his Jewish employee. Moreover, the origin of their assets is often unknown, leading the reader to believe that they either inherited or misappropriated much of the property they possess.

The inheritance that comes to the Boffins relates to Mill’s point number two – the old Harmon disposes of his property the way he sees fit and

51 establishes a second inheritor in the event of death of his kin. Consequently,

John Harmon sells his labor to the Boffins, but he chooses to demand no reward. In relation to this, Palmer argues that Harmon “defeats the corruptive power of money in [the] darkened and decayed world” of Our Mutual Friend

(Palmer 492). Nonetheless, those who do seek reward for their labor are usually of working-class or lower-middle class origin. This group includes

Bradley Headstone, Mr. Venus and Mr. Riah – the alleged owner of Fledgeby’s firm.

As mentioned earlier, the production process as such is not crucial to the plot. Ownership of land is replaced by ownership of pieces of real estate or moveable property and exploitation of the lower classes changes into indifference and animosity. This focus on property leads to the disappearance of boundaries between the business and the personal lives of the characters.

Barbara Harriss-White in “Poverty and Capitalism” argues that during the process of “commodification”, “capital invades domestic work carried on outside the money economy – uncommercialized services, the physical and emotional needs of the body (whether laboring or not), the non-market activity of the public sphere, and the non-market disposal of waste – and turns it into commodities” (Harris-White 1243).

Even though her article was published in 2006, this delineation can still be applied to Our Mutual Friend. As described in the first chapter, Bella’s physical and emotional needs are initially suppressed by the choice of husband

Old Harmon makes for her and consequently she subordinates nearly all her non-market activities to her vision of wealth only to find that such conclusions

52 about society are erroneous. Waste is also crucial to the plot of Our Mutual

Friend. It might be argued that Old Harmon makes his fortune, because he sees value in the waste that has already been disposed of and ‘harvests’ remainders of valuables that are to be found in it. Eventually, the reader ascertains that the dust mounds are the place where he had hidden various updated versions of his will before he produced the only version known at the outset of the novel. Therefore, waste in Our Mutual Friend might be understood as not only a commodity but also a place where documents that decide the future are hidden.

Grahame Smith in Dickens, Money and Society argues that for Dickens

“money was a factor of crucial significance in the texture of nineteenth-century civilization” (Grahame Smith 87). Nevertheless, he also expresses the opinion that “when money [in literature of that period] does have an effect on the personal lives of men and women, it . . . often works in ways other than a simple-minded greed” (87). It is important to stress the word “often”, for some of the characters of Our Mutual Friend such as the Lammles are representatives of pure and genuine greed and do not hesitate to lie about their social status, thus deceiving not only their peers but also one another. In accordance with

Smith’s suggestion, others such as Bella are merely enchanted by capital wealth and later they understand that there is much more to life than just property.

This, however, does not apply to the noveaux-riche characters and thus the significance of money cannot be underestimated.

Andrew Smith argues in “Literature and Money” suggests that in the mid- nineteenth century England, tempers got frayed when various kinds of

53 embezzlement and financial criminality started to be discovered including

“financial scandals, such as the setting up of bogus companies by unscrupulous

‘entrepreneurs’ who raised money by public subscription to help support projects which were never developed’’ (Andrew Smith 5). Many of these projects cost the investors their whole life’s savings and resulted in increasing wariness. This sort of financial criminality reached its peak in 1860 when

George Pullinger, the Chief Cashier of the Union Bank of London, was arrested.

Because of these frauds and other issues such as the rise of poverty and criminality, teaching of radical commentators such as Marx and Engels spread

“highlighting the economic and ideological inconsistencies engendered by the capitalist system” (5). Even though Dickens’ last finished novel can be read as a social critique that pillories the superficiality of the upper classes, it may also be claimed that it does not attempt to communicate sophisticated philosophical ideas about capital redistribution and society of that time. It merely points out various issues such as the immorality of high-interest money lending or its non- corporate version – usury and apart from this; it marginally criticizes politics and corruption.

Despite this critique, in other respects, Dickens may be understood as restrained capitalist, for whom the money he earned primarily indicated his literary success. Even though the sales of his novels declined in the latter part of his career, “Part I of Our Mutual Friend sold 30,000 copies in three days”

(David 28). This suggests that his books were (and still are) ‘commercially successful goods’ which allowed him to rise to fame and provided the degree of stability he was unable to attain as a child due to the, as Ackroyd puts it,

54 “somewhat insecure ability of John Dickens’ finances to support [his family]”

(Ackroyd 31).

Ackroyd further argues that Dickens’ father had a propensity to spend more than he earned and thus eventually decided to borrow “the large sum of two hundred pounds . . . at an annual repayment of twenty-six pounds for life”

(31). Having countersigned the contract, his brother-in-law, Thomas Barrow,

“was forced to repay it for him” (31). This event resulted in “the later coolness of Elizabeth’s family towards her husband and the document itself, known as

“the Deed”, was later to figure largely in Dickens’ childhood” (31).

Grass and John in Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend: A Publishing

History contend that Dickens’ “financial success came largely because he forced himself to become not only an extraordinary novelist but also an exceptionally shrewd man of literary business”. Nevertheless, when his literary career was coming to a close, Dickens closed deals with several publishing house including

Macrone, Bentley and Chapman and Hall “typically for far less than his work turned out to be worth by the time he finished writing” (Grass and John 73).

Despite all that, he was able to make more money from Our Mutual Friend than he had ever made from a novel in his life” (84).

Thus, it might be argued that capital was always crucial to Dickens’ work and that his approach was that of expenditure in moderation. In David

Copperfield, fifteen years before Our Mutual Friend was published, one learns the “Micawber Principle” that goes as follows: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual

55 income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result, misery” (qtd. in Trentmann 350).

Such principle appears to be ingenious and almost universally applicable.

Frank Trentmann in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Consumption argues that it signifies “the search for a proper balance between saving and spending” (350). In David Copperfield, Dickens already outlines what could be likened to the concept of “intertemporary choice” proposed and elaborated by

Irving Fisher in his 1930 book The Theory of Interest. The difference lies in the fact that Fisher’s model, as Nicholas Barr puts it in Economics of the Welfare

State, “shows how a rational individual optimizing over lifetime may borrow when young and save during productive middle years to finance consumption in retirement” (Barr 55) and Dickens in both David Copperfield and Our Mutual

Friend presents capital in a sense of here and now as opposed to savings.

Therefore, the fact the Lammles borrow excessively comes as a surprise to other members of the noveaux-riche community that presupposes a certain degree of liquidity.

In Dickens, Ackroyd argues that Dickens’ childhood experience left a lasting mark on him and the “time in the blacking factory immeasurably deepened and hardened him” (Ackroyd 98). Ever since then, he had dreamt of climbing the social ladder and felt “the need to remove the taint of poverty and social disgrace” (98). However, unlike his father, Dickens never borrowed money and a sort of “latent fear led him to overwork” (98). That might be the reason why he created many characters who crave both money and admiration,

56 which in Our Mutual Friend are closely interconnected but not tantamount to each other.

2.2. The Veneerings and the Lammles – The New Capitalists

and the Bankrupts

In Book the First, Chapter II, the narrator informs us that: “Mr. and Mrs.

Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of

London.” Later he adds that “All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new . . .” (Dickens 6). The description continues in the following paragraph: “For, in the Veneering establishment, from hall-chairs with the new coat of arms, to the grand pianoforte with the new action, and upstairs again to the new fire-escape, all things were in a state of high varnish and polish” (6).

