DICKENS AND HIS OLDER PEOPLE: Transitional, Middle and Later Novels ( 1842-1870)

                   The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and                                                      Observations of

                     DAVID COPPERFIELD

                                                              The Younger 

                     of  Blunderstone Rookery, which he never

                 meant to be published on any account ( 1849/50)

                              PART ONE: Contextual Overview

                            

Arguably, to understand David Copperfield, it is essential to understand Charles Dickens. Several intersections need to be explored in this, his eighth major novel. Herein lies the challenge before we examine the fourteen older characters I will feature. In total, there are some one hundred and fourteen players throughout the book and, surprisingly, older adults only comprise just over twelve per cent. The significant intersections relate to David's coming of age and the semi-autobiographical aspect of him being a proxy for the child Dickens himself. The challenge is to avoid over focusing. Though, as you will see, they cannot be ignored in literary criticism terms, but neither can the link to both the child and the thirty-seven-year-old Dickens' reflection of his own childhood.

Some of the intersections have been discussed previously ( Eastman 2026), but they and others come significantly into play throughout David Copperfield. This somewhat lengthy contextual overview will therefore touch upon a broad range, thus allowing us to better understand, in Part Two, the older character portrayals and of Dickens himself 

• The eighteenth-century influence
• Childhood emotional development and trauma in Dickens's own life course
• Symbolism associated with Dickens and false memories
• Victorian sensibilities and the use of humour
• The 'Autobiographical Fragment' 
• Concealment of social class, gender, and age bias, sexuality and the 'undisciplined heart', erotics, masculinity, and homophobic anxiety.
• Dickens's misogyny?

                      The Eighteenth Century influence

                               

                       Figure 1. An Eighteenth Century Literary Influence on Dickens

It is said that Dickens's novels reflect eighteenth-century literary traditions and were especially influenced by the Scottish writer and surgeon Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) and, in particular, the Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832).  Dickens took 'many devices of characterisation' from Smollett, especially 'tagging' portrayals of physical peculiarities, speech, mannerisms, compulsive gestures, and eccentric names (Ochojski, 1964). This was evident in David Copperfield, following the 18th-century picaresque approach, in that many characters are rogues, serving as the glue binding 'unconnected episodes' together. As a young author, in his first two novels (Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist), he used this technique to great effect. He also draws upon the Century's theatrical practice, which  'sharply defined villains, it's involved melodramatic plots, and farcical humour, also suggesting ideas for Dickens own plots and character portrayals ( Bright Notes Study Guide 1964). Older people in both theatre and literature did not fare well, nor did the Society figures of the Establishment, who were especially satirised. This remained the staple diet throughout Dickens' writing career and was used devastatingly if viewed through our modern-day gerontological perspective. 

                                       

                        Figure 2. Another eighteenth-century influencer on Dickens

                                      www.beam-shop.de

                  

What was perhaps sacrificed on the altar of this picaresque tradition was the ability to analyse motivation and character development. The portrayals in Copperfield are initially seen through the eyes of the child, David. Behaviours become eccentricities, and wrongdoing becomes wickedness of monstrous proportions. In the preceding novel, Dombey and Son, the monstrous and wicked were moved from the personal to society's institutions. But as George Orwell pointed out, Dickens, whilst condemning society's ills and abuses, were niether political nor economic, but moral ones. Dickens seldom, if ever, provided substitutions for the systems he attacked. That said, it could equally be argued that his charitable initiatives and support did.

         Dickens' Childhood Emotional Development  and Trauma

Dickens was in his mid to late thirties when he wrote Copperfield and reflected the world of his childhood as he recalled it. From the outset, his proxy, David, is expected to be what he is not, even down to Betsy Trotwood's shock and dismay at his birth for not being a girl. He laments that part of him  - his caul - was sold. His stepfather, Murdstone, considered him to be spiteful, non-compliant and ungrateful. He was easily manipulated and struggled to assert himself or form his own character, but eventually, in his young adulthood and as a famous writer, David finds himself confident, self-assured, educated and nostalgic ( Bradly, S., undated). 'Educating Dickens' is reflected in David's own precarious experience,  where, by and large, he educates himself from his deceased father's library, and has an anxious and fearful childhood. He lives in fear at the Salam House School, especially after the sacking of Mr Mell, one of the masters, because he came from a lower-class background. Dickens uses David and Mell's experiences to demonstrate that education was for the upper-middle class and that society was too restricted regarding formal learning to what today we term the "poverty of opportunity". David was abused, and here Dickens emphasises that physical and emotional punishment is certainly not an aid to positive learning and childhood development. Dickens was himself a child of close observation, a secret history of 'rags to riches' and later of resilience with a strong will. His coming of age and early adulthood created a man of self-assurance and success. He was a respected and manly Victorian gentleman - indeed, a hero of his own life. ( Dunn, R (2004). real 

The childhood experiences of David and Dickens, real or imagined, are marked by trauma. The fictional abuse and neglect of David is best illustrated by quoting from Dickens's working plans -

 

' What I know well. 

 I became neglected and am provided for 

 I begin life on my (account) own account 

                               I go on with life, rather uncomfortably 

                                              on my own account and don't like it

                                         I make a resolution. ' 

                                                                                     BUTT & TILLOTSON (1957)

This is powerful in the context of Dickens's childhood employment in the Blackening Factory (Warrens), which, together with David's Salem House experience and his treatment by Murdstone, casts a long shadow, shaping the lives of both boys long after the events themselves have passed.  Childhood neglect, abandonment, abuse, and fear take a lifelong toll, even into later years and old age. Dickens/David became successful, if defined as financial security, a successful career,  providing for a family, (on their own account) and being regarded by the outside world as successful in being respected and admired with a generous social consciousness  ( in its account). Yet, these can mask significant emotional and mental health vulnerabilites. What we know today about 'childhood trauma is not the nature of the event(s) itself, but the profound and lasting impact it has on a child's development, brain, emotions and sense of self ( Copley, 2023). Look again at Dickens's working notes quoted above above.

                   Figure 3.  An illustrator's vision of Dickens working in Warren's                                             Blackening Factory ( 1832, at the age of twelve). Pinerest.com.

                       Figure 4. 'Mr Mell is Dismissed from Salem House', by Harry Furniss

                     (1910). 6th Illustration of David Copperfield. Vol 10. in Charles Dickens                                    Library edition. Caption:" once more Mr Mell laid a hand on                                     my shoulder, and then, taking his flute and a few books from his desk, he                                                              went out of the school...."

                                                           Victorian Web.org

  Childhood trauma, therefore, can lead well into adulthood and later life to multiple health and well-being issues. In terms of number and severity, they include low self-esteem, depression, shame, guilt, poor interpersonal relationships, attachment difficulties, mood swings, intense emotional reactions, controlling behaviour and feelings of betrayal. My social work experience in the fields of children and safeguarding, ageing and supporting older people in terms of social care practice and policy evidence this fact. Dickens, as we have previously discussed, exhibited a number of these personality and behavioural traits throughout his life. Whilst he never reached sixty plus years, his view of his own ageing, certainly in his fifties, trauma had led him to fear the very notion of ageing and old age. In the words of Fred Kaplan (1988) "at the heart of David Copperfield was a partly mediated version of himself that represented his effort to claim that he had come through, that all is well with him as he approached forty," - uncomfortably on his own account. That mediation did not lead to being at ease with his later years, but rather reinforced it.  Kaplan again writes of Dickens at this time, "Over the next ten years, the youthful, handsome Dickens became, to his shock, prematurely old. He grew painfully aware that the prices of hard work, success, and fatherhood were the unwanted assumption of middle age while inwardly feeling young, romantic, and unfulfilled"    

                                      Symbolism

It could be argued that most of the primary characters portrayed are symbols that represent ideas and concepts, for example, the sea ( the conflicts in the novel reach an uncontrollable level and are beyond human control). Flowers: ( representing images of rebirth and fresh perspectives), and Mr Dick's kite, ( the innocence of childhood and childishness ). (Spark Notes Study Guide (2026)

Yet more importantly, the very characters of David/Dickens are metaphors of childhood, social evils, and Victorian notions of masculinity and identity. It can also be argued that his older people equally reflect age stereotypes and discrimination, positive and negative prejudices and beliefs. 

