POOR MISS FINCH by Wilkie Collins

POOR MISS FINCH by Wilkie Collins

12 August 2008

Dombey #12 (chaps 35-38) September 1847

Dear Serial Readers,
A canceled flight among other things caused this one-day delay of this week's installment post. MJ again provides our lead-off commentary on number 12. Thanks, MJ!
Until next week (#13, chaps 39-41),
Serial Susan


Part 12 carries its own variation on the pattern we’ve seen throughout; this time three chapters focus on our central characters in the Dombey household, followed by one that moves outward to Miss Tox and the Toodles. I’ve found each of these last three or four parts to be more engrossing than the one that came before, and this one, with that amazing scene of Dombey watching Florence, reminded me once again that Dickens wrote for adults.

The chapter title “The Happy Pair” continues to expand its meaning as we read. At first it’s what we assume, an ironic commentary on the new Mr. and Mrs. Dombey. But then we have the “pair” of the apparently sleeping Dombey in the room with his daughter, and the very slight but real awakening of understanding on his part of what she might have meant to him, what he might have missed, and what might possibly yet be. This scene, with its hopeful culmination “checked and stifled” by Edith’s entrance is then replaced by Edith and Florence as a less ambiguously happy couple, though it ends with Florence’s nightmare.

We next have the “housewarming,” with its metaphors of ice and frost and scentless flowers, and the two camps of guests that personify and intensify the incompatibility of Dombey and Edith. Carker’s insinuations increase in frightening ways, as he masters and intimidates Edith. Mrs. Skewton’s stroke, and the removal and then the partial replacement of her youthful trappings--the rose-coloured curtains, intended to fool the doctors and allow her to recover more quickly--make her (at least to me) a bit more sympathetic a figure even as her pathetic characteristics increase. In a novel dealing so much with time, she represents the extreme of human efforts to pretend that it isn’t passing, that it hasn’t changed anything. We laugh at her, or feel disgusted by her, but I’d say that most of us have a little of that wishfulness in ourselves, too.

Finally, the chapter in which Miss Tox visits the Toodles brought to mind a number of things about how Dickens structures his novels. It took me a while to be fully immersed in the doings at Princess’s Place (even to remember them all)--Miss Tox watering her plants, and so on--but by Part 12 these motifs or character signals had become familiar and comfortable. Has this been the experience of other bloggers? It seems to me Dickens wins us over in this way, through insistent repetition somehow making us care about these apparently secondary characters. In the interactions between Miss Tox and “Biler,” I was reminded of Mrs. Sparsit and Bitzer in the later Hard Times, the spinster and teenage boy in league as spies. Dickens is clearly fascinated with this whole idea of spying and blackmail; we’ll see how it develops in Dombey and Son. I’ll add, however, that I do have a soft spot for Rob the Grinder (Grinder, Biler, always somehow in action . . .), who never wanted to be a Grinder but suffered because of Mr. Dombey’s misplaced and shortsighted charity.

Dickens’s humor remains wonderful: Mrs. Skewton’s dialogue, as in “not Cupid, but the other delightful creature,” and Rob’s account of Captain Cuttle attempting to help a customer when neither one knows what the requested purchase looks like.

2 comments:

Julia said...

I've just returned from the wilds of Vermont (where there is no cell phone reception or regular internet access!), and I'm eager to chime in about this latest installment of Dombey.

I was excited this week to return to Edith, Florence, and Dombey, despite the drama of the last installment's final chapter about Alice Brown. Dickens's decision to open "The Happy Pair" in the present tense seemed to accentuate my excitement by creating a palpable sense of immediacy.

As I was reading this week, I found myself most interested in the complex power relations among the characters and the way that we, as readers, are made aware of them. Characters are constantly staging power plays against each other in this installment: Edith tries to assert her power against Dombey by snubbing his guests; Dombey shows his power over Edith by speaking to her about it in front of Carker; Carker uses this, in turn, to assert his power over Edith the following day by forcing an unpleasant interview; and Edith demonstrates her power over her mother by giving her everything but love. The characters associated with the Dombey household are embroiled in an intricate network of overlapping manipulations. By the end, it's not clear who does have the upper hand.

What really struck me about all of this manipulation (which is strongly reminiscent of so many of Dickens's other novels, particularly Bleak House) is the way that it relates to the angelic Florence. Sharp looks are exchanged everywhere in the Dombey abode, and it is suggested that much of the scheming is about Florence herself. In this way, she is at the heart of the scheming. At the same time, she seems untouched by it, floating through the hate-filled atmosphere without even the hint of taint. I might have read this as Dickens's faith in the power of childhood innocence, if it weren't for the final paragraph about Rob the Grinder's hypocrisy, which reminds us of an alternative kind of child.

It's also strange that Florence is represented as a careful watcher (particularly of her father in "The Happy Pair" chapter). Given her watchfulness in this situation and others, should we assume that Florence is not impervious to the intrigue (often revealed in significant glances) in the Dombey home, despite her apparent innocence? Or should we see Florence as an inconsistent reader--skilled when it comes to her father's looks, but untrained when it comes to the loaded looks of Edith or Carker? I'm wondering if future chapters will reveal exactly how Florence's character "reads" this poisonous atmosphere.

Unknown said...

I think Julia is dead on in noting the role of power relationships here, and it reminds me of just how tonally diverse Dickens is. People remember the sentimentality and the humor, of course, and they're not wrong to do so. But there's also a much darker side to his work -- manipulation, cruelty, Carker's menace, and Mrs. Skewton's vanity. And that's even balanced in this installment with some gentler moments, as in Dombey's softer view of Florence and Miss Tox's reunion with the Toodles. It's always interesting to me to see these novels swing from deeply sentimental to sharply cynical.

I was also interested to see the narrator's use of "might have" constructions. Dombey "might have" noticed Edith's contempt, Mrs. Skewton "might have" had a deliberate purpose behind her seemingly aimless speech, and so on. There's something tricky about this way of phrasing things -- it hints at more than it's prepared to reveal. I think this stylistic slyness lines up with the plot, which is also hiding lots of tricks up its sleeve. (Not sure what those are here, but I will note that I've never been more fooled by a novel's plot than in Our Mutual Friend, so I'm looking forward to the surprises Dombey has in store!)