Dear Serial Readers,
Fanny's marriage is no surprise, nor is her Pa's (if only you could read my lips!) caution to Amy that marriage is a "responsibility imposed on you by your position." But stay tuned. Amy won't succumb to this marriage of convenience for wealth and stature.
What did surprise me in this installment is the attention to Dorrit's discomfort and curiosity. He's proud, proud, proud, we know, but he also bristles under the scrutiny of the Chief Butler, even assuming that this servant has some knowledge of the Marshalsea days. When Flora approaches him about the missing Blandois/Rigaud, he shows curiosity about this foreigner he remembers him from the Gowans in Venice. Dorrit's visit to the Clennams forces him from the tony Mayfair district to the "uglier" sections of London--a near-return to the Marshalsea vicinity (although across the river). His interview of Mrs. Clennam exhibits unusual questions from him here--although why he wants to know about Blandois isn't clear to me. But perhaps we'll see more plot strand knitted together. What is the mystery behind Blandois and the Clennam family, Blandois and Miss Wade?
Dorrit also relents a bit in his arrogant pride when Young John Chivery visits, although he cautions Young John not to mention their conversation. What did you make of the description of Dorrit's journey back to Rome, as an escape expedition from England and from his past, but also as more opportunity for "castle-building"? The moral message of material affluence is clear here and prevalent in many Dickens novels. But I suspect Dorrit's fanciful castle will crumble very soon. But how?
Before I forget, for you Facebookers, there is actually a "Mr F's Aunt" page on Facebook. I joined. For next week, part ii, chaps 19-22 ("Who Passes By...").
Yours in Serial Secrets,
Susan
2 comments:
There seemed to me to be an ominous tone to Mr. D’s obsession with wealth and social status beginning in chapter 15 and underscored by the title of Chapter 18, “Castles in the Air,” though his castle-building has to do with marrying Mrs. General, which he seems to think the right social move. He’s not opposed to direct his daughters in their like responsibilities, looking to Fanny, for example, to assert “family dignity and importance.” At the same time, Amy is busy driving away thoughts that her father could “give her up lightly, in his prosperity,” and replace her with a second wife. It seems apt that she ends Chapter 15 wandering among Roman ruins, musing about the Marshalsea and the ruins of her life. Will she ever get wise to her father?
The most recently introduced mystery to me is why Mr. D wants to be “in a condition” to carry back to Gowan the result of his personal investigation into Blandois’s disappearance. Does he simply see himself in doing so climbing another rung of the social ladder? Or is there more to it?
Ah, readerann's last question fuels one of my speculations this week: is Mr. D. looking at Mrs. General or some other potential wife? But I guess he hasn't met Mrs. Gowan, so that can't really be his plan--and of course she's totally distasteful, but so is Mrs. General, and she is more likely to be the one for whom the jewelry is intended.
I've realized how much I speculate, after Susan's analysis of speculation!
I am also struck, as I think about the last two posts and this section, about the juxtaposition of Amy's desire not to be married off to some rich fool and the reminder of Young John, whom Mr. D. wanted Amy to marry back when they were poor. Ah, how sorry he would be now if Amy had married young John! What a loss for "family dignity and importance"! I was a bit surprised at Mr. D's guilt at his bad treatment of Young John, and a bit relieved that he had some sense of other people's feelings.
I agree that the castle-building does seem to set Mr. D. up for a fall--which I suspect will happen along with those who followed Mr. Merdle, and I just wonder if Mr. Merdle will fall along with the rest, and what will happen at that point to Fanny.
I spent the last two nights after finishing the castle-building chapter building my own castle--well, moderately sized home, quite literally, perhaps to avoid more metaphorical castles: unreachable dreams. How much does the narrator endorse dreaming? Of things other than money? Don't we at times wish Amy would dream for a little more, at least for what she'd really like?
Oh! I still think there is a secret passage in the Clennam house and that's connected to the noises.
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