                         Victorian Sensibility and the Use of Humour

Whilst David Copperfield could be seen as a cheerless work, it is, not surprisingly, without the humour of its older characters. The Micawbers, Mr Dick, Betsey Trotwood, Miss Mowcher  ( though aged forty-five) and possibly Dr Chillip. To be fair, however,  the humour applies intergenerationally and is a reflection of Victorian sensibilities. Those sensibilities were mirrored in all of Dickens's works, reflecting flaws, hypocrisy and injustices, imprisonment and much else besides. He became, even through his humorous commentary and portrayals, 'one of the era's greatest commentators, using both journalism and fiction as a repository of Victorian social conscience'. ( Diniejko, 2012). Nevertheless, the question is whether Dickens, the performer and comic, through his symbolism, portrayed images that reinforced sexism, racism, capitalism, and ageism. In rightly emphasising the numerous examples of his exposing social ills and injustice throughout his novels, Diniejko makes no reference to David Copperfield. Stanley Friedman (1978), in exploring mid-Victorian theodicy, calls attention to its "striking contradiction in that the narrator is ostensibly presenting a record of triumphant survival, but he (David) is obsessed with death", and whilst "self reliance is preached in times of crisis, the protagonist depends heavily on others for financial and emotional support." The 'novel's entire narrative, continued Friedman, " can be regarded as an attempt to determine whether effort or providence or chance is the decisive factor in the world, whether suffering can be redeemed, whether belief in divine justice can be reaffirmed" (p.128). Was Dickens hoisted on his own moral, philosophical and reformist petard?  

The farcical situations are designed to amuse, and the older characters of Micawber, Trotwood and even Mr Dick are clear examples. Sandip Agrawal (2019) posits that Dickens's portrayals are sympathetic and satirical, absurd even, yet never intended to mock, ridicule or demean but rather that the humour and pathos remain homely. It is important to acknowledge that humour and pathos apply to several characters, not just the older ones. For me, however, this perspective does not detract from the proposition that the very portrayals are evidence of unconscious and normalised institutionalised social and cultural ageism. They were, and remain, pathways through which Victorian and 21st-century ageism acts. The humour of Birthday Cards and media portrayals view older people as one homogeneous group, seen as a drain on both civic and civil society alike, perpetrating stereotypes or simply do not represent older people at all. ( Bailiss & Grisham, 2026).

                                The "Autobiographical Fragment"

Typically, John Forster reviewed David Copperfield during its serialisation, but made no reference to the abandoned autobiography (known now as the Fragment) having been entrusted by Dickens to him. The extracts provide evidence of Dickens's childhood labour, his sense of abandonment, and the 'secret agony of my soul being utterly neglected and hopeless'. The Fragment not only references the blackening factory, but also a childhood of financial precarity, his father's imprisonment, the upheavals of his repeatedly moving accommodation and the loss of his friendship networks. He escaped into the world of literature and storytelling. He writes, " my whole nature was penetrated with grief and humiliation" ( Forster 1872 in Dunn J, 2004). Subsequent commentators state that the Fragment serves as a poignant reflection on Dickens early years, his struggles, and the societal conditions that shaped his worldview ( Hellread 2025). It is important when reading David Copperfield to again emphasise that Dickens controlled the story of his life on his terms through his proxy, David. It informed David's coming-of-age storyline and the characters who populated the novel, but above all was a story of hardship and self-discovery, resilience and determination to overcome society's and family injustices. It did not, however, eradicate the trauma he carried with him throughout his life course. He remained tied and bound by 'Marleyian' chains, which, unlike Jacob Marley's, in his view, were not of his making.

Dickens was a man of secrets, and he was also duplicitous. Helen Kelly (2023) challenges us to 'exercise a greater degree of caution in talking about this part of his life" (the blackening factory). Furthermore, she writes,' for a century and a half, readers have been encouraged to follow Forster in viewing the riverside factory section in Copperfield as autobiographical' and 'do we need to extend autobiographical readings to other Dickens novels'. Kelly questions that 'the blackening factory was a traumatic time, nor that it  occurred at all, or certainly not in the way we have thought; that Dickens's life, aged eleven to thirteen, may have been quite different; that he may have deliberately edited events to make his resentment of his parents appear more justified than it really was or to conceal his relations; it's disruptive, challenging.'  Also see Michael Allen's  Charles Dickens and the Blacking Factory (2011), who concedes that whilst Dickens's young memory and understanding may have failed him, he is more sympathetic to him, and Forster.

  

Unmasking Sex, Sexuality, Pornography, Gender Issues, Social Class and Bias

 

In relation to several of Dickens' novels, James Adams' contribution to The Oxford Handbook of Charles Dickens (2018) specifically addresses sexuality, gender, masculinity, femininity, desire repression, and homoerotism in David Copperfield. He does so in the context of Dickens' management of sexual desire. Copperfield's subplot, whilst focused on the young wife of the 60-year-old Dr Strong, is David's presumption that she must therefore be unfaithful, given the age difference between them. This was during a time when marriages between young female adults and older men were not uncommon. 

                            

         Figure 5.Source:[ date unknown] Presentation David Copperfield PPT.                                                                          www.slideshare.net

To deny the possibility that a teenage boy or girl do not have sexual fantasies would be ridiculous. Adams asserts that 'throughout Dickens, scenes of masculine rivalry capture the often homo-erotic energies between men' ( e.g, Heep's profession of love for Agnes). Social class is also a factor in considering the expectation that Victorian men are men if they effectively self-manage their sexual desires and subsequent responses. Ambition and success demonstrated to their peers and community their gentlemanly position in society. What is Dickens, through the adolescence and young adulthood of David, saying about himself and his own 'undisciplined heart'?  

Dickens continues to be seen as the iconic Victorian man, but was he? Do we read too much into his life course and works? Professor Robert Giddings, in a Paper presented to London University ( 2004), said that 'direct connections between his biographical details and fiction may be easily drawn but may be equally unrealistic'. Point well made. Nowhere is this caution more relevant than when exploring sex and sexuality in Copperfield. Giddings again: ' Dickens was always fascinated by the power of sexuality, both in his private life and in exploring sexuality in imagination. Both personally and creatively, he found himself in conflict with social convention and censorship, as well as with personal censorship' 

We know that the young and older adult Dickens was both personally and professionally no stranger to prostitution and sex workers,  which remains the subject of discussion in many commentaries. What is less discussed is whether he produced or consumed another aspect of the Victorian sex work industry, namely pornography. It was a booming market ( Joudrey 2015), and thus it is inconceivable that Dickens was unaware of it. Steven Marcus's seminal study (1966) on mid-nineteenth-century pornography concluded that 'Dickens neither produced nor consumed this material'. Prostitution and seduction are common themes in Dickens writing (e.g., Oliver Twist and David Copperfield), and even masturbation ( of which pornography is a significant aid) is alluded to in Great Expectations. Still, underground pornography is not referred to or condemned, nor can Dickens. I have written elsewhere on the issue of later-life pornography, in that it remains a valence issue ( Eastman 2006) and underpins the notion, even today, of condemnation.

There has, however, been a conflation of several other elements related to his sexual behaviour and motivations. His alleged relationships with his sister in laws ( Mary and Georgina Hogarth); infatuations leading to what today we may consider the stalking of Christina Weller (1844); the question of having had an affair with Ellen Turnham's mother in 1838 when he was twenty-six and that Ellen was in fact his daughter rather that his mistress; that he had also 'sought' ( at least in his own mind) a sexual relationship with the wealthy and highly religious Miss Angela Burdett Coutts ( 1814- 1906) which, thank God for his sake, remained a fantasy. The very questionable sexual predatory motives behind co-forming with her Urania Cottage have also been referenced in some quarters. (Macintyre and Wild, 2012).

Returning to Copperfield, David was portrayed as finding the young James Steerforth sexually attractive, thinking about him 'very much after he went to bed...his handsome face turned up, and his head reclining on his own.' Typically, Dickens expressed David's relationship with this older student and his own feelings by way of 'implication and allusion to sexual desire and activity.' (Oulton, C. 20 16). A boyhood crush with homo-erotic (sexual) undertones shows that Dickens understood and was sympathetic to sexual intimacy outside marriage, that gender differences were not deviant, sinful or sinister. He appears to take a different view on older people. Nevertheless, he understood and was cognizant of his readers and their sensibilities, including expressions of homosexual identity. (Nord, 2004). He certainly was not homophobic, nor did he see it in terms of sexual violence. 

Mary Poovey (2016) explores David's relationship with Little Emily, the niece of Peggotty and becomes the focus of his fantasies.  The sexuality of Emily intersects with her increasing sense of social class differences and later with David's. The binary Victorian view of male/female sexuality locates the burden of self-control on the woman, which can only be resolved through marriage, until, according to Poovey, 'the site of sexual guilt.'  

As a young adult and increasingly being recognised as a writer, David's sense of self is rooted in a rigid middle class social identity. This, as Poovey says, David and Agnes Wickfield (who eventually marries David ) protected their respective social class self-images by stabilising, firstly, the role of wife in running a tight domestic household and being a faithful partner. Secondly, the husband's taming and accommodating his sexual desires outside marriage. For this reason, Dickens reflects in Copperfield the contradictions of gender biases in terms of role, function and addressing sexual needs and desires according to Victorian middle class expectations. He demonstrates sexuality in childhood and early adulthood within the cultural sensibilities of the time. He, personally, and to his cost, breached the boundaries as a husband at almost every level. His unfaithfulness to Catherine, it should be pointed out, probably occurred throughout his marriage (e.g., if his affair with Ellen Ternan's mother is true) and his cruel separation of Catherine when she, in his view, became old, portly and no longer sexually attractive. 

                                        

                             Figure 6. Source: El Basle de Los Libros: blogspot.com

                                  Dickens, the Misogynist?

Professor Catherine Waters questions whether the accusation is justified and therefore should not be 'a defining feature of his life' (2020). Dickens' it is frequently said reinforced and reflected Queen Victoria's opinion that 'God created men and women different - let them remain each in their own position'. He held the belief that women agitating for the right to sit in Parliament were simply aspiring to become an 'inferior man'. Waters references  Mrs Jellyby (Bleak House), who, by the way, was portrayed as possibly fifty, and sacrificed her role as a 'loving, quiet wife, the good mother, the sweet, unselfish sister' on the altar of African philanthropic enterprises, as expressed in Household Words (1850) and probably penned by Dickens himself. 

British actor and author, Miriam Margolyes, a life long Dicken's enthusiast, co-authored with Sonia Fraser a delightful study of Dickens' women based on an exhibition curated by the Charles Dickens Museum ( London) 'Extraordinary Women in 2026. The authors and the Museum had to navigate the question of  his misogyny versus being 'a man of his time.' I accept that Dickens was indeed a conflicted and complex individual, with possibly ageist or gerontophobic tendencies, but we need to identify a pattern or bias in his portrayals. It is generally accepted that children and young girls/women do, but regarding older female adults, the jury is out. 

Telling, from 'Dickens Women', I was struck by its concluding narrative, which sums up a position held by many a Dickens enthusiast. I quote in full: "Dickens hasn't created a real woman. It's as if he's dragged from the depths of his own fears an iconic distillation of feminine power, misdirected and distorted. There is a problem with Charles Dickens, as there is with all geniuses whose lives seem to betray the gifts they own. We want a good writer to be a good man " Furthermore, ".... humanity transcends his cruelty; the prejudice, the sense of grievance of which he is occasionally guilty seem to fade, and at the end, I am left with the triumph of his imagination, and I'm happy with that" (p 94). Margoyles is no sycophant and is actually aware of his chuavanism, but avoids the label of misogynist. Whilst there is no overt commentary related to Dickens' general portrayals of older women, the musings on the character Mrs Skewton ( Dombey and Son) are noteworthy. Margoyles confesses that she included the character, 'drawn by the comic portrayal', but at the end of the excerpt, considered it with disgust, which Dickens always felt about women who should have been past the age of Lust but burned with the longing for Man. Maria Winter (nee Beadnell) was the progenitor of many such sad creatures (p22)

Mysogony, sexism, ageism, racism and ableism are frequently evident in Dickens' writings and his life course, but should they dominate our understanding of Dickens, and hence define him? If Sigmund Freud and Charles Dickens had been peers, what a field day that would be.

                             Why The Intersections Matter 

This contextual overview, comprising the intersections examined, is rooted in Victorian and English culture and acts as a wide-angle lens, rather than a microscope. It is therefore a thread through which we can examine Dickens and his older people. 

Female 'poor old dears,' frailty, dependency and deficit; old men, grumpy, scheeming or abusive are balanced with independent, intelligent, dynamic, kindly, generous, rich and poor older people. Whatever the portrayals, Dickens' life course and resultant writings  clearly reflected a 'mix of moral ideals, class distinctions, gender norms and emerging scientific and medical views. These attitudes were often contradictory - publicly restrained and moralistic, but privately more varied, with a thriving underground culture of erotica and hypocrisy' (Wikipedia.org 2026). If we were to keep to a simple binary approach  ( Dickens and novels) we would fail to acknowledge that culture and traditions have an impact on all aspects of who we are, what we believe and our attitudes and perceptions of what is and is not acceptable. Dickens being seen as simply a man of his time requires us to take into account social values, our life course from childhood to old age, their transitions and our perception of them. In addition, our personalities and what we find important, our humour, and our public and private lives is our moral compass.

Victorian ageism remains evident today, as does misogyny, sexism, social class, gender bias, racism and injustice. The notion of deserving and undeserving people and generational cohorts determines whether or not receiving civic and civil support is still enshrined in public and political discourse. In the mid-nineteenth century, class, gender, and old age became more defined, and especially youth orientated. The consequences which impacted Dickens and his notion of age and ageing were shaped by both late Georgian and Victorian dualism: good and bad, young and old, rich and poor and male and female. In terms of later life, the pioneering work by Edward Day (1849) in the field of 'gerontology' increasingly configured and legitimised ageist and discriminatory perceptions of age and ageing.

Hopefully, we now have a useful framework for Part Two that moves us to a directory of Dickens and his older people in David Copperfield.

                                References and Sources

ADAMS,J. 'The Trouble with Angels: Dickens, Gender and Sexuality' Chapter 25 ( Section David Copperfield) in PATTEN, R, JORDAN.J & WATERS, C. (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Charles Dickens. Oxford University Press, UK (2018) pp 261-365 and 363

AGRAWAL, S. 'David Copperfield' in Injamamul ' Humour, Pathos in Charles Dickens's David Copperfield. c.p & amp; Berar College/ SANSHODHAN.https://doi.org/10.53957/SANSHODHAN/2019/U811/142795

ANONYMOUS Contributor, but thought to have been Dickens, C: ' Rights and Wrongs of Women' . Household Words (1850's. Cited by WATERS. S : The Conversation. (June 4. 2020) 

BAILISS, H & CRAWSHAW, K. 'Challenging Internalised Ageism - Insights from Age Without Limits', Centre for Ageing Better (2026)

BRADLY, S. David Copperfield Book Analysis (undated). www.brightsummaries.com (p41)

BUTT,J. & TILLOTSON: Dickens at Work. London, Methuen ( 1957) Quoted in DUNN, R. (Ed). (p 8)

DAY, E. ' A Practical Treatise on the Domestic Management and Most Important Diseases of Advanced Life'. Lea & Blanchard. (1849). Quoted in HIND,H . 'Poor Old Dears: Visualising Female Ageing in Victorian Institutions from a thesis by ZADROZNY, S. ' The Victorianist: BAV Pages. British Association for Victorian Studies Pages hosted by VALK, M  (University of Birmingham and WHALLEY, L, Queen Mary University . ( Nov 19.2018)

DINIEJKO, A. 'Charles Dickens as a Social Commentator and Critic' The Victorian Web. Social History (Modified 7.2. 2012)

DUNN,R. (Ed). Charles Dickens. A Source Book' Contextual Overview. Routledge ( Taylor & Francis Group) London & New York. (p 9)

EASTMAN, M. 'Dickens And His Older People: The Portrayal of Older Adult Characters in the Early Novels of Charles Dickens (1836- 1841)' (Vol 1) . Noble Legacy Publishers. (2026)

EASTON, H. ' Yes, Charles Dickens Had Chauvinistic Views - But He Knew the Women in His Life Were Extraordinary'  Hesperous  Press Ltd. London. (2011)

FORSTER, J. ' The Life of Charles Dickens' Vol 1. London Chapman and Hall (1872) Quoted in DUNN, R. (page 20-22).