It might be suggested that this ‘novelty’ adverts to the fact that the

Veenerings belong to the noveaux-riche group. Dickens mocks their social status by ceaseless repetition and the reader might sense that the owners themselves are less important than their property. Leaving aside the fact that everything about them is “bran-new”, the significance of capital in their lives can be recognized immediately, for instead of introducing the characters by their given names and describing their appearance and conduct, Dickens merely lists what they own. Garrett Stewart in “Dickens and Language” argues that

“the Veneerings, whose polish is only a thin layer of applied substance, not

57 even skin deep . . . deserve no company but superficial reflections” (Jordan

140). Although the Veneering residence is called an “establishment” and all the property is listen and praised, eventually, the reader is acquainted with the fact that “what was observable in the furniture, was observable in the Veneerings— the surface smelt a little too much of the workshop and was a trifle sticky”

(Dickens 6). Right at the beginning of the novel, Dickens insinuates that the

Veneerings cannot be ignored owing to all the capital they accumulated, but their origin causes them to miscomprehend the system, for they do not understand that their social status cannot be redeemed by money alone.

Therefore, their naïveté merely generates superficial reflections instead of the respect they covet and instigates their ‘hunger’ for money all over again.

Scoggin suggests that Dickens “presents his speculator [Mr. Veneering] as a pretender capable of infiltrating the highest levels of society through a plan of conspicuous consumption” (Scoggin 104). Soon after the Veneering establishment is ‘praised’, the narrator explains that Mr. Veneering made most of his money by overtaking a drug house of Chicksey, Veneering and Stobbles.

In the following description, Veneering is depicted as a shrewd businessman with pronounced leadership skills:

Chicksey and Stobbles, his former masters, had both become

absorbed in Veneering, once their traveler or commission agent:

who had signalized his ascension to supreme power by bringing

into the business a quantity of plate-window and French-polished

mahogany partition, and a gleaming and enormous doorplate.

(Dickens 33)

58 Eventually, the successful entrepreneur becomes a member of parliament and his wife is mockingly titled “Mrs. Veneering, W.M.P.” – Wife of a member of parliament (411). It is not until the very last chapter that the reader is acquainted with the fact that: “the Veneerings will retire to Calais, there to live on Mrs. Veneering’s diamonds (in which Mr. Veneering, as a good husband, has from time to time invested considerable sums)” (Dickens 815). After insinuating that Veneering, like Lammle, is a racketeer, Dickens adds that

“before Veneering retired from Parliament, the House of Commons was composed of himself and the six hundred and fifty-seven dearest and oldest friends he had in the world” (815), thus suggesting what his attitude towards contemporary politics might be.

In Book the First, Chapter X, which is aptly titled “A Marriage Contract”, preparations for the marriage of Sophronia and Alfred Lammle are described accordingly: “The mature young lady is a lady of property. The mature young gentleman is a gentleman of property. He invests his money” (Dickens 114).

The narrator adds that Alfred Lammle has “Shares enough to be on Board of

Direction in capital letters and oscillate on mysterious business between London and Paris, and be great” (114). The expression “shares” is then used as a universal answer to all the various questions one might ask about Mr. Lammle

(114).

Scoggin argues that “the recently wed Lammles hope to oversee a swindle on the marriage market just as they have swindled the best years of life out of each other” (Scoggin 108). After they realize that both of them married each other on false pretenses or, as Rosemary Mundhenk puts it,

59 “mist[ook] the appearance of wealth for wealth” (Mundhenk 51), the Lammles decide to manipulate Georgiana Podsnap into marrying Fledgeby, hoping for a partial redemption of their accruing debt. In Book the Second, Chapter V, which is called “Mercury Prompting”, Mr. Lammle markets Georgiana as if she were a good stating that: “She has the gentleness of the dove” (Dickens 273). The business language continues and we ascertain that “Incessant machinations were to be kept at work by Mr. and Mrs. Lammle; love was to be made for

Fledgeby, and conquest was to be insured to him” (274). Eventually the narrator explains that Mr. Veneering is of the opinion that Georgiana should remain “safe within the Temple of Podsnappery, hiding the fullness of time when she . . . should take him, Fitz-Podsnap, who with all his worldly goods should her endow” (274-275).

Michael Cotsell inThe Companion to Our Mutual Friend explains that Fitz is an Anglo-French word that stands for “son” and was used “to create surnames for the illegitimate children of royal princes” (Cotsell 154-155). There,

Dickens suggests that Fledgeby, to whom he refers as “Fitz-Podsnap”, shares some traits with Mr. Podsnap. At this point, it appears that Fledgeby is considered a worthy suitor for Georgiana and that he will be able to “endow” her with “all his worldly goods” instead of passionate love, affection and understanding, having ‘purchased’ her through an intermediary. From the point of view of the twenty-first century reader this matchmaking, even though unsuccessful in the end, might be perceived as a commodification of Georgiana, who is offered to Fledgeby as a recompense for the unpaid instalments.

60 As already mentioned in the previous chapter, greed in Our Mutual

Friend is represented in two distinct ways. Some characters are genuine misers and opportunists and others such as Mr. Boffin merely pretend avarice.

However, unlike that of Boffin, the motivation of the Veneerings stems from their conviction that money alone will help them become genuinely upper class.

They do not understand that “a house of the The Tales of the Genii” and dinners “out of the Arabian Nights” (Dickens 249) will not enable them to attain upper-class status. As Joseph Hillis Miller notes in Charles Dickens: The World of his Novels, the narrator explains that the Veneerings “have no antecedents, no established character, no cultivation [and] no manners” (qtd. in Joseph Hillis

Miller 280) (Dickens 114). This results is their inability to comprehend the system that only fully accepts people whose families had money for centuries and the fact that a system of this kind cannot be restructured by a mere redistribution of wealth.

2.3. The Undesirable Effects of Capitalism – Usury

and Commodification

Unlike the affluent Veneerings, the destitute Lammles fall into the clutches of Mr. Fledgeby, whom Andrew H. Miller in “The Specters of Dickens’s

Study” calls the “the meanest, most selfish, narrow and blind of all the society people” (Andrew H. Miller 315). In Book the Second, Chapter V, Fledgeby comes in for Alfred Lammle’s criticism and the debtor calls him “the meanest cur existing, with a single pair of legs” (Dickens 268). Mr. Fledgeby is a young opportunist and an owner of Pubsey and Co. - a local money-lending agency.

61 He hides his true self from the public and pretends to be a mere employee.

Monika Rydygier Smith in “The Whole Remains – Consumerist Politics in Bleak

House, Great Expectations, and Our Mutual Friend” argues that Fledgeby represents “economic opportunism” and that he initially appears to be “a rather unpleasant but harmless young man” (Monika Rydygier Smith 8). Nevertheless, as this chapter will show later, the usurer scorns his clients as well as his colleague Mr. Riah, whom he commands around and even humiliates on a regular basis. During the course of the novel, the reader ascertains that

Fledgeby’s conduct only changes for a while when his clients are supposed to sign a promissory note and shortly afterwards, his greed re-emerges.

A Jewish gentleman, Mr. Riah, is hired by Fledgeby to impersonate the owner of Pubsey and Co. so that Fledgeby can avoid being blamed when somebody’s property is to be confiscated. Even though Fledgeby is blunt with literally everyone he meets, the business ‘partnership’ of Riah and Fledgeby can still be perceived as a critique of the relationships between the Jews and the gentiles. However, in Our Mutual Friend, Dickens inverts the role of the Jew and the gentile, thus mocking both usury and racial hatred at the same time. When speaking to Mr. Riah, Fledgeby overtly expresses his distaste for Jews and utters: “‘Jews and generosity!’ . . . “That’s a good connexion! Bring out your vouchers, and don’t talk Jerusalem palaver’” (Dickens 423). Following a brief visit from Fledgeby’s regular customer Mr. Lammle, the relationship of Fledgeby and Riah is further explored. The narrator explains that Mr. Riah does not much mind the injustice done to him as Fledgeby offers him a chance to earn his living even though he treats him despicably and so Mr. Riah obeys Fledgeby’s

62 commands, for the money he earns is more important to him than the way he is treated:

Brightened by this unexpected commendation, Riah asked were

there more instructions for him?

