How The Childhood, Adolescence and Young Adulthood Shaped Dickens and His Portrayal of Older Adults in OLIVER TWIST
[PART TWO]
The final night of Fagin before he "faced the drop"
As Europe entered the 19th Century, experience of events of the 1790s and subsequent Napoleonic Wars encouraged awareness of the passage of time. Revolutionaries spoke of an 'ancien regime', and those who reached maturity in that era would be the old of the 19th Century ( p209)
" Nothing is more incumbent on the old, than to know when they should get out of the way, and relinquish to younger successors the honours they can no longer earn, and duties they can no longer perform"
The question is whether Dickens as a young adult shared or rejected this opinion.
I shall in future blogs explore Dickens's older characters' and caricatures in more detail from his middle and later novels, particularly of older women, and Victorian gerontology where, as Sara Zadrozny says " gender difference played an important part" in shaping views and Karen Chase's assertion that " Dickens made his older characters " responsible for their own age"
THE CAST OF "OLDER ADULTS"
As always I'm indebted to Donald Hawes's Who's Who in Dickens: Routledge (2002) for a pen picture of the older characters and those of an "uncertain age". It is important not just to consider how Dickens describes these characters, but their role and function within the novel.
Fagin -of course: See above
Mr Brownlow: A kindly, elderly gentleman with " a heart large enough for any six ordinary old gentlemen of humane disposition". In fact, he is not so kind and humane when influenced by Grimwig's negative view and in addition after Oliver's Court appearance considers him an "imposter" until subsequently he is convinced by Rose Marley and Mrs Bedwin of Oliver's story. His heart was clearly not large enough to see children of the workhouse favourably. This might be unfair, but perhaps reflected a common view held by well-off and comfortable older adults.
Mr Bumble: "Fat, choleric and pompous man" We do not know specifically if he was an older adult, but taking into account his position and role within the novel, and our threshold for defining "older" 50+ I have included him, but it remains conjecture. Bumble has to be seen as a reflection of the harshness and brutality of the Workhouse system and thus complicit in the abuse of an "innocent, even saintly young boy". It is interesting to note that in their later years, there is a comeuppance from their actions and reflects people in later life will be punished or are redeemed and forgiven ( eg Scrooge) if they repent.
Mr Losberne: " An eccentric old bachelor" and doctor to Mrs Maylie. He " had grown fat, more from good humour than from good living, kind and hearty". Dickens portrayed him, according to Hawes's narrative, as a "kindly and sagacious adviser" and comes into play following the attempted burglary.
Mrs Maylie: An elderly and stately lady who provides Oliver with a home following the burglary. This is a positive reflection of an older adult demonstrating compassion and the importance of familial responsibility.
Old Sally: (See above)
Mrs Corney ( wife of Mr Bumble and Matron) has to be viewed perhaps not in the context of her age, she was always a nasty and abusive person, but Dickens's view of Workhouses and the policy and practice implications of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834.
Mrs Bedwin: The housekeeper of Mr Brownlow - "a motherly lady". As with much Victorian literature, there is little attention given to the experience of growing older and minor characters they are introduced in their old age. We do know that the role of the Housekeeper (including Maids) during Dickens's time was protected in terms of minimum wages and from exploitation, but it could be argued that this depended on the employer. The Housekeeper's role was critical, but hard work. Their role was second to that of a butler and had a status second to the butler. Clearly, Mrs Bedwin had an influence and together with Dicken's portrayal of Brownlow she had agency and independence of thought and indeed opinion. A positive picture. We assume given she was "an old lady" she had been with the Brownloews may be from her young adult years ( even as a child?). She would have been a very junior maid. Pure speculation on my part.
Edward "Monks" Leeford (of uncertain age). We are not given a specific age for Oliver's half brother but Dickens portrayed him via Nancy's narrative "as dark, withered, and haggard, with lips often discoloured and disfigured with marks of teeth" and with hands that are also wounded with teeth marks. The imagery might have less to do with his chronological age more to say about his character and role and the fact that he put the fear of God into Fagin which reinforced his cruelty. His character also is quite gothic. In attempting to include or reject this character in our exploration of Dickens's portrayal of older adults, the original illustration by George Cruikshank is telling. He isn't. This potentially evidences that Dickens was pretty intergenerational in his descriptions of villainous protagonists. Fagin takes top place in the numerous theatre, film and TV adaptations of Oliver Twist whilst Monks is airbrushed out of the story!
