A
lot of Charles Dickens’ novels are titled with the name of the main character:
- The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
- Barnaby Rudge
- Little Dorrit
- The Mystery of Edwin Drood
- And, of course, Martin Chuzzlewit
Dickens
usually has loads and loads of characters—some being more interesting or
assertive than the titular character—often divided into subplots of their own
which eventually weave tighter and tighter together. These subplots orbit the
main plot that concerns the title character, sometimes converging. Sometimes
the titular character is not so much the Hero as the MacGuffin…like Edwin Drood
who is allegedly killed.
But,
through it all, one has a good idea who to root for and to which characters one
is supposed to become emotionally attached.
No
such luck in Martin Chuzzlewit,
however. This story opens not with an
introduction of the hero, but with the villain: Seth Pecksniff.
Because Dickens
was focused on the Selfishness concept in all of his characters, Pecksniff is
not a villain of violence or criminality, but of hypocrisy. As his name
suggests, he pecks at people’s morals and sniffs defensively if anyone says anything
critical of him. He seems to be able to cry at will—always tears of pity for
those less noble and pure than himself. He is a respected architect who never
actually designs everything because he is too busy taking apprentices under his
wing, assigning them projects that mysteriously get built in Pecksniff’s
name…once he’s added a window or something to improve and polish the
apprentice’s rough draft, of course.
But
back to the opening of the story. We’re introduced to the pious Pecksniff and
his equally hypocritical daughters Charity “Cherry” and Mercy “Merry” (both of
whom live up to the opposite of their namesakes), as well as permanent
apprentice/blissfully oblivious slave, Tom Pinch. We also briefly meet John
Westlock, the most recent of the revolving door of Pecksniff’s students--there
tends to be a high turnaround because everyone except Tom Pinch seems to
quickly catch on to the fact that they’re paying Pecksniff to do his work for
him.
Finally,
we meet Martin Chuzzlewit—except it’s not quite the Martin Chuzzlewit the
reader is expecting, but rather his rich and crotchety grandfather. Here’s
where the plot starts to be promising; Grandpa Chuzzlewit happens to be
traveling by Pecksniff’s home when he suddenly becomes sick. He and his
companion/ward, Mary, are forced to stop at an inn. Pecksniff is actually a
relative of the Chuzzlewit family, and sensing his opportunity to get in good
with the rich old guy (who may be on his deathbed) he goes to see if there is
anything he can do…to help his aged and respected relation, of course.
Grandpa
Chuzzlewit is like Ebenezer Scrooge without the darkly hilarious sense of
humor. Paranoid about all his family after his money, he took in the innocent
orphan Mary to be a companion to him, with the understanding that she would not inherit anything from him upon his
death. This was supposed to ensure that she would want him to stay alive…except
then she fell in love with his grandson, also named Martin Chuzzlewit.
Although
he took his sweet time showing up in the first place, I was ready to like young
Martin Chuzzlewit. I figured he’d be like the other Dickensian protagonists,
like Nicholas Nickleby, hotheaded but goodhearted and at odds with his stingy
older relative (in Nickleby’s case, his Uncle Ralph). However, because Dickens
is so obsessed with his pet theme, Martin is too Selfish to be heroic. Most of
Dickens’ heroes are paragons of goodness…and there isn’t much more to their
characters. With Martin’s “goodness” suffocated with Selfishness, Martin is
left devoid of personality and relegated to little action besides whining and
fighting with his grandfather.
Upon
discovering their attachment, Grandpa Chuzzlewit has a huge fight with Martin.
Sensing proverbial blood in the water, the rest of the Chuzzlewit relations
(Pecksniff included) gravitate to Grandpa Chuzzlewit’s sickbed, all hoping to
take the place of his alienated heir.
Meanwhile,
Martin, having left his grandfather in a huff, and so he finds himself slaving
away apprenticing for Pecksniff by way of occupation. This lasts all of two
minutes before Pecksniff decides he’d better please Grandpa Chuzzlewit instead
of ingratiating himself to the heir to the family fortune…especially if that
“heir” ends up getting disinherited. In a show of magnanimous solidarity for
the old man, Pecksniff throws Martin out.
It’s
at this point that I think Dickens started getting writer’s block, or realized
that his characters were extremely boring, or otherwise noticed the fundamental
problems in this story. And it’s here that I think Dickens made his fatal
storytelling mistake. Instead of trying to fix the boring characters by adding
depth and sympathetic facets, Dickens decides what would fix EVERYTHING is a
change of scenery. So he sends Martin and sidekick character Mark Tapley to
America.
And
then he forgets about them, spending a lot of time with the Pecksniff
daughters, Tom Pinch, and a second villain, Martin’s cousin Jonas Chuzzlewit.
Jonas is a much more stereotypical villain—crude, violent, scheming. He courts
both of the Pecksniff daughters, playing each against each other before finally
marrying Merry…and making sure that she is anything but.
Eventually,
Dickens remembers the title of this novel and returns to Martin’s adventures in
America. It’s not pleasant, and I’ll have to set aside a separate post to talk
about that more thoroughly. Dickens still doesn’t spend too much time dwelling
on his so-called main character, and not much actually happens in America
except that Martin and Mark Tapley end up getting conned into buying real
estate in what turns out to be a swamp, lose all their money, get malaria or
something and nearly die, and finally borrow money from the only decent
American character in order to get back home to England and rejoin the rest of
the cast of characters.
In
fact, I’d argue that the only useful
thing that the American trip does is get Martin thoroughly out of the way so
that Pecksniff can be even more villainous. With the grandson out of the way,
Pecksniff convinces Grandpa Chuzzlewit to move in with him—bringing Mary
along—and then decides that he’s going to steal Martin’s girl. This caddish
behavior is enough to finally bring Tom Pinch (who has also secretly fallen in
unrequited love with Mary) to his senses about his employer’s true nature. In
one of the most aggravating scenes, Mr. Pecksniff fires Tom when Tom tries to
confront him.
Tom
goes to London to renew his friendship with John Westlock and to and rescue his
sister Ruth from her job as a demeaned governess. They find some lodging, and the
next morning Tom is mysteriously and miraculously employed.
I
will admit that once Dickens brings Martin and Mark back from America, and
actually starts having the different characters interact with each other
(rather than existing in separate subplots), the books starts to improve.
Unfortunately,
it’s too little, too late.
Because
he wasted so much time on disjointed events, the sudden convergence of plot
points and meetings of characters feels rushed and contrived. Despite Dickens
saying later that this was his best work, I think he realized it was a dud and
that it was time to wrap things up and move onto something else. Maybe if he
hadn’t been writing this as a serial, Dickens could have gone back and revised Martin Chuzzlewit into a decent story.
But since the book was being published as he was writing, he painted himself
into a proverbial corner, so the only option was to end it as satisfactorily as
possible…which wasn’t very satisfactory at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment