Dickens's Treatment of Education and Social Mobility in Dombey and Son - Essay Example

Shall we make a man of him?’ repeated the Doctor. ‘I had rather be a child,’ replied Paul. Dickens’s Treatment of Social Mobility and Educational Issues in Dombey and Son 1.0. Introduction A growing middle class and the emergence of the urban industrial setting during the 1800s brought about significant changes to England’s social structures. A certain tentative sense of pride and place emerged among the merchant class as these individuals struggled to gain greater positions for themselves and their family name. ‘The first industrial civilisation in the history of the world had come to a critical and defining stage’1 in the 1840s, becoming the chief concern of novel writers of the period such as Charles Dickens. However, these themes gained significant sophistication with the publication of Dickens’ novel Dombey and Son2. The novel, written in serialized form from June 1846 through 1848, enabled Dickens to reaffirm his popularity among the general public as well as with the critics. In this, his seventh novel, he continued to utilize this popularity to illustrate his concerns regarding the concerns of the nation, yet he did so with a new twist on the old theme. Rather than focusing directly on his concerns as he had done in earlier works such as The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby3, Dickens chose to focus on a single man, Mr. Dombey, painting his failures as being the direct result of emerging societal shortcomings. These shortcomings included the concerns of ‘elite’ instructional establishments and the constant societal jockeying for position and power among the social classes. Thus, his social criticisms, while still present, took on a more subtle and complex shading. 2.0. Social acceptance Dombey and Son represented a significant shift in the writing style of its author as ‘the first in which a pervasive uneasiness about contemporary society takes the place of an intermittent concern with specific social wrongs.’4 Unlike any of his earlier works, Dickens took special pains to be sure this novel had a specific direction and focus. These he defined in a letter to Mr. Forster upon his submission of the manuscript of Number I: I design to show Mr. D. with that one idea of the Son taking firmer and firmer possession of him, and swelling and bloating his pride to a prodigious extent. As the boy begins to grow up, I shall show him quite impatient for his getting on, and urging his masters to set him great tasks, and the like. But the natural affection of the boy will turn towards the despised sister; and I purpose showing her learning all sorts of things, of her own application and determination, to assist him in his lessons: and helping him always.5 This concept is substantiated by a comment made by Forster himself regarding the predecessor to Dombey and Son, Martin Chuzzlewit: ‘the difficulties he encountered in departing from other portions of his scheme were such as to render him, in his subsequent stories, more bent on constructive care at the outset, and on adherence as far as might be to any design he had formed.’6 As a result, Dombey and Son is able to present some biting commentary upon the issues Dickens felt important without completely alienating his more affluent reading public. The primary theme of the book becomes the excessive pride of Mr. Dombey and the redeeming power of his daughter’s love in being able to save not only himself, but those others around her as well. The social criticism in Dombey and Son cannot be abstracted from the novel […] It is pervasive, unformulated; not documentary in origin or usefulness; no purposeful journeys or reading of newspaper reports lie behind it, and it is not a convenient source for social historians. Partly for this reason, that it is inseparable, it assists instead of disturbing the firm unity of the design. It is part of the ‘Idea of the world’ which protects Dickens from being ‘prevailed over by the world’s multitudinousness.7 3.0. Personal background There are several hints that sections of Dombey and Son open the doorway to Dickens’s next great work, the mostly autobiographical David Copperfield. Evidence of this includes his depiction of the very close relationship between Paul and Florence, which mimics the type of relationship he enjoyed with his older sister Fanny, as well as in the lack of concern on the part of the parent for the overall health and welfare of the child. Writing about Dickens’ early experiences working in a blacking factory for a distant relation, biographers Michael & Mollie Hardwick commented, ‘In those days children worked as a matter of course, and the Dickens parents – never remarkable for their sensitivity – seem to have felt no compunction about sending the delicate, clever child to that crazy, tumble-down old house on the river, swarming with rats and noisome with dirt and decay.’8 In addition, Dickens admits his first real breakthrough in allowing portions of his more disagreeable past to be released in a public work, ‘I hope you will like Mrs. Pipchin’s establishment. It is from the life, and I was there – I don’t suppose I was eight years old; but I remember it all as well, and certainly