Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit: A Study in Real and Illusonary Parenthood
Graduation Date
Spring 1960
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Degree Granting Institution
Catholic University of America
Program Name
Humanities
Abstract
In Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit (1855-1857) the theme of reality and illusion is introduced early in the novel. Dickens writes, "We all know how we | all deceive ourselves—that is to say, how people in general, our profounder J selves excepted, deceive themselves—as to motives of action." Arthur Clennam, the hero of the novel, explores this matter further:
... many people select their models, much as the painters, , . . select theirs; and that, whereas in the Royal Academy some evil old ruffian of a Dog-stealer will annually be found embodying all the cardinal virtues, on account of his eyelashes, or his chin, or his legs . . , so, in the great social Exhibition, accessories are often accepted in lieu of the internal character.
If by "accessories" Dickens means, as I believe he does, not only appearance and demeanor but also moral conduct, I see this quotation as a generalization which can be made applicable to those particular aspects of the "great social Exhibition" here under consideration—namely, certain family relationships in the novel.
Monroe Engel has written extensively on the use of the theme of reality and illusion in Little Dorrit, a theme which, he feels, gives the novel its strength:
If the major theme of Little Dorrit is imprisonment, an only less general and perhaps more complicated and even more meaningful theme I has to do with the ambiguous distinction between reality and illusion... It is the overt sense of the awful reality looming behind illusion that gives this book its power…
The failure to face reality appears in many guises and on many levels, social and economic. We see it in the world of finance, with Mr. Merdle and his enormous swindle; we see it in the world of social responsibility, with the Barnacles and the Circumlocution Office directing (or misdirecting) government matters; with Mr. Casby, squeezing rents out of the destitute Bleeding Heart Yard inhabitants; with Blandois, the murderer, who feels that the world owes him his living; we see it in social life, with the Merdles, the Gowans, and the Dorrits, and at times even the good Mr. Meagles, all aping their wealthier or more aristocratic neighbors.