POOR MISS FINCH by Wilkie Collins

POOR MISS FINCH by Wilkie Collins

21 September 2008

Dombey #17 (chaps 52-54) February 1848

Dear Serial Reader(s),
We've been dwindling in commenting numbers these weeks. I wonder if you noticed that I didn't deliver a post last week? I'd like to claim that the boat carrying the part-issue numbers just didn't arrive, although I waited eagerly (wanting to know about the elopement of Edith and Carker) for hours and days. Yes, there was a delivery problem last week--between the pages and my eyes. But we're also nearing the end of this novel, and approaching a new serial reading adventure next month where I'm hoping that the shorter length of Drood (along with the delivery system of Mousehold Words--see sidebar) will increase our community of serial readers. Please do spread the word about the coming attraction.

So a few thoughts on this installment: a cleverly structured number with various groups trying to gather information about the shocking elopement of Edith and Carker in the first two chapters as a fine accretion of suspense leading to the last chapter where we finally see Edith and Carker in DIJON. I love the self-conscious construction and delivery of this "intelligence" of the elopement via Carker's variously abused associates throughout the number.
I'm also continually taken with the emphasis on maligned, abused, and furious women. Alice tells Harriet the story of Carker seducing and discarding her, a companion narrative to Edith's marriage market and elopement plot accounts. Alice's story reminded me of Esther Barton in Gaskell's novel of the same year this episode appeared. Then in the last chapter here, Edith delivers a powerful "I am a woman" speech to Carker in their Dijon quarters in which she echoes some of Alice's murderous sentiments, and we have the illustration to emphasize her imperial stature in contrast to his slimy and now cowering posture. Does this section redeem Edith from the sexual taint of the elopement? But this long delivery has another purpose, to fill in the narrative gap of the elopement plot from a few numbers ago.
More than earlier installments, these last few seem especially designed to get readers to read on, to discover what happens. Will Dombey murder Carker in this revenge plot where he's been set up as the proxy for at least two or even three wronged and furious women? Will Edith persist in turning her passionate anger toward herself? I suspect there are more deaths in store, of a very different tonality than Paul's sentimental death, or Mrs. Skewton's (aka Cleopatra) sardonic death, or even Walter's falsely reported death.
I'd wager that we don't get Dombey and Carker and Edith next time, since the pattern is usually a detour installment to build more craving for resolution. What's up with Florence, Walter, Cuttle, and will Old Sol return?

Next time: #18, chapters 55-57.


In serial time,
Susan

3 comments:

Julia said...

I too am coming late to installment 17, but I did want to add a brief comment before moving on. Power has been at the heart of much of the novel--particularly when it comes to the Dombey marriage--and in this installment any remaining veil of civility between the characters is torn away. In the first chapter of this installment, Alice demands of Mr. Dombey whether he knows anything "more powerful than money." Seeing the squalor of Mrs. Brown's home, he answers no, only to be reminded that "a woman's anger" is perhaps more powerful (p. 608). By the end of the installment, we see a woman's anger on display, with the murderous Edith standing up to Carker (knife in hand), and we also see the power of money with presumably murderous Mr. Dombey beating at his door. But as Susan mentioned, this plotline is only part of the novel. Florence is conspicuously absent from these dark scenes. I'm wondering whether we'll see the negative power of money and a woman's anger ultimately neutralized by a positive power--perhaps the "feminine tenderness" that young Rob misses in Mrs. Brown (612) and that we see so abundantly in Florence? Perhaps we get a glimpse of this already with Alice's unexplained change of heart?

I'm looking forward to finishing this novel, and moving on to Edwin Drood next month!

MJ said...

Very belatedly--I just finished part 17 and I'll post this question for anyone who is still reading. I wonder whether Dickens, in the last chapter, is trying to ambiguate just what did happen on the night Edith eloped with Carker. All along we've been led to believe there was a sexual interaction, but now I'm not so sure. In the catalog of "what went on"--which Edith reminds Carker he knows full well--there's an intimation that Edith stopped just short of a complete fall. If that's so, I'm disappointed! Or is it just a case of Dickens refraining from bringing a blush to the cheek of the young person? On to part 18. (I think of myself as the serial reader who just let those last few light green numbers pile up.)

MJ said...

One more point, as I look again at Susan's post: I was sure that the stranger who had been watching over Harriet Carker would turn out to be Old Sol. But then Dickens introduces a completely new character 100 pages from the end of the book! Or did we meet him before, and did I forget?