understood it as well, as I do now. We should be devilish sharp in what we do to children.’9 Not only does Dickens reveal his own opinions regarding the education of children in the current (Victorian) system, but he also admits of his own participation in such practices and the effects such an environment had on him. According to Kathleen Tillotson, Dickens’ real-life model for Mrs. Pipchin was a lady by the name of Mrs. Roylance, whom he described as ‘a reduced old lady, long known to our family, in Little-College-Street, Camden Town, who took children in to board and had once done so at Brighton.’10 In his youth, Dickens himself had been one of Mrs. Roylance’s boarders as he labored during the day at the blacking factory and, once his father was released from Marshalsea where he had been serving time in debtor’s prison, the entire family took lodging in this establishment for a short time. Though a far cry from Mr. Dombey in terms of his temperament, Dickens was presumably just as determined that his wife should obey him and flashes of his determination can be seen in Dombey’s treatment of his second wife, Edith, in trying to establish his dominion over her.11 However, like Dombey, Dickens was not to be lucky in love on the home front, a theme that runs through nearly all of his novels. ‘With the relationship of marriage he deals conventionally, but without much warmth or conviction. All his passions and pathos and real feelings are spent on the prohibited degrees of kindred.’12 This perhaps is the reason why Dickens, more than any other writer of his time, was able to so seamlessly integrate his extraneous societal commentary into the story of his Mr. Dombey and the issue of pride versus innocent love. 3.1. The oblique approach That Dickens intended to include a great deal of social commentary in this novel cannot be denied either in terms of its construction or in his notes regarding the creation of the work. While deeply involved in the creation of the latter portion of the novel, he wrote to his friend Dr. Hodgson, ‘There is a great deal to do – one or two things among the rest that society will not be the worse, I hope, for thinking about a little.’13 In addition to his social commentary, Dickens forms the work around his own developed ideas regarding what the educational system should reflect: In his life-long concern with education, Dickens believed that the school of learning and the school of life must somehow contrive to keep the child innocent […] Dickens felt that the school of learning should become a moralized version of the practical world and teach the things close to the heart; naturalness, civility of conduct, warmth of feeling and expression. It should encourage right feeling, cheerfulness, and generosity, and discourage artificiality, deceitfulness, and preservation of human goodness; if one is rightly educated, then one can preserve his innocence in a world of temptation.’14 From his personal experience and perspectives, Dickens is able to infuse this story with an unspecified yet quite directed commentary upon the changing social world of Victorian society as well as his own educational concerns, both for the upper and lower classes. Unlike his other stories, and many of the stories produced by Dickens’s contemporary authors, Dombey and Son, by focusing on Dombey’s relationships with others, exposes these ideas as they are actually carried out and experienced by these characters. […] as the action develops, unknown and unacknowledged relationships, profound and decisive connections, definite and committing recognitions and avowals are as it were forced into consciousness. These are the real and inevitable relationships and connections, the necessary recognitions and avowals of any human society. But they are of a kind that are obscured, complicated, mystified, by the sheer rush and noise and miscellaneity of this new and complex social order.15 4.0. Clues to Dickens’ meaning Everything within the novel can be seen to be turned to the focus of one character, but each element also has a part to play in illuminating the ways in which contemporary society was changing for the worse. ‘Not only the comedy, but all the characters and all the action are subordinated to Mr. Dombey […] He is the origin, center and continuum of the novel.’16 The nature of Dombey, himself, can only emerge in a society full of the types of ills of which Dickens is so concerned. ‘The social intentions of the novel are pointed by the title, and the status of the hero. He is Palmerston’s “princely merchant in his counting-house”; a character “which could only be produced in a country who commerce embraces the globe, whose merchants are potentates.”’17 The establishment of social order and class systems appears early in the book through the description of Dombey’s entrance to his offices. The court in front of the office is full of various types of stalls and vendors, each calling out to sell their wares, which are listed as primarily items of comfort. Yet none of these vendors attempt to entice Dombey. ‘It is characteristic that when Mr. Dombey arrives none of these passing commodities is offered to him. His kind of trade, reflected in his house […] has established itself in colder, more