FRIEDMAN, S. 'Dickens' Mid Victorian Theodicy: David Copperfield'. Dickens Studies Annual. Vol 7. Penn State University Press. (1978).(p 128)

GIDDINGS, R ' Dickens and the Great Unmentionable. A Paper delivered on 20.03.2004, a contributor to a Conference held at the University of London Institute of English Studies. Published October 30th 2009.

- GIDDINGS references in his Paper, HALL, L. (1998), implying that Dickens probably had sex with underage prostitutes.

GROK AI. Downloaded 24.04.26 in response to a question ' What were Victorian attitudes to Old age sex. Its source was Wikipedia.

HALL, L. 'The Other in the Mirror: Sex, Victorians and Historians' Welcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, (1998)

HELLREAD (Author Unknown)' Autobiographical Fragment by Charles Dickens. (Nov 3rd 2025) https://hellread.com/2024/12/ 04/helo-world/

JOUDREY, L. 'Penetrating Boundaries: An Ethics of Anti Perfectionism in Victorian Pornography'. Victorian Studies .57(3)423.  (2015) Quoted ' Victorian Erotica' . Wikipedia.

KAPLAN, F. ' A Biography Dickens' The John Hopkins University Press. Baltimore & London (1988) (p 250)

KELLY, H. ' The Life and Lies of Charles Dickens'. Icon Books (2023). (pages 38, 39, 42)

MACINTYRE, B & WILD, R. 'Do What Dickens Didn't - Price Of Not Reading a Letter in Full (Moral in Last Paragraph). The Telegraph Online. Published 04.02.1912. (Downloaded 23.04.26)

MARCUS, S. 'The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-Nineteenth Century England. Corgi. (1966)

MARGOLYES, M & FRASER,S. 'Dickens Women' Hesperus Press Ltd . London (2011)

NORD, D,E. 'Book Review: Ellen Rosenman. Unauthorised. 'Pleasures: Accounts of Victorian Erotic Experience', Ithaca & London. Cornell University Press. Victorian Studies 46(4) .(pages 707-709)

POOVEY, M. 'The Man-of- Letters Hero; David Copperfield and the Professional Writer' ( Chapter 5) in NAYLOR, L. (Ed) 'Dickens, Sexuality and Gender'. A Library of Essays on Charles Dickens. Routledge. London & New York, (2016) .( pages 141-142)

OCHOJSKI, P. 'Study Guide to David Copperfield' . Bright Notes. www.BrightNotes.com. (pages 6-7)

ORWELL, G. Quoted in Bright Notes. (Page 10)

OULTON, C. W de la L. 'Romantic Friendship in Victorian Literature. (undated). https://doi.org/ 10.4324%2F9781315606' Quoted in Wikipedia ' Victorian Erotica'

RUCK, B. 'Charles Dickens's Secret Lovechild: An Untarnished Portrait of Ellen Ternan' Pen & Sword History. (2025) 

WATERS, C. 'Charles Dickens:150 years on, Debates rages over his 'misogynist' label. The Conversation. Posted June 4. 2020.  

  

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DICKENS AND HIS OLDER PEOPLE: TRANSITIONAL, MIDDLE & LATER                                                                NOVELS  (1842-1870)

                                         DOMBEY AND SON ( 1846) 

                       Dealing with the Firm of Dombey and Son

                           Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation

              PART TWO: The Cast of Major and Supporting Older                                     Adults: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Having explored in Part One the  'Curse of Middle Class Assumptions and Presumptions', we move on to an analysis of individual older characters. It is always important to note that Dickens's use of symbolism, the role of women, and the significance of the family and society at large were shaped by his language and style. On death, mourning and grief,  even more so. (:Lit.Summaries) The portrayals we will encounter display jealousy, family, prostitution, modernity, technology, education and loyalty. ( Barkley, D & Suduiko. A (Eds) 1925)  As usual, we have the peculiarities on which to draw and interpret, plus a cocktail of older people and their idiosyncrasies. 

MR PAUL DOMBEY: the Head of the City of London Merchant House and a dealer in hides, not hearts.

There is little to commend Dombey as a parent, a husband, or, to be honest, a person. We know he was in his late middle age and a couple of years off being one of Dickens' older people, as I have defined it. That said, it would be ridiculous to have excluded him as such. Described as 'rather bald, rather red, and though a handsome, well-man, too stern and pompous in appearance to be prepossessing. On the brow of Dombey, Time and his brother care had set some marks, as on a tree that was to come down in good time, remorseless twins they are for striding through their human forests, notching as they go.' ( Philipps A.J. & Gadd, L. ( 1989 ed)  

It is not necessary here to detail his attitude towards his two children, but it is relevant to register that, following the death and departure of Paul and Edith's mother, Fanny. Dickens describes her as "a woman whose pride is equal to his (Dombey's) own, and who not only has no love to give him, but refuses to render him the deference and submission which he extracts as his due" ( Dale. R. (2005)). Edith Dombey ( nee Skewton) was at that time in her twenties and saw in him nothing more than material gain and her increased status. In many ways, they were well matched, with 'mutual aversion and contempt' ( Dale). In true Dickens fashion, she takes off with Dombey's manager, James Carker, aged nearly forty, but later killed by a train, thought to be at Paddock Wood Station, Kent. 

Dombey's own fate following his bankruptcy became a life-transforming experience. His ego-centric pride disappears, and his abused daughter takes him into her home, having married Walter Gay, Sol Gill's nephew. I'm tempted to ponder how that worked out, but there again, Dickens loved a happy and reformed older person's ending.  That said, Dombey's portrayal is that of a London filled with cold, pompous, stiff, purse-proud men like this. ( Collins P. (1971) and Hawes. D. 2002). A reflection of his middle-classness rather than his chronological age. Donald Hawes references a Preface to later published editions of the novel, which is of interest to us, stating that " Mr Dombey undergoes no violent change, either in the book, or in real life. A sense of his injustice is within him all along. The more he represses it,  the more unjust he necessarily is. Internal shame and external circumstances bring the contest to a close in a week, or a day, but it's after a long balance in victory that has been a contest for years, and is only fought out after a long balance of victory" (. Hawes). It is worth mentioning that Rodney Dale's commentary re reinforces that Dombey's "crowning retribution proves a blessing after all; for it demonstrates his pride, melts his obstinancy, and, sets his injustice plainly before him...he passes the evening of his days, a wiser and a better man" ( Dale). The thirty-five-year-old Dickens continued to believe that such repentance was possible in one's later years. A view, yet again, of his notion that old age equates to a 'Pickwickian' golden one, where there is loving family and/ or friendship support, preferably by a loving daughter. It is a Victorian stereotype and a fantasy reflecting notions of repentance, self-actualisation and happy endings. He was a man of his time. Confession meant absolution and in theological terms, justification - sins washed away and living in grace. One is tempted to think that there was perhaps a 'shameful' secret Dickens held, a discussion I will have at a later stage. 