‘No,’ said Fledgeby, ‘you may toddle now, Judah, and grope about

on the orders you have got.’ Dismissed with those pleasing words,

the old man took his broad hat and staff, and left the great

presence: more as if he were some superior creature benignantly

blessing Mr. Fledgeby, than the poor dependent on whom he set

his foot. (Dickens 431)

Soon afterwards, when the whole Lammle property is to be confiscated to amortize their debt, Fledgeby reproves Riah as if it were he who gave the incentive to act upon the bill of sale. It appears that for a while, Fledgeby himself believes that Riah is the usurer and the young capitalist rebukes the

Jew for his insensibility: “‘Oh, you sinner! Oh, you dodger!’” and continues:

“Nothing will turn you, won’t it? You won’t be put off for another single minute, won’t you?’” (563).

Rothenberg in “Articulating Social Agency in Our Mutual Friend:

Problems with Performances, Practices, and Political Efficacy” argues that Riah

“is forced to act as Fledgeby’s front man against his own moral code”

(Rothenberg 745). The immoral and corrupt Fledgeby puts words into Riah’s mouth, suggesting what to do. At the same time, he insults Riah to remind him that he will be the one to blame after the information about the insolvency of their clients spreads. Cotsell contends that “The presence of Riah in Our Mutual

63 Friend is in part of a consequence of Dickens’ growing awareness that he had not hitherto fairly represented the Jews in his writings” (Cotsell 155). In addition, Rainsford argues that Riah is a “figure of complete integrity designed to erase any slight that real Jews might have thought that Dickens had previously committed” (Rainsford 290). As the novel draws to a close, despite his ‘troublesome occupation’, Riah becomes more likeable and morally commendable than ever before, because he is captured as a usurer who attempts to make not only enemies but also friends. In Book the Fourth,

Chapter IX, where Riah visits Jenny Wren, we ascertain that “the old man, Riah sat by, helping her in such small ways he could” (Dickens 732). It appears that in this passage, Dickens insinuates that he had never been prejudiced against

Jews but merely utilized the stereotype to reprimand the English society as a whole.

Another issue to be dealt with in this chapter is commodification and its relation to capital in Our Mutual Friend. In the very first chapter, Gaffer Hexam asks several though-provoking questions about money while he is sailing on the river with his daughter Lizzie:

Has a dead man any use for money? Is it possible for a dead man

to have money? What world does a dead man belong to? ‘Tother

world. What world does money belong to? This world. How can

money be a corpse’s. Can a corpse own it, want it, spend it, claim

it, miss it? (Dickens 4)

In this passage, Hexam advocates the rightness of robbing a corpse, thus justifying what he has likely been doing for years. The waterman has no

64 scruples about taking the dead man’s money, simply because he believes the corpse has no more use for it. As the story of Our Mutual Friend progresses, money is often referred to in relation to death. Old Hexam’s first appearance introduces the reader to what Scoggin calls “the most nauseous of economies” where “body parts, paper, waste, and dust – are never safe from being recycled and made to turn a profit” (Scoggin 99). Therefore, it might be argued that some characters of Our Mutual Friend objectify and consequently commodify the human body as a source that he can be ‘harvested’. In “The

Commodification of the Body and Its Parts”, Lesley A. Sharp argues that according to the Cartesian mind-body dualism “the body, self and personhood emerge as inextricably linked” (Sharp 289). However, when commodified, the spiritual aspect of the body disappears and it becomes a mere commodity of quantifiable value.

Gaffer Hexam, Roger Riderhood and their accomplice Radfoot, all of whom ‘fish’ bodies out of the river, only yearn for money and the objects the bodies have on them – that is clothes, money or any other valuables. Yet for

Mr. Venus, a local taxidermist, the body or more specifically its parts are the means of his subsistence. In “A Dismal Swamp: Darwin, Design, and Evolution in Our Mutual Friend”, Howard Fulweiler argues that Mr. Venus is a “bone articulator, conducting his bizarre trade in body parts and pickled babies”

(Fulweiler 62). Not only does he see capital value in a human body, but he also considers his creations, which consist of various bones and organs, an art. He delves into the origins of those ‘goods’ and presents them to other people in a similar way an art dealer would present his paintings and sculptures. It is

65 shown that when Venus makes friends with Silas Wegg, he immediately starts extolling his creations composed of parts of skeletons of miscellaneous

‘nationalities’:

‘With ribs (I grant you) always. But not else. When I prepare a

miscellaneous one, I know beforehand that I can’t keep to nature,

and be miscellaneous with, because every man has his own ribs,

and no other man’s will go with; but elseways I can be

miscellaneous. I have just sent home a Beauty—a perfect Beauty-

—to school of art. One leg Belgian, one leg English, and the

pickings of eight other people in it. Talk of not being qualified to

be miscellaneous. By rights you ought to be, Mr. Wegg.’ (Dickens

79-80)

Sharp asks the question what “do . . . (de)constructions say about body boundaries, the integrity of the self and the shifting social worth of human beings” (Sharp 289)? In his article, a direct answer is never given, but one might ask the same question when considering Mr. Venus of Our Mutual Friend.

Indeed, the taxidermist does not mind the personal histories of his skeletons, the positions they held or their social status and he is fully content with merely stating their origin. His ‘workshop’ is a place where remains of sundry folk are decomposed in order to form a new entity which no longer maintains any part of the original self and thus it becomes apparent that the taxidermist attaches no social worth to what might be called his ‘goods’. Later in the article, Sharp suggests that “commodification . . . inevitably brings to the foreground the objectification of the body over subjective experience” (Sharp 289-290). In Our

66 Mutual Friend, both Hexam and Venus commodify the human body, yet each of them sees its value differently – Hexam likes to appropriate its belongings and

Venus commodifies the body as such. Even though Mr. Venus is rejected by

Pleasant Riderhood, who does not wish “to be regarded . . . in that boney light”

(Dickens 84), he never thinks about changing his occupation, for it provides him with steady income.

In Book the First, Chapter IV, the manner in which Rumpty Wilfer deals with John Rokesmith might be indicative of his inclination to commodify his guests, whose trustworthiness he bases solely on their social status. After

Harmon suggests that he is going to “trust [his] furniture” into the hands of

Rumpty Wilfer, in whose house he intends to lodge, the owner is described by the narrator as a man for whom capital is the most important reference:

“‘Well!, observed Rumpty Wilfer, cheerfully, ‘money and goods are certainly the best of references’” (Dickens 39). The daughter retorts: “‘Do you think they are the best, pa?’” (39) and Wilfer, in order not to offense anyone, moderates his previous utterance: “‘Among the best, my dear’” (39). Therefore, it might be argued that lodgers in Our Mutual Friend are perceived as a mere source of income, thus confirming that criticism of commodification is an inseparable part of the story of the novel as well as criticism of the capitalist code of conduct, which is to be dealt with in the ensuing subchapter.

67 2.4. Capitalist Code of Conduct, Contempt of the Working Class

and Extortion

It might be suggested that behavior in Our Mutual Friend is often contingent on possession of property. In Book the First, Chapter XI, the narrator describes the daily routines of Mr. Podsnap - a man of considerable wealth - accordingly: “1, Getting up at eight and shaving close at a quarter past

- 2, Breakfasting at nine - 3, Going to the City at ten - 4, Coming home at half- past five - 5, Dining at seven, and the grand chain” (Dickens 137-138).

Monika Rydigier Smith expresses the opinion that in Our Mutual Friend, those who do not comply with these rules are “excommunicated from the public domain” (Monika Rydygier Smith 3). By inventing the rules and dismissing anyone who declines to obey, Mr. Podsnap, as Smith puts it, “aims to suppress or deny . . . that privilege and power are not morally innocent commodities”

(Monika Rydygier Smith 8). Therefore, power in Our Mutual Friend may refer to a combination of money and the assets money can buy. It is suggested that to maintain power, one has to comply with the code of conduct Mr. Podsnap describes in his ‘guide’ on how to be upper-class/upper-middle class.

Nevertheless, even the lower-middle class and the upper-working class characters abide by a code of conduct that, however, is based on work ethic.

It is primarily Bradley Headstone who lays emphasis on work ethic, thus creating his own regulations, many of which might be seen as even stricter than those formed by Mr. Podsnap and because of this stiffness, the

“schoolmaster” becomes an object of Eugene Wrayburn’s ridicule. Juliet John in

Dickens’ Villains: Melodrama, Character, Popular Culture argues that “the

68 competitiveness between Wrayburn and Headstone is, to an extent, the dramatic expression of the logic of capitalism” (John 193). It is apparent that the young lawyer is fully aware of the advantage he has over the teacher and the fact that it gives him an opportunity to prove his superiority. Although

Bradley Headstone is referred to as “highly certified stipendiary schoolmaster”

(Dickens 216), Eugene despises him and deems him an obstacle in his life, all of which may be perceived as an example of commodification or at the very least class hatred.

The first encounter of Wrayburn and Headstone results in Eugene pontificating the “schoolmaster” about the education of his class. When

Headstone introduces himself as “Charles Hexam’s friend”, Eugene, who at this point is still in relative control of his sardonicism, interjects: “My good sir, you should teach your pupils better manners” (Dickens 288), producing no grounds for his accusation of negligence. Paradoxically, the lawyer gives Headstone unsolicited advice on how to do his work while he himself remains idle or, as

Dickens puts it, “indolent” (14). However, unlike Wrayburn, Headstone has to make ends meet and his work ethic is depicted as the exact opposite of the work ethic of the attorney. In Book the Second, Chapter I, Dickens writes:

He was never seen in any other dress [than his formal clothes],

and yet there was a certain stiffness in his manner of wearing

this, as if there were a want of adaptation between him and it,

recalling some mechanics in their holiday clothes. (217)

Even though Headstone is able to maintain this ‘stiffness’ for a considerable period, he eventually blots his copybook like many other

69 characters presented in the novel. However, unlike that of Wrayburn, his original moral failure is induced by external factors or, more specifically, Lizzie

Hexam. In Book the Third, Chapter XI, Bradley Heastone attempts to form an alliance with Roger Riderhood, pressing two coins into his hands. However,

Riderhood is not satisfied with such incentive and suggests that they confirm their ‘friendship’ by consumption of alcoholic beverages. He suggests to the

“T’otherest Governor” (the name he gives to Headstone) that “no luck never come yet of a dry acquaintance” and continues accordingly: “Let’s wet it, in a mouth-fill of rum and milk” (Dickens 554). Eventually, the reader discovers that in Our Mutual Friend, both money and commodities are crucial to the formation of what might be called ‘alliances’. However, these alliances are purely materialistic and when the impetus to achieve the set goal no longer exists, the

‘friendship’ turns into indifference or hatred.

After a few foul tricks, the relationship of Riderhood and Headstone develops into blackmail. When Riderhood discovers Headstone’s elaborate plan to impersonate him and assault Eugene Wrayburn, he visits him at school and informs him that he demands to be recompensed: “‘And as you laid your plots agin me and was a sly devil agin, I’ll be paid for it—I’ll be paid for it—I’ll be paid for it—till I’ve drained you dry!’” Having recovered from the shock, Eugene retorts: “‘You can’t get blood out of a stone, Riderhood.’” and Riderhood interposes: “‘I can get money out of a schoolmaster though’” (798). Indeed, for

Riderhood, blackmail is just as natural as stealing money from a dead body is for his former colleague Gaffer Hexam. Therefore, at this point, he is perfectly contented with his criminal activity and the income it promises to generate.

70 However, he does not know that his life is soon to end and that his ‘victim’ is going to die fighting him, all of which will be described in the ensuing chapter.

The Riderhood blackmail plot is not the only one that occurs in the novel.

The second plot is even more pertinent to the topic of capital, because a will that bequeaths capital is used as the instrument of extortion. The motivation of

Silas Wegg, who decides to blackmail Mr. Boffin, stems from his need to compensate himself for the loss of his leg that was sold to Mr. Venus a long ago. Jon Mee in The Cambridge Introduction to Charles Dickens argues that

“perhaps no character in the entire history of the novel is quite as dispersed as

Silas Weg, who has to live with the fact of his own leg being for sale” (Mee 16).

According to Mee, he “feels the need to reconstitute himself” (Mee 16).

In Book the First, Chapter VII, Wegg claims that he has “a prospect of getting on in life and elevating [him]self” (Dickens 82). However, this ‘elevation’ does not merely refer to his plan to reconstitute his body. As mentioned earlier,

Mr. Boffin credulously informs Wegg about his inheritance and then, even more gullibly, lets him manage the Golden Bower, all of which results in Wegg finding another version of Old Harmon’s will and blackmailing him. Dickens describes the whole situation accordingly:

'Now, mark, Boffin,' returned Silas: 'Mark 'em well, because

they're the lowest terms and the only terms. You'll throw your

Mound (the little Mound as comes to you any way) into the

general estate, and then you'll divide the whole property into

three parts, and you'll keep one and hand over the others.'

(Dickens 655)

71 In this part of the novel, Silas Wegg becomes a fully-fledged criminal who, like Riderhood, does not refrain from blackmail. His plot, however, is even more despicable than that of Riderhood, who grounds his extortion upon the fact that he was trespassed against. Overall, blackmail in Our Mutual Friend may be read as purely capitalist, for the primary objective of both the villains is not to inflict punishment on others but to enrich themselves. It is important to note that both Wegg and Riderhood are eventually punished for their sins, but the punishment of Wegg is mostly symbolic, whereas that of Riderhood terminal. However, punishment of villains along with suffering and redemption is the subject matter of the following chapter.

72 Chapter Three:

Suffering, Punishment and Redemption in Our Mutual

Friend

This chapter will be devoted to suffering, punishment and redemption in

Our Mutual Friend and its distribution between the characters that significantly differs from the ‘standards’ established by David Copperfield and Great

Expectations. Florian Schweizer in his article called “The Bildungsroman”, which is a part of Charles Dickens in Context, argues that “David Copperfield and

Great Expectations are widely regarded as two of the earliest examples of the

Bildungsroman (formation novel) in the English language” Ledger and Furneaux

140). He adds that the “stories of David and Pip [are captured] from their childhood to a point in their fictional lives at which the process of their formation is completed” (140).

The ensuing chapter will argue that in Our Mutual Friend, Dickens does not work in accordance with his traditional bildungsroman template that often deals with the ascension of the poor and the oppressed. Indeed, Our Mutual

Friend is not the first Dickens’ novel to deal with the phenomenon of redemption, but in his last completed novel, Dickens attempts to show that people of all classes and ages share similar sorrows and afflictions. Apart from the able-bodied, this also applies to the disabled characters who take various approaches to overcoming their impairments. Interestingly, all the three disabled characters of Our Mutual Friend are presented as members of the working class. Thus, it appears that in the novel, Dickens deliberately associates disability and poverty, which - when combined - often result into

73 suffering. Nevertheless, those who are financially secure still suffer emotionally despite their possession of property and satisfactory state of health. Like the poor and the middle class, the affluent characters can also be redeemed from their sorrows. During the course of the novel, it is suggested that the problems of the rich often stem from lack of love and/or admiration. Therefore, it might be argued that all the various depictions of suffering in the novel include physical and mental disability, penury and loneliness and that there are several types of redemption that can mend their situation.

What is more, redemption in Our Mutual Friend can be read as non- religious. Instead of a higher power, the characters are redeemed by either love or capital. However, redemption in the novel is not presented as universal and characters such as Roger Riderhood or Gaffer Hexam die during the pursuit of their happiness (which for them equals ready money). Others, such as Mr.

Dolls, Jenny Wren’s father, prefer constant consumption of alcoholic beverages.

Dolls drinks to an such an excess that it appears that he wishes to inflict punishment on himself until he, as Claire Wood stresses in Dickens and the

Business of Death, “dies in a doctor’s shop” (Wood 131) - a place where sorrows of the ill and the diseased should be cured, thus redeeming them from their suffering. Nevertheless, his death partially redeems his daughter, because she no longer needs to take care of him, sparing both her time and her money.