settled, more remote ways.’18 This interconnectedness had been previously established by Dickens in his other novels as well. ‘The physical world is never in Dickens unconnected with man. It is of his making, his manufacture, his interpretation. That is why it matters so much what shape he has given it.’19 Ensuring these connections are made by the reader, there are two primary symbols within Dombey and Son that serve to provide physical clues to the social world Dickens is striving to illuminate. These are the home of Dombey and the railroad. While the house is described in depressing luxury in chapter 3 and is seen to languish in the absence of its master in chapter 23 as Florence despondently seeks comfort among the servants, it is revitalized with the impending marriage of Mr. Dombey and Edith in chapter 38 and finally stripped by the auctioneers in chapter 59 with the fall of the house of Dombey.20 As the house is described lifeless and silent, the street outside is bustling with business. ‘The contrast between the dismal establishment and the strolling variety of the streets is very clearly made. Again, the characteristics of house and people are consciously exchanged.’21 Likewise, the railroad can be seen as a harbinger of change, levelling towns and classes with one sweep of its steam-powered engine. Through these connections, Dickens establishes the concept of deeper meaning to be gleaned, but does not provide as many of the precisely numbered stepping stones with which he once led his audience. Occasionally, the narrative offers glimpses into Dickens’ vision for a better future, such as: For only one night’s view of the pale phantoms rising from the scenes of our too long neglect; and from the thick and sullen air where Vice and Fever propagate together, raining the tremendous social retributions which are ever pouring down, and ever coming thicker. Bright and blest the morning that should rise on such a night; for men, delayed no more by stumbling-blocks of their own making, which are but specks of dust on the path between them and eternity, would then apply themselves, like creatures of one common origin.22 However, it remains primarily through the form and structure of the relationships experienced that these types of sentiments are expressed regarding social mobility and social class. Like the relationship between the house and the people, the relationship between Dombey and those around him illustrate the disconnectedness of pride and class perception and the trouble this causes in the pursuit of education and status. 4.1. Dombey’s relationships Despite his coldness and refusal to expose himself to any semblance of a caring relationship with another human being, Mr. Dombey provides the pivot point around which all of Dickens’ commentary can revolve. ‘The relation between Mr. Dombey and Florence is the backbone of the whole book; structurally, the relation between him and Paul and that between Florence and Paul, are only means of exposing and developing it.’23 This oblique approach has the effect of giving these issues a much deeper development than previous attempts because of its lack of focus. ‘In so far as Dombey and Son is a “social” novel, its prevailing mood is one of deep disquiet about contemporary values, a suggestion that more is amiss with them than mere exposure and reform can hope to touch.’24 In his relationship with Florence, or rather lack of it, Mr. Dombey illustrates one half of the concept of children as commodity in the new order as well as the equated lack of worth if one is not of the correct gender to undertake serious business negotiations. Being disappointed that his first-born child is only a girl, Mr. Dombey prefers to forget Florence’s existence almost entirely from the beginning, “But what was a girl to Dombey and Son! In the capital of the House’s name and dignity, such a child was merely a piece of base coin that couldn’t be invested.”25 Once Florence becomes of such importance to her younger brother Paul, thereby stealing some of the affection or attention that should have come naturally to Mr. Dombey himself, Dombey’s reaction to this frightened child becomes even more hostile, directly rejecting her following Paul’s death. With the entrance of Edith, Dickens illustrates a more normal relationship between a parent and child. ‘They seem to answer each other’s needs perfectly, in that Florence can now show an appropriate daughter’s love […] and Edith, with a chance to give rather than resist and destroy, seems to have found something close to redemption.’26 Again finding himself forced to share the object of his passing affection, or newest prize, with his daughter, Mr. Dombey rejects Florence even further, eventually striking her upon Edith’s departure. Despite this harsh treatment of his daughter, it remains Florence who will eventually provide Mr. Dombey with the realization of any hopes he might have had for his retirement years as Dickens indicated early on to his friend Forster: “His only staff and treasure, and his unknown Good Genius always, will be this rejected daughter, who will come out better than any son at last, and whose love for him, when discovered and understood, will be his bitterest reproach.”27 In this final truth, that