Mr Grimwig (of uncertain age) Given the context, being a friend of Brownlow, whose "brusqueness conceals a kind heart" and his view that all children are "either mealy" or beef-faced" arguably Grimwig fits an age-related stereotype of older people's attitudes, assumptions and prejudices against younger generations which exists even today.
Mr Gamfield ( of uncertain age) We know that Master Sweeps of which Gamfield was one, purchased young boys from "poverty-stricken parents" and also from orphanages and Workhouses. The smaller the boy the better. "Apprenticeship" was basically slavery. When Dickens wrote Oliver Twist (1837), Parliament had in 1834 already passed the Chimney Sweepers Act which required a magistrate to hear directly from a child 14yrs and older to be "willing and desirous" to become one. Existing child sweeps were required to wear protective clothing and certainly not be expected to clean a chimney whilst the flue was hot! Gamfield would have been subject to ensure these conditions were met. Indeed the magistrate refused to agree to Gamfield's request when Oliver became "terror-stricken"
So what sort of MasterSweep was he? Dickens clearly says he was cruel but was he "old" by our definition? Researching MasterSweeps in the 19th Century we know they were engaged in a lucrative business and apprenticed up to 20 boys. We do not know if Gamfield was middle-aged or 50 years plus but he already had a network and relationships with Workhouses and orphanages, and was familiar with the 1834 Act. We can only conjecture, but if he had been a young adult in the mind of Dickens, one assumes he would have mentioned it. Dickens was clearly familiar with the "industry" and the law applying to it. In my view, there was sufficient information from both the novel, Dickens's social awareness and the history of Child Labour to at least ponder the question.
Mr Fang: We have the benefit of a George Cruikshank illustration "Oliver escapes being bound apprentice to the Sweep" and a later interpretation of Fang by J Clayton Clarke (below).
Mr Fang ( Magistrate ) by George Cruikshank illustration in original
J.Clayton Clarke Oliver Twist ( as agreed by Dickens)
Here we are on firmer ground in including the portrayal of this "choleric and arbitrary police magistrate who hears the charge against Oliver of theft. It strikes me that Dickens's portrayal, like so many others of older adults in his writings, has perhaps less to do with his view and attitude toward age and ageing, but related to their profession or what they represented. This is certainly the case with Fang.
Giles:( of uncertain age) Butler and steward to Mrs Malie who actually shoots and wounds Oliver during the burglary. He is considered a cowardly individual. Whilst we have no reference to his chronological age, we can assume given his position and role within the household he was at least nearing 50 years or above. Dickens clearly did not see his age as relevant or worthy of note.
Blathers and possibly Duff: We do however know that Blathers was 'aged about fifty'. Of Duff, we do not know, but by association with Blathers - both being Bow Street officers - we can only speculate. Dicken's portrayal is as a "red-headed, bony man; in top-boots; with a rather ill-favoured countenance, and a turned up sinister-looking nose". They pitch up to investigate the burglary and their very names evidence their bumbling approach and their total inefficiency and idiocy as regards police investigation who do not have any sympathy with Oliver. Losbourne's attempt to protect Mrs Maylie and Oliver via a deflection both police officers are dispatched! We do have the benefit again of a George Cruikshank illustration (below) - or do we?
Again we could conclude that Dickens was commenting on the Bow Street Runners and the London police and age was irrelevant, but why then did he refer to it in terms of Blathers? The fact that we are in the last days of the Runners who were redundant by 1839 when absorbed into the Metropolitan Police. Dickens was writing Oliver Twist around this time but would have had the experience of Runners throughout his childhood and adolescence and as a young reporter.
George Cruikshank illustration: 'Oliver waited on by the Bow Steet Runners'
Mr and Mrs Sowerberry (of uncertain age?)