The Honourable Mrs Skewton ( aka 'Cleopatra')

                                  

                         Miss Skewton . By Hablot Knight Browne

                                            ( Phiz) 1848

It is said that Dickens based this seventy-year-old character on 'a Mrs Campbell, a lady well known in Leamington' ( Kitton. F.G. (1906). In a way, Dickens's Skewton is the personification of his scathing opinion of the aristocracy, and indeed even the pretentiousness of the higher middle class and especially of older women in his novels. She is Edith Granger's mother, scandalously trading on her ancestry of Lord Felix, her nephew. She outrageously flirts with fifty-year-old Major Bagstock. Mrs Skewton is described thus: 'Although the lady was not young, she was very blooming in face, quite rosy,  and her dress and attitude perfectly juvenile....Her attitude in the wheeled chair (which she never varied had been taken in a borach, some fifty years before, by then a fashionable artist who had appended to his published sketch the name 'Cleopatra': (Hawes. D.). Furthermore, Skewton's a beauty in her youth, her false teeth set off her complexion, and her juvenile dress cannot disguise her seventy years any more than can her talk of 'nature' and 'heart' obscure the heartlessness that makes her see her beautiful daughter as a saleable commodity' (  Bentley. N, Slater, M & Burgess. N (1988). She became even more grotesque when she suffered a stroke. "They took her to pieces in very shame, and put the little of her that was real on a bed. She dies soon afterwards, haunted by her fear of a stone arm raised to strike her" (.Hawes).  Note that the haunting fear is not her remorse or regret of a life lived exploiting and cunning, but the result of a cerebral vascular accident. Dickens presumably regarded her character as needing to pay the price of her personality, but nevertheless reinforced the forgiving nature of her daughter.

Mrs Skewton is explored by Leah Grisham (2017) in a fascinating paper focusing on older women. The overall messaging is that frequently during the nineteenth century, 'ageing and elderly women were associated with helplessness, senility and redundancy'. Quoting Devany Looser ( In Grisham 2008) "old age was more likely to be experienced as a period of loss, as compared to men's ageing experience - both in terms of property and law and in the perception of physical decay. The culture's fixation on a youthful physical idea was especially directed towards women." That said, Grisham argues that Mrs Skewton's character was a "refutation of the helplessness that was associated with old age in women". She was grasping, relentless and far from cognitively impaired. Her use of a wheeled chair was not related to infirmity. But here is the rub: the very pseudonym 'Cleopatra'  underpinned the unnaturalness of her, in that it reinforced Dickens's notion that she was "analogous to deviant social, sexual, economic and political power in a way that she undermined Victorian gender ideologies. Dickens's description evidences this, in that her portrayal, behaviour, unladylike, and immorality were totally un-English. ( Grisham ). On the one hand, she defies the stereotype associated with gender differences, but on the other hand, Dickens portrayed her as " an unnatural and threatening distortion of the domestic order"  (Grisham). Furthermore, as Grisham reminds us, she was a villain, false and vain, and her attempt to recreate her youthfulness was deemed unbecoming of a woman in her seventies. Dickens derides her at almost every level. The overt, even pernicious ageism reflected in how older women, who defied what was basically male and hence Victorian attitudes to old age, Dickens laid bare. But was he actually just confronting that ageism and the notion of older women being confined to a world of domesticity, passivity and compliance, and used her as a literary and cliched trope which readers would recognise? How did he personally view and treat his wife, Catherine, in her later years? Arguably, with disdain and brutal emotional rejection. 

As with the character of old Martin Chuzzlewit, her feigned infirmity masked a cynical and shrewd way of controlling and manipulating to forward their own plans. Chuzzlewit, to expose Pecksniff and Skewton to exploit her daughter into marrying Dombey. Older men and women evidence the belief that old age is associated with dependency, sickness and frailty. Neither were they powerless. Edith, however, knew her mother well. It was one thing to have been pimped, but quite another to witness how her mother 'dragged the innocent and beautiful Florence down the same path of mercilessness, wealth hunting'. (Grisham ).

A point often missed or ignored by many Dickensian scholars and commentators when discussing the portrayal of Skewton, is not surprisingly picked up by Grisham. Namely, the sexual exploitation of both Florence and Edith. Whilst acknowledging was not regarded as a sexual threat, she was most certainly, writes Grisham,' associated with sexual and moral deviance....Mrs Skewton's desire for wealth has led her to force (Edith) into a life that is often related to prostitution.' (21: p 5) Grooming is not just a twenty-first-century issue and Dickens would have been personally and professionally familiar with the practice. I am not suggesting that he himself groomed, but he was dangerously close. The drive for financial gain ( security ?) applied to all Victorian social classes, and it would be a mistake to stereotype prostitution as simply a lower-class issue. We are shocked by Geoffrey Epstein today, but pimping, trafficking, grooming and exploiting young girls and boys by rich and powerful men using their money, influence and celebrity for their own sexual gratification using gifts, promises and 'a better life' to both children, teenagers and young adults. The perpetrators are frequently older adults. In his early novels, Dickens was often ambiguous in writing about such matters ( e.g.  Oliver Twist and The Old Curiosity Shop) and of necessity, his framing as a writer was clearly not to disturb the sensibility of his readers - the Victorian hypocrisy writ large. ( Richardson (2024)

Major Joseph Bagstock:(aka 'Old JB ')

                              

                              Major Bagstock: The Victorian Webb.org

Philip Hobsbaum's rather scathing assessment of Dombey and Son argues that the character 'appears to exist for the purpose of comic relief: indulging himself in the role as surely as Quilp and Pecksniff' ( Hobsbaum (1998). Notwithstanding, he considers that Bagstock 'is the one flight of fancy Dickens allows himself' in the book (24). Apart from referring to himself in the third person, he calls himself 'old'. Hawes adds '[he] has arrived at what is called in polite literature, the grand meridian of life( ie the 'age of fifty' ( 26/26)

Bagstock may well be 'comic relief ', but he is indeed most unsavoury, even an 'old letch' towards the tender-hearted  and compassionate neighbour Lurecia Tox. As with many older characters throughout Dickens's works, he is a jealous and cunning manipulator, and an older adult. His association and past relationship with Mrs Skewton tells us much about sexuality in later life. In addition, the Victorian obsession with death, Dickens could not resist the Major frequently choking on his food and continued his 'downhill journey with hardly a throat' (Philip and Gadd  (1989 edition). On the bankruptcy of  Dombey, with whom he had deliberately become friendly as part of his connivance with Mrs Skelton to matchmake her daughter with him ( thus taking Miss Tox out of the picture), he abandons Dombey, alleging he had 'been deceived, hoodwinked and blindfolded' ( Hawes). Thus, this 'apologetic, wooden featured, blue faced Major with his eyes staring out of his head,' the Major, says Hobsbaum, ' chokes and gasps through the book' ( Hobsbaum). In other words, the Major ' evokes a wornout windbag, full of flashy yet empty speech' ( Wikipedia (2025)

Mrs Pipchin; 'An old lady living in Brighton' (Dale.(2005)

' A marvellous ill-favoured, ill-conditioned old lady. of a stooping figure, with a mottled face, like bad marble, a hooked nose and a hard  grey eye, that looked as if it might be hammered on an anvil without sustaining any injury' ( Hawes ( 2002 edition). Little Paul, when meeting her at the Boarding House she manages, says directly to her that he had been wondering how old she must be with his usual 'sharp questions and grave stare.' It is noted that Dickens's description was based on Mrs Roylance, his landlady in Little College Street, where he stayed whilst his father was imprisoned in the Marshalsea.(  Hawes). The relationship between Pipchin and Little Paul was one of ''a kind of attraction'' comments Hawes. She later becomes Dombey's Housekeeper but understandably rushes back to Brighton on his bankruptcy. It is worth mentioning her niece, Miss Berinthia ( Berry) ' a middle aged  spinster whose exploitation as a drudge by her aunt does nothing to diminish her dog like devotion to her'. ( Bentley et al ( 1988).

There is a hint of Dickens's affection towards this 'ill favoured and conditioned' old lady. Nevertheless, it is both patronising and paternalistic, placing her portrayal and role within the setting of domesticity, education, and childcare. ( See author's References and Sources). 