Florence proves to be the one good and lasting thing to come out of the House of Dombey, Dickens emphatically asserts that the traditional view of a woman as useless remains false and that the contemporary view of woman as worthless in the emerging capitalist society is equally false. His love for his son is based entirely on the idea of bringing up a family representative to carry on the business. Dickens’ plan is in the simplest tradition of straightforward propaganda: Show how wrong such a man and his economic philosophy can be. Mr. Dombey loses his son and his wife: strangely enough his daughter loves him and saves him when he reforms at the last.28 This concept is further brought to bear, although in an alternate sense, in the case of Mr. Dombey and his relationship with Edith. In keeping with his theme that women were beginning to come into their own status, ‘She [Edith] is really Mr. Dombey’s “mighty opposite”; not only because her pride, equal to his in strength but warm-blooded where his is cold, is a cry against corruption; but because she is potentially his equal in stature and depth.’29 The entire Edith situation helps Dickens illustrate the vestiges of the social class system in England during the Victorian era, as well as how that class system was being undermined, broken down and redefined. Like Paul, Edith is seen as little more than a commodity, not only by Mr. Dombey, but also through her own eyes. “You know he has bought me,” she resumed. “Or that he will, to-morrow. He has considered of his bargain; he has shown it to his friend; he is even rather proud of it; he thinks that it will suit him, and may be had sufficiently cheap; and he will buy to-morrow. God, that I have lived for this, and that I feel it!” [...] There is no slave in a market: there is no horse in a fair: so shown and offered and examined and paraded, Mother, as I have been, for ten shameful years,” cried Edith, with a burning brow, and the same bitter emphasis on the one word.30 4.2. Changing social scales Rather than showing Edith to be the social climber, constantly trying to improve her position in society by working to increase her wealth, the relationship between Mr. Dombey and Edith works to bring into focus Mr. Dombey’s own struggles to improve his reputation, highlighting the depravity and dehumanization inherent in the new order. While Edith refuses to play the game of artful seductress, Mr. Dombey can be seen to quickly connect himself to the Major, despite his gruff ways. This may at first seem puzzling, until it is realized what the social position of the major can be presumed to be By the standards of the time, the retired Indian Army Major […] is at least on the edge of a class a cut above the wealthy City merchant; his friendship marks an advance in Mr. Dombey’s dignified upward climb, whereas Miss Tox owed her temporary elevation only to her insignificance. One of the functions of this chapter [Ch. 5] is to plant the Major firmly in the picture as the coming instigator of the second marriage; to groom him for the part of go-between in the common exchange of wealth for ‘blood.’31 Mr. Dombey selects Edith as his next wife, a necessary attachment as he now needs another son, not only because of her beauty and accomplishments, but primarily because of her social standing and the benefits this can bring him. Is it so surprising, then, that she views him with the same sort of disdain as he has been seen so far to view those he considers beneath him? Yet Dickens doesn’t allow even ‘blood’ to retain its previous social position in Edith, as she eventually throws away all sense of position in her flight with Mr. Carker. ‘[…] [I]t is through the figure of Carker’s mouth and teeth that the menacing anxieties of the age come most sharply into focus. They are figures for the hypnotic and destructive power of capital over individuals and over society at large.’32 In one move, Carker is able to destroy the social status of Dombey as the trading house falls as well as the status once held by Mrs. Dombey as she runs away with him to her own freedom from social constraints she’s struggled against all her life. 5.0. The nature of education in Dombey’s world The idea that education’s primary purpose is to establish a social position for the child in question rather than for any other potential benefit to the child him- or herself is heavily emphasized throughout the novel. Edith herself illustrates the point when discussing her impending marriage proposal from Dombey. “A child! […] when was I a child? What childhood did you ever leave to me? I was a woman – artful, designing, mercenary, laying snares for men – before I knew myself, or you, or even understood the base and wretched aim of every new display I learnt. […] Look at me,” she said, “who have never known what it is to have an honest heart, and love. Look at me, taught to scheme and plot when children play; and married in my youth – an old age of design – to one whom I had no feeling but indifference.”33 This passage illustrates the type of education Edith, born of high blood, was provided, drilling her in such activities as art, music and homemaking that would make her as desirable as possible among the affluent gentlemen of society with