Dickens always kept tight control over the illustrations used in his novels. In the first edition of Oliver Twist illustrator, George Cruikshank ignored this couple. I have used the image from Sol Eytinge, Jr. (above). The narrative of Dickens was that Mr Sowerberry was a " tall gaunt, large jointed man attired in a suit of threadbare black, with darned cotton stockings of the same colour, and shoes to answer". Mrs Sowerberry is "a short, thin, squeaked-up woman with a vixenish countenance. She was depicted as cruel and wicked towards Oliver. Subsequent portrayals have, however, in adaptations of the book, interpreted Mr Sowerberry as an "older male". This does not help us in our quest. What may be relevant is how Dickens portrayed two later undertakers ( Mr Mould in Martin Chuzzelwit and Mr Omer in David Copperfield) written in 1842 and 1849 respectively. Here the author is quite explicit in that Mould was "a balding elderly man" and Omer is " a merry little old man in black". The portrayal of Mr Sowerberry may well have led later depictions to see him as an older adult but Dickens references that whilst he was completely dominated by his wife, he at heart was "in general rather given to professional jocosity". Given that Oliver Twist, Martin Chizzelwit and David Copperfield were all written between 1837 - 1842 the portrayals were based more on middle-class attitudes, the late Georgian period and early Victorian England Dickens portrayed Mr and Mrs Sowerberry as caricatures. He was after all ever the comic.
The funeral business of this period ( unlike today) was precarious for undertaker owners, and Dickens portrays this well in his depictions and the circumstances of the Sowerberrys. The lower middle classes lived on the precipice between reasonable comfort, the poorer classes and indeed destitution. The Co-op was sometime in the future!
Sally Thingummy: An "old pauper" an inmate of the workhouse who later dies there. Sally was at Oliver's birth and "rendered rather misty by an unwonted allowance of beer". It has been recorded that older female inmates were frequently called upon to undertake "nursing" and care duties given they were cheap labour and saved the Workhouse and Parishes' money. It would be wrong to assume that Mrs Thingummy and other older inmates were thieves and drunk. Dickens's general characterization is telling given his experience of workhouse practice. He was never nuanced in his opinions.
Mr Limkins: We have no indication as to whether this character was fifty years plus, only that he was a "red-faced gentleman in the high chair" and Chairman of the Parish Board where Oliver was born. We can assume, though not certain, that his status as Chairman, implies at least he was in his middle years.
The Bookseller: "An elderly man of decent but poor appearance". Nothing to see here!
From George Cruikshank. Our Bookseller is in the doorway as the ArtfulDodger picks the customer's pocket.
There are some thirty-six named/unnamed characters in the novel, of whom twenty are certainly called "old/elderly", or are, for our purposes, 'of uncertain age.' Their descriptions lead us to not unreasonably consider them as around fifty-plus. Therefore, this is in the order of some 56%. At one level this may be of little relevance but raises the interesting question of why this young aspiring author, mainly self-educated, of a poor and precarious background, emotional and sensitive desperately seeking fame and fortune finds age so fascinating? By 'age' I mean both children and older adults. The juxtaposition between Dickens's portrayal of young vulnerable and exploited children with cruel, feckless, abusive, self-indulgent older adults is interesting.
Dickens the storyteller, actor, journalist, comic and perhaps the greatest of English novelists was of course of his time. His books are now known only through school curriculum requirements (understandably his shortest books) or film and TV adaptations. Millions of words have been written about his life and work and I doubt any aspect remains to be discovered. His portrayal of older adults is normally focused on a few leading characters or dominant themes in publications addressing broader literacy, cultural, and public policy issues and critiques. His portrayal of older adults from a gerontological and life course perspective seems worthy of further exploration which is the journey we are on. Two novels down, thirteen to go, but we cannot ignore at least one of his Christmas Books that from 1843 till today defined not just benevolence and gifting. but the redemption and salvation of perhaps the most miserable miser of all time and in so doing defined Victorian "age and ageing"
There are however four further novels 1838-43 which need to be opened for examination, as well as Dickens's life events and transitions between Doughty Street, Devonshire Place, births, and foreign tours. Tiny Tim and 'you know who' will have to wait their turn!
Nicholas Nickleby [Part One] to Follow
"A Ruined Gentleman, A Cruel Schoolteacher, A Melodramatic Thespian, A Ruthless Moneylender and A Kindly Old Clerk"
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