Leave the kids alone!

Mrs Nickleby still retains her accolade as the Monster of the Month from the novels by Dickens that I have read so far. Quilp in ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ is more of a grotesque than a monster and the grandfather at least has the good grace to die decorously on Nell’s grave; he is not allowed to live on with his crimes of selfishness unpunished!

For me the real interest in the novel, apart from the apocalyptic descriptions of industrialisation, lies in the descriptions of infantile sexuality. There is a thoroughly unpleasant series of questionable relationships. Nell is constantly described as Little Nell, but her position as a child is constantly compromised by the burden of adulthood which she is forced to bear because her ostensible protector cannot fulfil that role. People’s responses to her emphasise her physical attractiveness and there is often a sexual tone in the way in which she is positioned in the novel: often the narrative allows a sexual responsiveness on the part of other adult characters to the child. Her grandfather’s confusion takes the idea that Nell’s mother and grandmother all have a physical similarity, which almost encourages sexual confusion.

Other examples of child sexuality are found in Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness, where the proprieties are preserved by Dick paying for the education of the Marchioness until she is of marriageable age, though it is obvious that he entertains more than platonic feelings towards her when she is still the very small servant. His naming of this unattached female is interesting, choosing the appellation of Sophronia Sphynx which makes the girl into an object, almost like some form of dramatic act, while the surname Sphynx emphasises the danger inherent in Dick’s views of women: part lion, part woman.

Kit in his responses to Barbara undergoes a ‘ripening seed’ experience as Barbara encourages him to think in sexual terms about their relationship rather than in terms of friendship. Kit, like Nell is forced by circumstances to adopt the role of an adult so with his mother, he often appears more like a husband than a son.

Quilp has the most amoral approach to his relationships, though given his hatred of ‘everybody’ his actions are understandable, in a way you could even say that he is true to himself! His bullying attitude towards his wife is expressed in physical abuse as well as verbal contempt. Quilp often accompanies his diatribes against humanity with physical blows. Although Quilp is an adult, as a dwarf he shares his size with children and his wife constantly is in fear of him, but at the same time is fascinated by him and wants him as a husband. Her sexual reaction to this hideous dwarf is incomprehensible and compellingly realistic. Tom Scott too, although constantly attacked by Quilp has a sympathetic reaction when his master dies. Whatever the reader might think about Quilp, he is physically vital and exudes a sort of raw animal power.

The one unalloyed success in terms of marriage is the partnership of the Garlands, but their happy marriage produces a fairly vapid son who, amazingly, falls in love, “How it happened, or how they found it out, or which of them first communicated the discovery to the other, nobody knows.” This is an unconvincing relationship manufactured by the author to tie up loose ends at the end of the novel, and another relationship where the sexual experience is questionable, to say the least.

The ambiguity of relationships is taken to a different level with the brother and sister partnership of Sally and Sampson Brass. The masculine appearance of Sally and her strange dress constantly confounds strangers and, while we can appreciate a strong woman held back by convention from taking a full part in the profession in which she is expert, her lack of morality is depressing. Her brother is outwardly expected to be the stronger, but as his name suggests, he can be easily tames by a woman. Their surname also suggests the emptiness of their enterprises, the sounding brass signifying very little. That Sally is not immune to male attention makes her even more grotesque as in the flirting between Dick and herself, he constantly refers to her as a man! The sexual ambiguity there is too complex to contemplate with equanimity!

The schoolmaster with his obsession with his favourite pupil which is then transferred to Nell is an uneasy portrayal: his dedication is clear but his concentration on the physical melding of his dead male pupil and his live young friend suggests that this androgynous pedagogic creation is fulfilling a particular physical need in the schoolmaster’s life.

At the end of the novel I think that I am most impressed with the portrayal of a gambling addiction and the lengths to which the old man goes to satisfy his physical need to gamble and also the literally fatal convoluted justifications that he needs to find to allow him to continue in his destructive path.

Although there is the usual Dickensian ‘happy ending’ at the
end of the novel you are left with a heavy burden of misery and the intolerable burdens that some of the characters have had to bear. I know that this novel was immensely popular when it was published with Americans meeting the boat which brought the next instalment of the story, and crying out to the crew about the fate of Little Nell. Its obvious sentimentality is not to the modern taste and I think that many readers will and have shared Oscar Wilde’s naughty observation that, “One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.”

An uneasy read.

The next novel is ‘Barnaby Rudge’ not one of Dickens’ most popular novels, though taking the Gordon Riots as the basis for its major action it keeps alive a most discreditable incident in British history.