little to no regard for her own interests, talents or desires. Although Edith’s case is the most blatantly spelled out case of education being provided for the express purpose of impressing an outside crowd rather than directly benefiting the child personally, the novel nevertheless manages to point out the problems inherent in both the public schools intended for the common children as well as the affluent private schools intended only for the most privileged students. Dombey and Son is also a plea for children; generally for their right to be treated as individuals, instead of appendages and hindrances to parental ambition, and particularly, against the wrongs done to them in the name of education. It is a measure of this novel’s largeness of scope that it is not often thought of as an exposure of misconceived schooling; but it is not less so than Nicholas Nickleby and penetrates into more protected places.34 The educational commentary within Dombey and Son is similar to the commentary included in other novels by Dickens. ‘Education […] is usually presented in Dickens as a racket, a brutal and malignant racket with Squeers and Creakle, a force-feeding racket in the “fact” school of Hard Times and the classical cram school of Dr. Blimber in Dombey and Son.’35 5.1. Childhood examples While Edith’s case is presented late in the novel and from the perspective of a grown woman and therefore much removed, Dickens does not allow the educational system off the hook so easily. The first portion of the novel is devoted to the upbringing and training of the sickly little Paul. Despite his obvious frailty, Mr. Dombey decides to place his son in the exclusive school of Dr. Blimber, that he may be ahead of all other boys in his training as befits his station as the future head of Dombey and Son. The school is described in terms of a grotesque garden in which each plant was forced into the strict design of the master: Doctor Blimber’s establishment was a great hothouse, in which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew before their time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber’s cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the driest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to hear, Doctor Blimber made him to pattern, some how or other.36 Highlighting the fact that the children’s concerns, talents or abilities were not generally taken into account is the reply made by Little Paul when he is interviewed for the school: ‘Shall we make a man out of him?’ repeated the Doctor. ‘I had rather be a child,’ replied Paul. […] ‘Never mind,’ said the Doctor, blandly nodding his head, to keep Mrs. Pipchin back. ‘Ne-ver mind; we shall substitute new cares and new impressions, Mr. Dombey, very shortly. You should wish my little friend to acquire –‘ ‘Everything, if you please, Doctor,’ returned Mr. Dombey, firmly.37 While Little Paul’s feelings are questioned, they are completely ignored, as is his health. The effects of the school on the other boys is equally telling, as a means of illustrating that it isn’t just because of Paul’s poor health that the school seems so harsh. His roommates both exhibit signs of distress in their dreams, as Dickens notes that ‘Briggs was ridden by his lesson as a nightmare: and that Tozer, whose mind was affected in his sleep by similar causes, in a minor degree, talked unknown tongues, or scraps of Greek and Latin – it was all one to Paul – which, in the silence of the night, had an inexpressibly wicked and guilty effect.’38 However, it is in the character of Toots, who has left all such learning behind despite his remaining at the school, that the pressures of this learning style are exemplified. ‘[Toots’] schooldays remain his touchstone for experience – “I never saw such a world. It’s a great deal worse than the Blimber’s.” He carries their [the children’s] innocence through the novel, as well as their scars.’39 As Little Paul suffers his lessons at the hands of the Blimbers, Florence is left to languish in the home of Mrs. Pipchin however she may. The extent of her education and that she is only educated because of a rare instance of boldness on her part, asking her father for lessons, is made clear through the words of her maid and friend, Susan Nipper: ‘how can you talk like that, when you have book upon books already, and masterses and missesses a teaching of you everything continual, though my belief is that your Pa, Miss Dombey, never would have learnt you nothing, never would have thought of it, unless you’d asked him – when he couldn’t well refuse; but giving consent when asked, and offering when unasked, Miss, is quite two things.’40 However, the fact that Mr. Dombey is missing out on knowing the intelligence he has left neglected is also made clear as it is Florence who forebears to keep up her own studies as well as to obtain the books from which Paul is being taught so as to better help him through his lessons. In this interaction, Dickens illustrates the importance of allowing girls as well as boys to receive an adequate education. This commentary upon the more elite schools and education systems in vogue among the wealthy is accompanied by a more subtle commentary on the educational institutions in place for the