Once more, money and social status are crucial in deciding who suffers and who is redeemed even though these two factors are of a slightly lesser importance than in the case of formation of characters’ identity. In relation to this, Scoggin argues that among other things, Our Mutual Friend features “a

74 plot about the redemption of money and personal fortune” (Scoggin 107). He suggests that in the novel, “capital can be redeemed” (119) as well as people, adverting to the ambiguity of the word redemption and stressing that the relationship works both ways, because the characters seek to redeem their property and the property in turn has the ability to redeem them. Although

Scoggin’s definition is very apt, it is incomplete as well, for apart from

“redemption of money and personal fortune”, Our Mutual Friend also employs moral redemption, redemption from suffering and redemption through romantic relationships.

Patrick Sherry in Images of Redemption argues that Our Mutual Friend belongs to the novels “which revolve around the ideas of moral redemption, redemption through love, or the recovery of one’s honor” (Sherry 118), thus completing what has been suggested in the previous paragraph. In Our Mutual

Friend, honor is closely intertwined with capital and it is an inextricable part of one’s identity. Moral redemption, which is presented in the form of a changing identity, facilitates the process of recovery of honor of both the redeemed characters and their milieu. Due to the fact that the novel is a critique of

English society of the mid-nineteenth century, the moral redemption of some characters including Eugene Wrayburn is disparaged by the ‘Society’ or more precisely one of its representatives – Lady Tippins when she asks: “‘How was the bride dressed? In rowing costume?’” and when Eugene’s friend Mortimer, who attends the party, “declines to answer”, Tippins continues mocking Lizzie and Eugene’s decision to marry her: “‘I hope she steered herself, skiffed

75 herself, paddled herself, larboarded and starboarded herself, or whatever the technical term may be, to the ceremony?’” (Dickens 816).

Robert Sawyer in “He Do Redemption in Different Voices: Dickens and the Failure of Atonement” argues that several of Dickens’ novels have

“redemptive qualities”, but he adds that “even as Dickens was constructing his various narratives of redemption, these discourses were being simultaneously undermined.” He also contends that Dickens often focused on “the atonement of the many characters who populate his cityscapes” (Sawyer 47-48).

Yet, as suggested by the title of the article, some of the characters fail to atone, undermining the process of redemption. In Our Mutual Friend, this failure is almost universally applicable to the villains. The degree of their villainy decides their fates and eligibility for redemption or inevitability of punishment.

The various sorts of punishment Dickens chooses for them include an unnatural death, an expulsion or a mere necessity to flee their creditors.

In Our Mutual Friend, a majority of the characters who undergo a moral transformation (whether it is ameliorative or deteriorative) are either redeemed or punished and there are only two characters who violate this rule. Eugene

Wrayburn needs to be punished in order to attain a sense of living and to become eligible for redemption from what Palmer calls “the monotony and aimlessness of his life” (Palmer 490) and Bradley Headstone is redeemed by

Eugene’s generous forgiveness only to be punished by Riderhood after denying to accept his ‘payment terms’.

Sawyer stresses “Dickens’ need . . . for “redeeming” others in his work and his society”. This urge to help also manifested itself outside of his novels

76 and Dickens, as Ackroyd states, “gave grants to thirteen separate hospitals and made forty-three donations to benevolent funds” (Ackroyd 533). However, charity as such did not give Dickens enough satisfaction and “he would give away his money to those whose lives made him weep” (534). Allegedly, he was known for being concerned with the welfare of disabled people. When staying in London, Dickens met a crippled boy, “found him employment at his publisher’s” and provided temporary relief in the form of a “half-a-crown” (534).

Even though one may admire his charity, Dickens’ intention in this particular case was likely twofold. He not only wished to help but also “to know everything; to see, to hear, to understand” (534) in order to fully grasp the nature of a handicapped person. Later, he was able to utilize these pieces of knowledge in creating distinct characters including the villainous Silas Wegg, the ambiguous Jenny Wren and the mentally deficient but highly congenial

Sloppy.

Sawyer also adverts to a “latent period of maternal abandonment” that occurred “when Dickens was sent to Warren’s Blacking warehouse, [which was] an event that may help us to understand his later obsession with both the family and redemption” (Sawyer 50). Even though Our Mutual Friend deals with maternal rejection, this issue is elaborated merely marginally and the consequences of Mrs. Wilfer’s rejection of Bella are, indeed, not far-reaching due to the fact that Bella initially lives with the Boffins and moves in with

Rokesmith shortly after returning to her family. However, Our Mutual Friend presents us with a related issue – a reversal of the daughter/father relationship

- which in the case of Jenny Wren results in her having to support the

77 malfunctioning remnants of her family by tailoring dolls’ dresses. Even though

Jenny’s effort to save her father is to no avail, the dolls’ dressmaker perseveres and along with Mortimer and Lizzie, she instigates Eugene Wrayburn’s moral redemption, facilitating the formation of his family.

An article called “Redemption through the Novel” by Daniel Boscaljon published in The Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology deals with various types of redemption. Boscaljon argues that “Redemption is a powerful and uplifting theme that acknowledges the human potential to succeed after – or in spite of – having failed.” According to Boscaljon,

“Literature takes the . . . theme of brokenness and renewal and places it in the context of life on earth, thus including understandings of redemption that may stray from those theologically defined” (Haas, Jasper and Jay 760).

It appears that Dickens attempts to make both suffering and redemption as secular as possible. Overall, there is not a single major character who could be characterized as a devout Christian (or a believer in the broader sense of the word). The only exception can be observed in the poor childminder by the name of Betty Highden who “committed herself to Him, who died upon [the

Cross]” and who thanks “the Power and the Glory” for leading her to her

“journey’s end” (Dickens 512); and so her character is not given any chance of development even though she might be the one who deserves redemption most of all the characters presented in the novel. However, Dickens decides that Betty’s state of health will not mend and she dies in the countryside having lived a life full of hardship.

78 The relationship of between the secular characters and the clergy is further explored in Book the Fourth, Chapter XI, where Bradley Headstone dismisses Reverend Milvey’s inquisitive questions. Repeatedly, the Reverend expresses concern for his well-being, asking whether Headstone feels fit and well. Trying not to be suspicious, Bradley retorts: “‘Yes, I am overworked just at present, sir . . .’” and when Milvey suggests that Headstone’s workload might cause “dyspepsia”, the schoolmaster asks: “Might I beg leave to speak to you, outside, a moment?” and attempts to ascertain more about Eugene and principally Lizzie, whom he calls a “sister of an old pupil of [his]” (749). Having broken the sixth commandment, the schoolmaster expresses no remorse and he is afraid of being punished according to the law rather than atoning for his sin. Despite their escalating animosity, Eugene, who recovers from the injuries

Headstone inflicted on him, does not report the schoolmaster to the police, redeeming himself morally after torturing his rival and driving him to insanity.

Like Eugene, Headstone is also redeemed in the non-religious sense, for his deed remains undiscovered. However, Roger Riderhood, whom Bradley impersonates while attacking Eugene, blackmails and consequently pulls

Bradley into the river and both of them die. The narrator tells us that “the two were found, lying under the ooze and scum behind one of the rotting gates”

(802) and thus it becomes apparent that in Our Mutual Friend, one might be redeemed before being punished. Nonetheless, in this instance, the word

“scum” likely does not only refer to the dirt but also to both the sinners.

Deborah Mae Fratz in her dissertation titled “Disabled Subjects:

Disability, Gender and Ethical Agency in Victorian Realism” argues that “Dickens

79 frequently uses disabled characters to facilitate the moral development of more central able-bodied character” (Fratz 147). In Our Mutual Friend, this predominantly applies to Jenny Wren and Eugene Wrayburn. Yet, a certain degree of influence of the disabled can be felt throughout the whole novel despite the fact that there are only three such characters – Silas Wegg, the above mentioned dolls’ dressmaker and her mentally deficient but highly sympathetic suitor Sloppy.

The villainous Silas Wegg, whose influence on Mr. Boffin is substantial due to his ability to feign modesty and obeisance, may be perceived as a character who ‘facilitates’ negative moral development. In Book the First,

Chapter V, Wegg boasts after Boffin asks whether “all Print is open to him” and the “literary man” concedes his extraordinary ‘learnedness’: “‘Why, truly, sir,’ . .