                                  

                                          Paul and Mrs Pipchin

                                           Illustration by Phiz ( Hablot Knight Browne)

                                                           The Dickens Page 

Dr Blimber: Proprietor of an expensive private boarding school

Leon Lituack, in his contribution to the Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens, comments that while Dickens had a lifelong interest in education and was informed on educational developments, he stopped short of offering practical solutions to problems, and his works reflect only a selected range of issues and institutions. ( Lituack in Schlicke (2011). His portrayal reflected his own childhood experiences, which he admitted were 'irregular and mixed'. From the deficient private school in Chatham to 'the positive and inspiring establishment' of the Rev William Giles, then Wellington House under the headmastership of the sadistic William Jones. These personal experiences and subsequent work as a journalist led him to advocate for a sectarian rather than a State ' comprehensive liberal education' which he claimed 'rewarded honesty, stimulated rather than idle, eradicate evil or correct what is bad.'  Dickens' speech in Birmingham (1844). Quoted by Lituack.) He did, however, endorse and support the Ragged School movement, but did not regard it as a panacea. ( Lituack)

Dombey removes his fragile son from the somewhat one size fits all approach of Mrs Pinchin to the pompous Dr Blimper's Academy which he describes as ' a great hot house, in which there was a forcing apparatus at work where they knew no rest from the pursuit of strong-hearted verbs, savage noun substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of excerises that appeared to them in dreams' .( Lituack ). It could be argued that Blimper was not manevolant in his rigidity, self-opinionated, and pomposity but a reflection of his age and is therefore associated with a stereotyping of older adults - namely, a lack of sensitivity and flexibility compared to that of the younger teaching assistant, Mr Feeder.

                                 

                           Paul introduced to Dr Blimper by Harry Furness in

                                          The Charles Dickens Library Edition ( 1910) 

                                    

                                   

                          

'Good Mrs Brown' - An ominous presence

Mrs Brown calls herself 'good and her story one of seduction, illegitimacy, revenge, child kidnapping, family betrayals and theft. The life course of this older character contains a thread woven by Dickens into the Dombey saga. In many ways, the description, whilst typically Dickens, should not overshadow her lived years. Or should it? 'She was a very ugly old woman, with red rims round her eyes, and a mouth that mumbled and chatted to itself when not speaking' ( Hawes). In addition, Philip and Gadd point out that she was a dealer in rag and bones, lived in a hovel, miserably dressed  and carried some skins over her arms.  Her living conditions, destitution of body and soul, and abject poverty belie the rage of fire within her, being driven by revenge. Let us focus again on her living conditions, in that 'there was no light in the room save that which the fire afforded- a heap of rags, a heap of bones. a wretched bed, two muli coloured chairs or stools, the black walls and blackened ceiling were all its winking brightness shown up'  (Philp and Gadd) 

The intersection of her physical appearance, her home, her occupation and being old, which Dickens brilliantly portrays, tells half her story.  When a child Mrs Brown was seduced, possibly raped, though Dickens does not explicitly say so ( mindful of his readers) by Edith Granger's uncle from whom she bore the illegitimate Alice Marwood. This daughter is unknown to the cousin she resembles in her beauty and pride, but she and, of course, her mother know the whole history and draw parallels between them. ( Bentley et al 1988). She had been seduced and abandoned by Carker, hence, her great motive throughout her life was vengeance. The daughter was later transported for theft, and when returning, the mother and daughter seek retribution on both Carker and his sister, Harriet. 

A child's relationship with their parent(s) or guardian(s) is stock in trade for Dickens and he understands that the legacy of how they were parented, the grievances and sibling jealousy are never far from his lived experience as he perceived it. The reader, however, has to decipher the allusions, be it sexual abuse, including rape, abandonment, betrayal and jealousy. In  Freudian  terms, fantasies about killing one's parent(s) or incest would be included. Be that as it may my purpose is not to psychoanalyse Dickens ( too fraught and dangerous) but to simply acknowledge that both in terms of his novels and actual, his portrayals of families, their histories and even their ages are a reflection of his preoccupations, storytelling, theatrics and personal history. 

During my professional social work career working with older people, I noted that many, in their early years or young adulthood, certain traumatic events still led to grudges, humiliation, guilt, sadness and rage. Dickens, we know, held many grudges against his parents, family and others, even his wife, Catherine. Literary revenge is sweet. 

                    

                                     'Florence and Good Mrs Brown'. Fred Barnard's 7th illustration for

                                     Dombey and Son. Household Edition (1877) p37. Victorian Web

 

                      

                          Dickens and Victorian Female Sexuality

With both Mrs Skewton and Good Mother Brown, sexuality and Dickens's storytelling cannot be ignored. Joss Lutz Marsh posits  that Dombey was written towards the heyday of Victorian reticence, hypocrisy and activity in sexual matters- before a decent woman was admitted to have a sexual life, before the age of consent crept above twelve, before legislation against obscenity....he (Dickens) gives place to sexuality at it's most problematic  - woman's sexuality' ( Jos Lutz Marsh ( 1991). Dickens, I would argue, was caught up, as reflected in his portrayals, which Marsh describes as 'the fear of female desire and the moral panics surrounding it highlights the complexities of gender roles and the struggle for women's rights and autonomy'. Professor Par Veronoque Molinari argues however that the notion of a libertine eighteenth Century to a prudish Victorian era should be cautioned. ( Molinari ( 2025)

As we discussed previously, looking at Dickens's early novels, his childhood and early adulthood were within the Georgian/Hanoverian period'. His literary ambiguity regarding sexual intimacy and behaviour was, as Wilkie Collins states, about Dombey and Son was all about his reputation and not offending his readership with explicit reference to sexual abuse. That said, Marsh considered it a pivotal work. Collins, regardless of what he thought about Dickens and this novel in particular, was very much aware of Dickens's sexual behaviour ( including extramarital), and whilst not personally criticising Dombey,  he certainly did those novelists who avoided touching on 'sexual relations which literally swam about them [him]', as quoted by Marsh. Dickens, through his portrayals, "gives women a voice, and yet silences them" ( Marsh p405)

Returning to  Professor Molinari, we must distinguish the differences between Victorian 'ideology and reality, prescription and behaviour and public adherence to a discourse and private control'. Social class is also a factor whereby industrial and rural customs interplay with middle class society, anxious about unregulated female sexuality and the need to protect and reinforce notions of ideal motherhood and their wifely duties and qualities - middle-class moralism. 

Little is made of Good Mrs Brown's chronological age within the plot but Dickens conformed to the view that in terms of sexuality women in general, and older ones in particular, overt sexual feelings were not an issue, or certainly not acknowledged. She was in many ways de sexed. Her life course experience, including of sexual abuse,  abandonment and exploitation, pathologisation led to a Dickens portrayal of one of his most grotesque portrayals of old age. This de sexualization, age appropriateness in speech, dress and behaviour in many ways demonstrated the increased pathologisation of older adults who, if deviated from what was viewed as appropriate in later life, were labelled as demented and delinquent. That said it would be wrong to consider Dickens, whilst demonstrating these attitudes, did in many of his characterisations of older people (mainly middle class) show another picture. One of increased agency, independence, and authority within their familial, business and local community. : (Froide. M ( 2001). Did, however, Dickens generally portray and defend the rights of older women to their bodily integrity and sexual pleasure? I think not. That said, he did indeed illuminate the complex mix of later life agency and oppression ( Botelho. L. & Thane P.(2001). Sexuality, be that Good Mrs Brown or other older female characters,  Dickens, in his writings, moved them away from displacement or obscurity, intersecting with gender, social class and race. ( Naylor L. (Ed) (2012). As we have frequently seen and will continue do so,  Dickens displayed the 'good, bad and ugly' across his whole canon of works. The challenge remains, however, that the majority were underpinned by his and Victorian assumptions and presumptions about female age and ageing, social class, gender bias and sexuality in both the private and public space.

Captain John (Jack ) Bunsby, Captain Cuttle, Sol Gills and Mrs MacStinger: A quartet of 'true and false humours'? 

This is Dickens having a laugh. The interrelationships between Captain Bunsby, his friend Captain Cuttle, Sol Gills and the irascible cross-grained widow Mrs MacStringer are pure pantomime farce. Whilst their chronological ages are not specifically given, they are clearly fifty-plus, as illustrated by Phiz, thus in their later years. The basic Dombey storyline of Florence and Water Gay is the main course; Bunsby, Cuttle, Gills, and MacStinger are the warm-up who steal the show.