poor, illustrated through the placement of Robin Toodle in the Grinders School. The sentiments of Mrs. Toodle are summarized by the unknowing Mrs. Chick upon the dismissal of Paul’s wet nurse and the comments of Dickens himself. “I should feel as if the Charitable Grinders’ dress would blight my child, and the education choke him.” For the matter of that – but Mrs. Chick didn’t know it – he had been pretty well blighted by the dress already; and as to the education, even its retributive effect might be produced in time, for it was a storm of sobs and blows.41 As Robin eventually becomes the accomplice of Mr. Carker in his shady dealings, it can be seen that this sort of educational draw had nothing but ill effect on the eldest child of the Toodles, and it is not until he returns home at last that he is able to escape its effects. Mr. Dombey’s other educational mistake is more briefly but more angrily exposed: the committing of Robin Toodle to the mercies of the Charitable Grinders. And here he can venture to admit the twisting of a character by miseducation; if not beyond repair, since, restored to his parent and Miss Tox at the close, Rob is beginning to reform.42 6.0. Appeal to the audience By illustrating his social and educational concerns in the actions and narrative of the main characters within the story, Dickens is able to flesh out his ideas in much greater detail than the point by point stories of the past. He is able to draw upon public sympathy in the case of Little Paul, and creates Florence in a similar image that naturally draws out human compassion. ‘Paul’s death had much the same effect on Dickens’ reading public that Nell’s had had. Again, persons of high literary reputation were affected just as were those of humble station. […] In Dombey and Son, then, both Paul and Florence, as one expects of Dickens’ children, are sentimental creations.’43 This sympathy draws the reader into the novel with a much stronger pull even as the characters involved work to point out the wrongs of the Victorian society. In bringing forth his argument and establishing Dombey as the primary agent of social illustrations, Dickens also establishes the idea of Dombey as merely a representative, not an exception, of a product of the emerging capitalist society: Beginning with Dombey’s “master-vice”, and its traditional reference to “Nature”, he [Dickens] has gone on to describe a process in which men work to change nature and to produce “enforced distortions”. The argument then slips imperceptibly to the strongest social feeling he then had: his horror in seeing the diseased slums of the city, produced by indifference and neglect: a Hell produced and maintained by men.44 This same attention can be seen to have been given to the issues surrounding education, placing commentary within the context of the story and allowing the characters of the novel to demonstrate the points he was trying to make. He taught his readers to think much of children just at the time when England had especial need of an educational awakening. Not his satire alone, but his so-called sentimentality, served a great purpose, and the deathbed of Paul Dombey, no less than the sufferings of Mr. Creakle’s little victim, helped on the better day.45 7.0. Conclusion Throughout the novel, Dickens continues to bring into focus his ideas regarding the new social order emerging in the industrialized Victorian world even as he continues to push for reform. This can be seen early in the novel in the relationship between Polly, or Mrs. Richards as Mr. Dombey prefers to call her, and Little Paul, who depends upon her for his early sustenance. ‘At all points the social moral is pressed home: here first is clearly emphasized the interdependence of the classes, the relation beyond the cash nexus. Polly has feelings that wealth cannot buy; the heir of Dombey and Son has needs which his father’s pride rejects at his peril.’46 In describing how Mr. Dombey views the world, as if everything in it were made simply to provide he and his son with firmament to walk upon, Dickens makes a observation that if man can remake nature in such an ugly image, it surely follows that man can also remake the world in a better image. […] it is a way of seeing the kind of system that is imposed, that is made central. It is qualified, precisely, by the other kinds of physical life and confidence in which men are making their own worlds […] It is not only that power is ambiguous – the power to create new worlds. There is also a choice: a choice of the human shape of the new physical environment. Or there can be a choice – we can be in a position to choose – if we see, physically and morally, what is happening to people in this time of unprecedented change.47 With social status and climbing proving unreliable at best and the educational system seen to destroy rather than build the future generation, it remains up to Florence and her untarnished innocence from the new order, to save the day. ‘[Florence] saves the grown-up world from itself by love and sympathy and perseverance. It is her world, and Paul’s too, which finally become the real one,’48 making Dickens point that while money has taken precedence, only love and compassion can truly make a better world. Read More