. ‘I believe you couldn’t show me the piece of English print, that I wouldn’t be equal to collaring and throwing’” (Dickens 49-50). There begins Wegg’s negative influence on Mr. Boffin’s moral development, which is initially mediated through literature as suggested in the analysis of Mr. Boffin’s identity and which shows the Golden Dustman that miserliness is one the most important ‘qualities’ in a man. Nevertheless, Wegg’s negative influence on Mr.

Boffin ultimately only inspires the owner of the Golden Bower to adopt Wegg’s avarice as a ruse with the intention to discourage Bella from marrying money.

Wegg’s boastful self-congratulation, however, contrast with some of the descriptions of his persona which have been mentioned earlier, and Siri

Hustvedt in A Plea for Eros: Essays even argues that Wegg is able to cope with his suffering reasonably well, because he is “literally part object” (Hustvedt

80 158). The American essayist further stresses that the “wooden leg, which the narrator tells us Wegg seems to have taken to naturally” already insinuates that

“the man is metaphorically wooden” (158). This decreases the probability of his redemption and indicates that Silas is unable to feel emotions, for he has grown too indifferent towards anyone else than those who can help him turn a profit.

Yet, Dickens does not stop at insinuations and Wegg is directly described as if his body parts were made out of wood: “Wegg was a knotty man, and a close- grained, with a face carved out of very hard material, that had just as much play of expression as a watchman’s rattle” (Dickens 45). All these descriptions, which are to be found at the beginning of the novel, already foreshadow the end of Mr. Wegg’ extortionist career, which is terminated at the point when

Silas is disposed of by the mentally deficient but emotionally commendable carpenter Sloppy.

Wegg, whom Mr. Boffin in his benighted ignorance calls a “literary man”

(49) despite that fact that Wegg is barely literate, is temporarily redeemed from poverty when he becomes Boffin’s reader and consequently, as David Kaplin puts it, “ingratiates himself into Boffin’s Bower for the purpose of finding some way to extort or steal from him” (Kaplin 246). When Wegg starts blackmailing

Boffin, he effectively eliminates any possibility of moral redemption and instead, he hopes for redemption in the capitalist sense. John R. Reed in “The Riches of

Redundancy” describes Wegg as a man “whose craving for Boffin’s wealth is a hollow desire for gratification” (Reed 24). Therefore, it might be argued that

Wegg has a propensity to prefer instant gratification to a long-term business

81 relationship owing to which he could thrive and thus he turns into an extortionist who deserves nothing else but disdain and punishment.

Like Jenny Wren, Wegg suffers due to his physical impairment, but he attempts to overcome it by devoting his life to enriching himself. As suggested in the previous chapter, using Wegg, Dickens shows that craving for money and capital is destructive to the individual himself and detrimental to the society which remonstrates against it until somebody inflicts punishment on the transgressor. Geraldine Godsil in “Reflections on Death and Mourning in

Relation to Dickens’ Novel Our Mutual Friend” suggests that Wegg is “the most avaricious incarnation of greed and envy in the novel” (Godsil 477), where he is repeatedly described as a social parasite who “flutter[s] over his prey with an extended hand” (Dickens 188) and talks with “a greedy relish” (300).

Through various mentions of his pathological greed, Dickens renders the literary man utterly despicable and irredeemable. Eventually, Mr. Wegg is expelled and rightly but mildly punished. In Book the Fourth, Chapter XIV, we are acquainted with the fact that “Mr. S. [Sloppy] found it impossible to resist the temptation of shooting Mr. Silas Wegg into the [scavenger’s] cart’s contents” (790), punishing him for his villainy and humiliating him in a non- violet, yet most ignominious way.

Jenny Wren is the second character who might be perceived as a representative of Dickens’ creative interest in the disabled. Fratz argues that

“unlike Dickens’ other pathetic disabled characters, Jenny often seems to supersede . . . control, and, by resisting stable identity, she presents a far more complex and volatile representation of the disabled subject” (Fratz 147). She is

82 depicted as a character who has her own will and deals with her sorrows in her own way – through work, protection of others and caring for those who deserve it (and sometimes even those who do not) and thus her actions often lead to betterment of others. Robert Garis in The Dickens Theatre contends that Jenny is “an impressive human being, being able to choose her own moods and her own expressions” (Garis 252). Her assertiveness allows her to extricate herself from the influence of other characters and consequently to exert influence over them. Therefore, Jenny need not be morally redeemed. Instead, her redemption from suffering caused by her lame legs and bad back consists of helping her friends and being able to make both ends meet while enduring the inequities of her father.

Jenny also enjoys retelling stories from her past and when she gets a chance to talk to Eugene, who is hardly interested in her narration, the narrator informs us that: “By degrees, as she progressed in this remembrance, the hand was raised, the late ecstatic look returned, and she became quite beautiful”

(Dickens 240). Therefore, it is the remembrance of the past that proffers temporary redemption to the dolls’ dressmaker before she, as Garrett Stewart argues in “The Golden Bower of Our Mutual Friend”, “reverts to a pitiful . . . cripple” (Stewart 119). It appears that her father causes her greater suffering than her disability, for unlike the handicap, his drinking problem could be solved if he really put his mind to it. Early in the novel, it is suggested that between

Jenny and Mr. Dolls (his name is never mentioned, but supposedly should be

Cleaver as Jenny’s real name is Fanny Cleaver), there exists a “dire reversal of

83 the places of parent and child” (Dickens 241) – a relationship which might be understood as a parallel to that of Bella and Rumpty Wilfer.

However, Rumpty is a submissive father and a husband who would do anything for his family and Mr. Dolls, as Garrett Stewart argues, causes Jenny

“callous humiliation” (Stewart 120) by constantly humiliating himself. In addition, G. W. Kennedy suggests that despite all the suffering her father causes her “Jenny Wren uses the independent identity conferred by her pseudonym not to repudiate “Mr. Dolls”, but to care for him with the scolding tenderness of a beleaguered but loving parent” (Kennedy 168). Indeed, Jenny is a character who devotes her life to redeeming others from their suffering or misery, but she herself finds very little consolation. As suggested earlier, she is able to sideline her disability when relating stories, but her return into reality is more often than not full of hardship.

To stress the gravity of Jenny’s burden, Fulweiler in “A Dismal Swamp” expresses the opinion that “Jenny Wren is mother to her father” (Fulweiler 67).

Nonetheless, unlike most mothers, she is denied any sort of pride, because her

‘child’ often returns home drunk to stupor. At these moments, her cherished childhood memories presently sink into oblivion and she becomes a different person. In Book the Second, Chapter II, the narrator describes one of these episodes accordingly:

As they went on with their supper, Lizzie tried to bring her round

to that prettier and better state. But, the charm was broken. The

person of the house was the person of a house full of sordid

shames and cares, with an upper room in which that abased

84 figure was infecting even innocent sleep with sensual brutality and

degradation. The dolls’ dressmaker had become a little quaint

shrew; of the world, worldly; of the earth, earthy. (Dickens 243)

Shortly after he ends his description of Jenny’s relationship with her father and its implications on her character, the narrator uses repetition in order to accentuate the dolls’ dressmaker’s suffering, her doleful state of mind and eventually to pity her, producing a rhetorical question: “How often so dragged down by hands that should have raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the eternal road, and asking guidance!” and consequently exclaims: “Poor, poor little dolls’ dressmaker!” (243).

Dickens employs this descriptive strategy in order to stress that Jenny’s spirits gradually deteriorate. When she is reminded of her trouble, she develops into a “worldly” and “earthy” person, for a while possessing traits which are not very typical of her peers. The very last exclamation adverts not only to Jenny’s suffering but also to the fact that she has to work as a seamstress to make ends meet and to support her father who should have supported her instead.