                                 

                                 

                         Original illustration by Phiz (1846) From the Goodman

                                       Charles Dickens Illustrated Gallery (2023)

                                            'Captain Cuttle consoles his friend' 

                                            

                                    

                             Sol Eytinge Jr's character study of the 'odd

                                 couple on their wedding day': Mrs MacStinger and 

                                           Bunsby (1867). The Victorian Webb

                                                    

                              Sol Gills and Water Gay. Sol. Eytinge Jr. (1867).

                                    Scanned image by Philip V Allingham. Victorian Web

Taking a 'Who's Who' approach, let's take a closer look at these portrayals. They are distinguished by eccentricity, speech and gestures, with Dickens 'employing a variety of techniques rooted in the eighteenth century tradition, being satirical and humorous' ( 51: Wikipedia). There is much symbolism and domestic sentimentalism, as reflected in Sol Gill's shop and house. 

Of Captain ( Jack ) Bunsby, he is an old sailor and friend of Captain Cuttle. He is bluff and taciturn, later, and note, unwillingly, marries Mrs MacStringer.  Donald Hawes, as usual, provides clarity out of the quartet's complex interpersonal relationships, narrative and behaviours. His summary description cannot be bettered, and I quote:

'Bunsby is admired by his friend, Captain Cuttle, who says that [he] could deliver an opinion on any subject, as could give Parliament six and beat them. He had one stationary eye in [his] mahogany face, and one revolving one, on the principle of some lighthouses..... Captain Bunsby rescues his friend Cuttle from Mrs MacStringer, whom he placates ('awast, my lass, 'awast) but succeeds in dominating him and leading him to the altar' (52/53 Hawes (2002).

Dickens, furthermore, describes Bunsby as having shaggy dishevelled hair and his dress a succedaneum for a waistcoat, with outsize wooden buttons. He may well have been a seafarer of distinction, but not so brave that Mrs MacStinger put the fear of God in him! 

Of Captain Cuttle, himself, is a co-lodger at MacStingers' and equally intimidated by her relying on Bunsby, his confident for moral support and advice. Described as a kind, sympathetic and caring soul, especially towards Florence and the then fourteen year old Walter Gay. In terms of dress and appearance, he has a knobbly nose, like his walking stick, a hook instead of a right hand, bushy eyebrows and a loose, rough 'shirt collar that looked like a sail.' 

Respite from the intimidating and controlling MacStinger comes when Sol Gill ( his close friend) goes off to search for Walter Gay (who had mysteriously disappeared) surreptitiously, takes over his shop, thus escaping from his nemesis.  He can breathe easily. 

If the names MacStinger, Bagstock, Cuttle, and Bunsby conjure up notions of skuttling, worn-out windbags, a bun and stinginess, the name of Solomon Gills implies wisdom. A predictable trait of most of Dickens's names was deliberately used to portray their characteristics, behaviours, and particular attributes, which, for many of his older people, as far as our discourse is concerned, reinforces ageism, sterotyping and his attitude towards them. 

Uncle Sol Gills is specifically an 'elderly gentleman', slow, quiet, thoughtful and though dressing relatively conservatively, sported bling buttons. The narrative descriptions give evidence, to me at least, of Dickens's 'amiable humour' but are arguably rooted in what could be considered as implicit ageism. Namely, that he was unconscious and thus unaware, rather than deliberately that his portrayals were deliberately 'othering', stereotyping and mocking old age and older people, which we today would classify as gerontophobic.  Gills, Cuttle and  Bunsby were seasoned rough seafarers, yet all paternally influenced by the childness, vulnerability, and innocence of Florence Dombey. The 'wicked witch' provides the boos and hisses in this pantomime. They were a useful lens through which to see those characters of natural imperfection but good intentions, negotiating the existential threats of selfishness, malice and cunning of other characters ( Wikipedia). Dickens himself skillfully moderates between sentiment and irony, humour and obsession, perversity and protection. These specific older adult portrayals, however, through their caricaturizations, offer respite from the dark underbelly of the novel.

                                                                        000OOO000

There remain a further six characters who are clearly older adults to whom we now turn. In doing so, it is worth remembering Donald Hawes's point that some of Dickens's characters are exaggerations, say of virtue and vice, others are caricatures, particularly of the aristocracy, or personifications of 'humours' as with Pecksniff and Uriah Heep. Dickens included many of psychological complexities. ( Hawes 2002).  I have tried to locate older people in the context of Victorian social class and culture, including their occupations, past and/ or present, testing out how Dickens reflected, or not, his personal and literary sensibilities of old age biases.

Mr and Mrs John: ' sometime bully' and Louisa Chick: 'past her middle age'   

                              

                                    Mr and Mrs Chick, and Miss Tox: Sol Eytinge, Jr.  The

                             Diamond Edition of Dickens's Works. Vol 3. (Boston: Ticknor

                                 and Fields. 1867)  The Victorian Web.com

Being Mr Dombey's sister, she is in the mould of an opinionated, insensitive and proud nature. When present at the birth of Little Paul, she urges her dying sister-in-law, Fanny, to make more of an effort to live. Sarcastically, she asserts that not 'trying hard' is in Fanny's nature and hence is 'condemned' to failure - even to the point of death. Later, she has no sympathy for even her own brother, blaming him for his own downfall for not trying hard enough!

Dickens cannot resist portraying her dressing inappropriately in a juvenile manner, 'particularly as to the tightness of her bodice'.

Of John Chick, we are not given his age, but Dickens describes him as 'a stout old gentleman, with a very large face, and his hands continually in his pockets, and who had a tendency to whistle and hum tunes'. The relationship with his wife is somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand, they bickered a lot, she discounted much of what he said, was quick to put him down, and he, on occasions, when feeling brave enough, bullied her to the point of abuse. Yet on the other hand, they are seen as 'well matched, fairly balanced and a take and give couple'. ( Philips & Gadd, 1989 ed).  

 

Mr Morfin: ' a cheerful looking, hazel-eyed elderly bachelor'

An interesting character and portrayal. Morfin is in the employ of  Mr Dombey and assists in exposing the dastardly James Carker and is described as 'gravely attired, as to his upper man, in black; and as to his legs, in pepper-and-salt colour. His dark hair was touched here and there with specks of grey, as though the thread of Time had splashed it; his whisters were already white' ( Hawes. page 157). He later marries James Carker's sister, Harriet, with whom he has had feelings of fatherly affection and admiration, if not pity. He is portrayed as her ' unknown friend'. 

Dickens's depiction is somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand, a devoted employee, despite overhearing conversations between Dombey and James Carker, which has the effect of making him sympathetic to both John Carker and Harriett. The picture is of an older adult, sensitive, even passive, with his beloved violoncello and enjoying his Wednesday evenings playing at a 'certain club room hard by the Bank'. Should we read anything into this 'elderly,'  cheerful, innocent amateur musician, lovingly caring and protecting his cello? He is, however, secretive, observing the 'evil machinations' of his employer and portrayed as 'an officer of inferior state within the Dombey empire. We know that Dickens was sympathetic towards clerks, but Morfin arguably was not one, but clearly knew his place.

Of Harriet, we do not know her exact age, but she was not a young adult. There is no suggestion of sexual attraction between Morfin and Harriet; rather, there is one of empathy towards her, and we have an indication of a debt owed, given his rescuing of her and James, and his secret scheming to help Mr Dombey following his bankruptcy. It may be the very portrayal given by Dickens of an innocent, vulnerable, and kind hearted Harriet that tells us more about Morfin than her. 

Mrs Miff: 'a wheezy little pew opener' and Mr Sownds; 'The  orthodox and corpulent beadle'

Let the description of Mrs Miff speak for itself about this rather minor cast member in the Dombey story: ' a mighty dry old lady, sparely dressed with not an inch of fullness anywhere about her, with a vinegary face' who attended both marriages of Florence and Edith and the Christening of Little Paul. She is present yet invisible.

                         Fred Barnard's 33rd illustration for Dickens: ' Signing the                                                 Marriage Register in the Vestry. Household Edition (1877) The                                                                            Victorian Web

                           Note Mrs Miff- far right & Mr Sownds - far left

Sophia Jochem, when a PhD candidate, writing for The Dickens Project,  looked explicitly at the interaction between Mrs Miff and Mr Sownds. Their discussion evidenced her as a nasty, intolerant, money grabbing and resentful older adult. Jochem argues that Dickens 'satirically exaggerates' both characters to demonstrate the 'monetisation of the Church and its mercenaries, capitalism [is their] religion' (  Jochem. S ( 2020)). 

Mrs Miff, being female, could not aspire to becoming a beadle and hence secure a salary. She earned shillings per marriage, christening and funeral. Dombey is full of weddings, as are several of Dickens's works and reflects the Victorian literary tradition of 'ending novels'. Perhaps Mrs Miff was not a minor character at all, but allowed Dickens to associate conservatism and capitalism with social injustice. Miff's portrayal, however, is set within a dusty church (see below), which is relevant to how Dickens, consciously or unconsciously, viewed older women. 

Regarding Mr Sownds, we do not specifically know his exact age, but his physical description, employment and the interactions with Mrs Miff imply at least late middle age, but arguably was an older adult. Here we return to the setting in which he appears, namely, a dusty,  dirty and dim church. Jochem's narrative is significant. ' There is a dusty old clerk...There is a dusty old pew opener... and a dusty old Beadle....There are dusty wooden ledges and cornices poked in and out over the altar....There are dusty old sounding boards over the pulpit and reading desk.'  Old and dust are synonymous in terms of inanimate objects and people.

This dusty old beadle is described as an orthodox, conservative, portly, corpulent, pompous and self-proclaimed liberal. His so called liberalism is used by Dickens to contrast with Mrs Miff's conservatism. Was Dickens also equating old age with conservatism? This age stereotype is still common today. 

Lord Feenix (aka) Cousin Feenix- Mrs Skewton's nephew. Retired and living in Baden, Germany.

                                          Cousin Feenix. By Sol Eytinge Jr. ( Diamond Edition: Dombey                                            and Son 1867 ). Scanned image and text by Philip Allingham.                                                                 ULR The Victorian Web.org

Four decades ago, he was a man about town who, in his later years attempts to cover the latent wrinkles on his face. He enters the story at Dombey and Edith's wedding, having travelled from Germany. Dickens portrays him as somewhat confused about where he is walking, giving the impression of a lumbering old man. That said, he is evidently kind, following Edith's ignominy in finding her in France and providing her asylum in his London home. It is further noted that Feenix takes Florence to bid goodbye to her stepmother.

Today, we would view him as productively and positively ageing. a contributor, mentor and an asset. This is an interesting portrayal, given Dickens's generally negative opinion of the aristocratic class. Yet in terms of literary gerontology, we also see a character uncomfortable with at least the physical sign of ageing and wanting, as did Dickens later, to mask the signs and recapture his younger self. It is both positive and negative. Dickens was now in his mid-thirties, penning his seventh major novel but still showing little sign of coming to terms with his own future ageing, at least in his characterisations. 

                                            ooo00ooo

John Sutherland (2009) writes that Dombey and Son marked 'Dickens's growing interest in using his art for the purpose of social criticism in the late 1840s, and introduces a distinctly darker tinge to his fiction'. For me, Dickens also introduces a darker tinge of gender and age bias. I am reminded of Helen Small's commentary on the character of eighty year old Helen Higden in Our Mutual Friend (1864) , which demonstrates yet again the 'manipulation of Dickens's narrative in its engagement with old age' ( Small. H. 2002/3). If he idolised the memory of Mary Hogarth through numerous portrayals of young women and girls, he arguably at worse demonised many older characters or at best had a binary view of older adults to be cherished with compassion or mocked with derision. We have the whole spectrum here, yet even the positive is underpinned with a kind of compassionate ageism.

                                              SOURCES AND REFERENCES

Addison, J (1911). Characters in Dombey and Son. The Spectator. As Quoted in Wikipedia

Barkley, D., & Suduiko, A. [Eds] ( 2016). Dombey and Son Themes. GradeSaver. 16th July 2016. Web. 04.04.25.

Bentley, D.; Slater, M & Burgis, N.( 1988) The Dickens Index.. Oxford University Press. Oxford. New York. (page 237)

     Ibid - (page 200)

     Ibid- (page 161) 

Botelho, L & Thane, P (2001) [Eds] Women and Ageing in British Society Since 1500. Routledge. London. New York. ( Page 89-90)

Chase, K. (2009). The Victorians & Old Age. Oxford University Press. (page 19)

Collins, P. (1971) Dickens: The Critical Heritage. Routledge & Kegan Paul (page 215) Quoted in Hawes, D. Who's Who in Dickens. Routledge. (2000 ed).(page 65)

Dale, R. [Ed] (2005). The Wordsworth Dickens Dictionary. Wordsworth Reference. (pages 179-180)

      Ibid - page 178

      Ibid- page 180

      Ibid- page 183

Froide, A. (2001). ' Old Maids: the life cycle of single women in early modern England. Chapter Five in Botelho, L., & Thane, P. (pages 89-90)

Grisham, L. (2017). A Distortion of Nature's Harmony: Ageing Women and the Exotic in Dombey and Son & Villette. Nineteenth Century Gender Studies. Issue 13.2. (Summer 2017)

   Ibid. page 1

   Ibid. page 2

    Ibid. page 4

    Ibid page 5

Hawes, D ( 2002 ed) Who's Who in Dickens. Routledge. London and New York.  (page 7)

     Ibid. pages that relate to specific characters in narrative, taken from  Who's Who 67, 65,         212, 213, 13, 184, 84, 30, 33, 34, 157.

Hobsbaum, P. (1998) A Reader's Guide to Charles Dickens. Syracuse University Press. Originally published by Thames and Hudson. London (1972), the edition quoted is (1998) Page 108.

Jochem, S ( 2020). We Must Marry 'Em. Dickens-to-Go. The Dickens Project ( July 20.2020 [ Modified 10.11.25]

Kitton, F. G ( 1906). Charles Dickens: His Life, Writing and Personality. Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. New York. (page 13) Quoted in Hawes, D. (page 213)

LIT Summaries. ( Date unknown). Diving Into Dombey and Son: A Literary Analysis of Charles Dickens Masterpiece.

Lituack, L. ( 2011). Education in Schlicke, P. [Ed) in Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens Oxford University Press (page 214)

        Ibid.  Pages 214/5: Quoting Dickens's Speech in Birmingham in 1844

        Ibid Page 217

Looser, D ( 2005). Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain 1750- 1850. John Hopkins University Press (2008). Quoted in Grisham (pages 1, 2, 4, 5)

Marsh, Lutz, J. ( 1991). Good Mrs Brown's Connections: Sexuality and Story Telling in Dombey and Son. Journal article JSTOR. John Hopkins University Press. Vol 58. No 2. (Summer 1991. (Pages 405-426 / page 405)

Molinari, P. V ( 2025). Fearing Passions of Women: Female Desire and Sexuality in the 19th Century. La. Cle des languages [en ligne]. Lyon, janvier . Consulte le 09/01/2026.PDF.

Naylor, L. [Ed] ( 2012) Introduction to Dickens, Sexuality and Gender. Routledge. A Library of Essays on Charles Dickens ( page xvii)

Philip, A, J. & Gadd, L. ( 1989 ed). The Dickens Directory. Braken Books (page 88) 

          Ibid: pages 3, 10, 38

Richardson, C. ( 2024). Exploring the Lives of Victorian Prostitutes. Penn Sword History.

Small, H. ( 2002). Quoted from The Unquiet Limit: Old Age and Memory and Memorials: 1789-1914. Matthew Campbell [Ed], Jacqueline, M Labbe and Sally Shuttleworth. London . Routledge 20000 page 72. Referenced in CHASE, K. The Victorians and Old Age . Oxford University Press. (page 9)

Sutherland, J. ( 2009). The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction. [ 2nd Edition] Routledge. London. New York. ( page 191)

WIKIPEDIA ' Characters in Dombey and Son (5.07.2012) Retrieved April 21. 2025. (page 2) From https:// en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? title =characters_in_ Dombey_and_Son =1293635753