In The Victorian Freak Show: The Significance of Disability and Physical

Difference in 19th-Century Fiction, Lillian Craton contends that “Given her frail body and small size, she bears both remarkable burdens and remarkable ideological weight” (Craton 77). This “ideological weight” lies in her ability to accept her fate, endure numerous hardships and to behave like a sensible and equable person despite all her trouble, a more detailed list of which would provide enough material for another chapter.

85 In Book the Third, Chapter X, Jenny protects Lizzie’s new address which

Eugene attempts to ascertain, pretending that he merely wishes to deal with doll’s dresses. When the lawyer tries to elicit Lizzie’s location, Jenny responds with a pun: “And of course it’s on the subject of a doll’s dress—or address— whichever you like” (Dickens 533), thus protecting Lizzie from further pursuit.

Despite her initial aloofness, Jenny helps when the badly injured lawyer becomes powerless and delirious.

Garrett Stewart suggests that Jenny “is called in at his own request to attend Eugene in his feverish coma” (Stewart 126), proffering relief from his physical suffering and further directing him towards his moral redemption through love and marriage. Paradoxically, the reunion of Lizzie and Eugene is eventually catalyzed by Mortimer who puts the issue in motion. Nevertheless, prior to these events, in Book the Fourth, Chapter X, the narrator accentuates the fastidiousness with which Jenny nurses Eugene:

The dolls’ dressmaker, all softened compassion now, watched him

with an earnestness that never relaxed. She would regularly

change the ice, or the cooling spirit, on his head, and keep her ear

at the pillow betweenwhiles, listening for any faint words that fell

from him in his wanderings. It was amazing through how many

hours at a time she would remain beside him, in a crouching

attitude, attentive to his slightest moan. (Dickens 739)

It appears that in this part, Jenny tries to replicate the way a wife would care for her beloved husband as if she firmly believed that Eugene could be brought back to life and she inexhaustibly searches for anything that would

86 provide him with some relief. Stewart stresses that when she attends Eugene in his wretched state, “Jenny manages to understand the one word, “Wife”, that may retrieve Eugene from the edge of death” (Stewart 125). During her stay with Eugene and Mortimer, the dolls’ dressmaker relishes her usefulness and knows that the indolent lawyer had been punished enough to finally become a moral human being and to accept the society he once scorned so much.

Eventually, Eugene’s loyal friend Mortimer advises him to “make Lizzie [his] wife” and suggest that only then his “reparation may be complete” (Dickens

741). Thus, Eugene, who at this point starts responding to exogenous stimuli, willingly assents to Mortimer’s proposition and he is finally morally redeemed as his lust and constant need for amusement change into the need to love and to be loved.

Jenny’s father eventually drinks himself to death, thus paradoxically easing her pain. The narrator insinuates that the burial of Mr. Dolls is Jenny’s final burden unrelated to her disability and, as Scoggin puts it, “Jenny’s statements later on the death of her father will recall Hexam’s claims [about dead men] but for an entirely different purpose” (Scoggin 100). Even though

Jenny mourns her father, at one point she almost cynically adverts to the

Scripture as if she tried to imply that her father can no longer take away anything from her: “I see the service in the Prayer-book says, that we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can take nothing out” (Dickens 733)

(qtd. in Scoggin 100). Therefore, Jenny’s burden is alleviated and she finally starts living. However, unlike the attorney and Bella Wilfer, she is unable to find love, because the only man who is interested in her is mentally deficient. Thus,

87 having helped many others, the dolls’ dressmaker is forced to carry on living on her own.

In “Dicken’s Villains”, Juliet John argues that “Dickens is able to show more active understanding of the ‘Weltschmerz’ of . . . Wrayburn because of his obvious disillusionment . . . with the materialism and fragmentation of Victorian society” (John 188). As suggested earlier, this pain can only be healed by love.

Nevertheless, to make things more complicated, Dickens (at least in some cases) presents love as an obsession. This obsession is recognizable in both

Eugene Wrayburn and Bradley Headstone, both of whom pathologically pursue

Lizzie and her rejection causes a great deal of pain and suffering to both of them. Yet, neither one of them wishes to give up and the whole situation results into an assault after which Eugene, as Tomalin puts it, “lies nearly dead for months” (Tomalin 345). This period of uncertainty accompanied by frequent hallucinations facilitates his moral redemption and reminds him that he ought not to waste his life in idleness and indolence, for there is much to experience before one is to knock on heaven’s doors.

When Reverend Milvey arrives to marry the couple, Eugene’s demeanor changes noticeably and he expresses genuine interest in others: “‘How does the time go? Has our Mortimer come back?’” (Dickens 752). In no time, the reader is acquainted with the fact that “Lightwood was there immediately, to answer for himself. ‘Yes, Eugene, and all is ready.” In response, the morally ‘cleansed’

Eugene utters: “‘Dear boy!'” . . . ‘we both thank you heartily. Lizzie, tell them how welcome they are, and that I would be eloquent if I could’” (752).

88 Based on this, it is possible to argue that Eugene’s redemption is non- religious similarly to that of Jenny Wren. Instead of expressing any sort of gratitude to God, the lawyer fully embraces the society and the fact that he is married to a woman whom he will love no matter what her social standing is.

Having kissed his wife, Eugene, who not so long ago enjoyed torturing

Headstone and talking about the futility of his existence, exclaims: “I bless the day!” (Dickens 753) and his wife presently adds that she blesses the day too.

Eventually, the reformed Eugene calls Lizzie a “brave devoted girl” and adds that “‘It would require a life . . . more than a life’” (Dickens 753) to repay her for her help and to redeem all the distress he caused her.

The main aim of this chapter was to explore the issues of suffering, punishment and redemption in Our Mutual Friend. However, the chapter also intended to conclude all the previous analyses, hence there are no subchapters, for a certain degree of continuity is required. To sum up, many characters of the novel suffer, but redemption in the non-religious sense is available only to some of them. Furthermore, it is possible to argue that punishment is inevitable for those who repeatedly trespassed against others. However, the degree of it ranges from a mere expulsion to death. Therefore, this chapter and the whole thesis may be concluded by stating that Our Mutual Friend is a novel that not only deals with the issues of identity, capital and redemption but also the decline of morale and ‘de-spiritualization’, all of which were inextricably linked to the ruthless capitalist mid-nineteenth century English society.

89 Conclusion

The aim of this thesis has been to thoroughly analyze the identity of selected characters of Our Mutual Friend, stress the importance of capital in the novel and to inquire into the phenomenon of redemption. The thesis, which is split into three chapters, employs the approach of individual theoretical introductions to every one of them and seeks to present sufficient evidence in the form of both numerous secondary sources and relevant close readings. The introduction outlines what is to be expected from the following chapters and mentions some of the historical facts pertinent to the rest of the thesis. The second chapter deals with identity and re-identification of four characters who might be read as those who undergo the most significant change. Ultimately, various definitions of identity are contrasted with its depiction in the novel. The third chapter is all about capital and its influence on the characters of the novel.

Various negative effects of capital are named and the latter part of the chapter deals with the rise of the so-called noveaux-riches who in the nineteenth century challenged the old money families and attempted to win their place in the social hierarchy. It is argued that four representatives of this group - the

Lammles and the Veneerings are depicted predominantly negatively, thus suggesting that Dickens’ stance towards the ‘new money’ was at the very least cautious. The fourth and the last chapter inquires into the phenomenon of redemption and argues that redemption in Our Mutual Friend is portrayed mostly as capitalist and spiritual and that in the novel, Dickens largely refrained from the usage of what might be called religious redemption or salvation. The chapter further stresses that redemption in the novel cannot be earned and

90 that it is contingent on the identity of all the individual characters. Therefore, the thesis argues that all the three phenomena – identity, capital and redemption - are inseparably interconnected and together form the core pillars of the novel.

Our Mutual Friend further develops some ideas presented in some of the previous Dickens’ works. Because of its treatment of characters, the novel can no longer be read as a bildungsroman as David Copperfield, Little Dorrit or

Great Expectations. Although most of the principal characters of Our Mutual

Friend are adults, Dickens portrays them as largely malleable and suggests that it is never too late for a moral awakening. Yet, unlike many other qualities, morality is not attributed to a particular class, for there are various commendable character coming from diverse social backgrounds. The thesis further deals with the fuzzy boundaries between classes and argues that some of the characters are members of two classes at the same time, albeit they attempt to deny it.

Class in Our Mutual Friend is presented as something that is partially artificial and Dickens suggests that it should not be money that determines one’s social status. The noveaux-riche families including the Boffins, who become rich by a stroke of luck, lack nearly all the qualities which are to be expected from upper-class individuals and thus they undermine the traditional perception of society and cause a great deal of confusion. Since Our Mutual

Friend is a novel full of deception, the usurer who goes by the name of Mr.

Fledgeby, turns considerable profit, lending money to those who in fact cannot repay them. Therefore, it is argued that redemption can also be perceived in its

91 other sense - that is a repayment of debt. In Our Mutual Friend, most characters who borrow from Fledgeby have difficulties to maintain the payment schedule. Yet, instead of restructuring, they seek to evade their obligations, thus confirming the legitimacy of Dickens’ critique of the noveaux riches, whose wealth often depends on risky undertaking or even frauds. Nevertheless, the novel does not directly portray any sort of embezzlement and rather focuses on petty thefts and blackmail. Dickens appears to employ this sort of depiction of financial criminality with the intention to highlight what was happening during the early 1860s, when money was misappropriated and the culprits remained unpunished either for years or forever.

It is asserted that the novel inquires into what might be called the

‘capitalist code of conduct’ and explains that the noveaux-riche characters completely misunderstand the concept of being upper class. Arguably, these capitalists cannot be overlooked due to their ruthlessness and vigor, but at the same time their identity is still bound to their middle-class or even working- class origin. Mr. Veneering believes that his ascension to the parliament will finally silence those who criticize him only to find that the House of Commons is full of other opportunists (whom Dickens calls friends). Later he ascertains that his effort is fruitless and decides to invest his money into diamonds. The

Lammles, on the other hand, never even attempt to abide by the upper-class rules and they are satisfied with recognition from other noveaux riches.

Eventually, the opportunism of both the Veneerings and the Lammles has virtually no ramifications for the major characters of Our Mutual Friend (with

92 the exception of Fledgeby), because both of the families flee justice, leaving

London with what they were able to preserve.

Although Our Mutual Friend might not be seen as one of Dickens’ seminal works, it belongs to his most sophisticated novels. This sophistication manifests itself in the way all the various ‘social networks’ are created and gives the reader an impression that no action in the novel can stay without impact.

However, it appears that the pre-meditated actions such as John Harmon’s deception, Mr. Boffin’s ruse, Bradley Headstone’s attempted murder or Silas

Wegg’s blackmail are far more consequential than the spontaneous decision of

Mr. Wilfer to accommodate Rokesmith and to allow him to marry his daughter

(which he would have done regardless of his permission) and Mrs. Boffin’s need to adopt an orphan or Mortimer Lightwood’s unexpected support of Eugene’s feelings for Lizzie. Nonetheless, pre-meditation in Our Mutual Friend is not tantamount to reason and intelligence. Elaborate and excessively villainous plans are hatched as a result of a single stimulus such as rejection or the mere fact that one is in dire straits. Both poverty and wealth are perceived as detrimental to the human nature and the middle-class characters are given special treatment and thus it become apparent that the author stresses the importance of moderation in both spending and love.

Redemption in Our Mutual Friend can be analyzed from various points of view, but my third chapter chooses to examine it in terms of relief provided to those who suffer. It is argued that redemption in the novel is often associated with what might be called a ‘moral rebirth’ and attempts to focus more closely on the relationship of Lizzie Hexam and Eugene Wrayburn and stresses the

93 importance of Jenny Wren, who with a little help from Mortimer Lightwood brings the couple together. In her example, Dickens also shows that redemption does not need to be complete, as Jenny is only relieved of some of her pain when her father dies, but the physical impairment remains.

To conclude, the last finished novel of Charles Dickens is a piece of work which, despite its flaws, might be considered one of the highlights of his career.

Like some of the previous Dickens’ novels, Our Mutual Friend might be perceived as slightly sentimental, but the extent of this sentimentality is largely compensated by the success of villains and the conditions under which some members of the working class are forced to live.

Like Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend belongs to the darker spectrum of Dickens’ novels due its depiction of violence, financial criminality and blackmail. Its lukewarm reception by the contemporary critics may be attributed to its transparent main plot and the pathos with which some of the events are portrayed. Yet, the reviewers often omitted that Our Mutual Friend can only be fully appreciated when all the characters including the minor ones are taken into account and the network of their mutual influence is deciphered.

Only then can both the critics and the audience recognize that the main storyline of this novel is just a means of creating a connection between the characters, main purpose of whom is to represent and mock various archetypes.

Overall, Our Mutual Friend tackles many social issues and shifts the boundaries of what can be expected from Dickens. It criticizes society using specific examples and exaggerates both their good and bad qualities. The

94 bittersweet quality that seeps through the pages might be attributed to Dickens’ deteriorating health and some of the characters to the issues in his personal life. Regardless of that, Our Mutual Friend may be read as a novel that, at least in terms of sophistication and elaboration of all the discussed issues, belongs to

Dickens’ best works and remains influential to this day.

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100 Summary

This diploma thesis is concerned with the analysis of Charles Dickens’s last finished novel Our Mutual Friend (1864). The thesis is divided into three chapters that deal with the identity of several characters, the importance of capital and wealth in the novel and tracks the process of redemption.

The first chapter of this thesis deals with the identity of characters, outlines various perceptions of identity in literature, discusses the phenomenon of re-identification and thoroughly analyzes four major characters of Our Mutual

Friend in order to ascertain what their perception of society is. It establishes four character archetypes, three of which Dickens adumbrates himself. It is suggested that the last archetype is inspired by several heroes of Russian literature of the nineteenth century.

The second chapter contrasts philosophical views on capital with its portrayal in the novel. It focuses on the characters who are most influenced by money and property and argues that this influence is mostly negative. The chapter also deals with usury and blackmail, both of which stem from the insatiable greed of some characters, and discusses the code of conduct by which the upper-class characters of Our Mutual Friend should abide.

The third chapter consists of an analysis of redemption through love and capital and presents evidence that this redemption is non-religious.

Furthermore, it focuses on Dickens’ portrayal of suffering and punishment and considers them from the point of view of both the able-bodied characters and the disabled.

101 Résumé

Tato diplomová práce se zabývá rozborem posledního dokončeného románu Charlese Dickense Náš vzájemný přítel (1864). Práce je rozdělena do tří kapitol, které rozebírají identitu několika postav, význam kapitálu a bohatství v tomto románu a sleduje proces vykoupení.

První kapitola této práce rozebírá identitu postav, nastiňuje její rozličné vnímání v literatuře, pojednává o jevu změny identity a důkladně analyzuje čtyři hlavní postavy románu Náš vzájemný přítel tak, aby mohlo být zjištěno, jakým způsobem vnímají společnost. Kapitola definuje čtyři archetypy postav, z nichž tři nastínil samotný Dickens. Je zde naznačeno, že poslední archetyp je inspirován několika hrdiny ruské literatury devatenáctého století.

Druhá kapitola porovnává filozofický náhled na kapitál s jeho zobrazením v románu. Zaměřuje se na ty postavy, které jsou nejvíce ovlivněny penězi a majetkem a tvrdí, že tento vliv je převážně negativní. Tato kapitola se také zabývá lichvou a vydíráním, z nichž obě jsou způsobeny neukojitelnou lakotou některých postav, a diskutuje o pravidlech chování, podle kterých se má řídit společenská elita.

Třetí kapitola se skládá z analýzy vykoupení prostřednictvím lásky a kapitálu a předkládá důkazy o tom, že toto vykoupení není náboženského charakteru. Dále se zaměřuje na Dickensovo vyobrazení utrpení a trestu a hodnotí je z pohledu jak zdravých tak i handicapovaných postav.

102