THE PORTRAYAL OF OLDER ADULT CHARACTERS IN DICKENS'S NOVELS
NOVEL FOUR
THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP (1840/41)
PART ONE: Introduction, Context and Profiling the Narrator and Grandfather Trent (1)
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT
The Old Curiosity Shop was published in serialized form between April 1840 and November 1841, with the single-book format available that same year. It is said that Queen Victoria found it "very interesting and clearly written" (2). The backstory to its publication need not concern us unduly at this stage, but what does, is Dickens's decision to publish his own weekly periodical of "short stories, sketches, and satirical commentary on life organized around an elderly cripple, Master Humpries" (3). The Narrator of the story survives only three chapters, and according to experts, this enables him to be freed up to comment on social issues. Elizabeth Brennan says, "It rendered the later identification of the backwards-looking narrator with the energetic and eccentric Single Gentleman implausible"(4). It was, at best, confusing and, at worse, ridiculous.
The readers of New York, apparently it is said, without any evidence, stormed the wharf where the ship docked carrying the final instalment of the story. The weekly serialization, however, struggled to gain traction with readers, and Dickens's friends urged him to publish it in book form. Sales increased, thus pleasing both Dickens and the publishers.
The key themes of the book are based on four central characters, Little Nell, Christopher Nubbles (Kit), Richard Swivellor (Dick) and perhaps the most grotesque of all older adult portrayals Dickens penned, Daniel Quilp. Alienation, creativity and materialism are at the core of The Old Curiosity Shop (5). It was a very Victorian good versus evil trope!
Was the Narrator of Master Humpries Clock with the very telling Dickens' description one and the same as the Narrator of The Old Curiosity Shop who miraculously turned into the mysterious Single Gentleman lodger and younger brother of Grandfather Trent? Apologies for the spoiler. Of equal but different importance is the relationship between the characterization of 12/13-year-old Little Nell to the "elderly" Quilp and between her and her grandfather. Nell's innate goodness and innocence contrast with the gaunt, troubled, compulsive gambler ( who actually robs her) that is her grandfather! It is pretty easy to understand Dickens's difference between the countryside with the squaller and the "highly industrialized and overcrowded London"(6). What is far more complex and troubling is understanding the relationships, motives and characterization of his older adult characters in contrast with what could be argued is a tendency towards ephebophilia or hebephilia and Dickens's narcissism. One critical point is his general aversion to ageing and one's old Age. In this regard, the portrayals of Little Nell, Quilp and Grandfather Trent become instructive and fascinating.
I found Grandfather Trent more disturbing than Daniel Quilp, and Dickens pulls no punches. A narcissistic, selfish and downright objectable man and grandfather. The story is chaotic. Like so many Victorian novels in serialized form, it is not short of padding, and as one modern-day reader has commented, "There were some passages where Dickens was just prattling on either to be clever or to write to the conditions of deadlines. And Dickens can sometimes be sloppy"(7)
Dickens's own assessment in March 1841 was that it was much better than anything he had written thus far "or may even do"(8). He can be excused, given that he would go on to author a canon of literature that would, centuries later, put him in the same bracket as Shakespeare. Remember, he was a young adult in his late twenties. The comment of Oscar Wilde is, of course, well known - " one must have a heart of stone to read the death of Nell without laughing". Aldous Huxley claimed that Nell was a prime example of "vulgarity in literature" and that her suffering lacked context to be meaningful"(9)
As we noted previously in this blog series, Dickens was juggling with Barnaby Rudge and Nicholas Nickleby and still remained traumatized by the sudden death of Mary Hogarth. He had already become incredibly famous and was building his fortune. I think it would, however, be fair to say that at the time, whilst the general public eventually gave it a favourable reading and engaged with its pathos, it reminded me of my first reading of it of a storyline from East Enders or for those of a certain age the T.V. series Dallas! With my subsequent familiarity with the life and works of Dickens, I understand why it became one of the most successful throughout Dickens's writing career and is aided and abetted by film and T.V. adaptations today.
DICKENS'S ANNUS HORRIBILLIS PLUS ( 1838-9)
Dickens experienced several challenges during his life, and 1839 was no exception. The sudden death of Mary Hogarth in May 1837 remained the backdrop. Writing of Little Nell, of Daniel Quilp and grandfather Trent, he was dealing with family issues related to his father's debt and conning money from publishers Chapman and Hall, plus his flogging Charles Dickens autograph forcing him to banish him to the South West. Dickens's brother Alfred looked like he was becoming a chip off the old block, and he created Master Humpries Clock and house hunting out of Doughty Street. To cap it all, Catherine (Kate) Dickens had given birth to Mary the previous year and was now pregnant with her third. Those of us of a certain age will vividly recall Beatlemania; in 1838, Bozmania was dealing with unauthorized adaptions of Oliver Twist.
Our personal experiences and how we perceive them during our life course, especially those of our childhood and young adulthood, manifest through our behaviour and sense of self. Dickens used his literary and theatrical skills to exorcise his demons. The writing of The Old Curiosity Shop is evidence of Dickens's view of childhood, prepubescence girls, good and evil, life and death, and, I would argue, Age and ageing. Taking a year or two during the run-up and publication of the OCS is to place the book in the context of Bozmania, workaholicism and family and business dealings. It is, therefore, a story of excessive, and some might argue insincere pathos.
On my first reading of the novel, I was captivated by the various storylines and plots, the memorable characters, especially Nell's resilience and her wicked and manipulative grandfather. The supportive role of Kit Nubbles and Dick Swivellor and their loyalty to her are in significant contrast to the scheming of two central characters who are "elderly" and perhaps provide evidence of Dickens's emerging gerontophobia, ageism and indeed, again, anti-semitism.
Unlike my previous approach to discussing age and ageing in Dickens's first three novels, I will take a different approach here. Rather than draw on all the older characters, I will only focus on Grandfather Trent. [In Part Two, Daniel Quilp takes centre stage but references the portrayals of supportive and older minor characters will be briefly explored]
By the way, I did not cry over the death of Little Nell!
Daniel Quilp
THE COMPULSIVE GAMBLER: WHAT TO MAKE OF HIM?
"A little old man with long hair..though much altered by age" (10) with a haggard face, wandering manner and anxious countenance with a sad life course history (11). What are we to make of this guardian of Nell and proprietor of an old curiosity shop? He is primarily depicted as "crushed and bourne down less by the weight of years than the hand of sorrows" (12). His gambling addiction was occasioned by a fear that his granddaughter would live in poverty or destitution. Trent ( Dickens does not give him a first name) approaches the merciless and exploitative loan shark, Daniel Quilp.
Consequently, he finds himself deep in debt, homeless, and lost in the curiosity shop, forced to wander from village to village. One needs to acknowledge that he continues to gamble, steals Nell's money and robs the kindly Mrs Jarley, the proprietor of the travelling waxworks show, who has taken a shine to Nell and employs her. In many ways, Trent is portrayed as a harmless, vulnerable and fragile old man doing his best to protect his much-loved young, innocent, prepubescent grandchild. Hawes's commentary, following her death, is that he becomes a "stricken figure, who has lost his wits and who daily sits by her grave, where he is found one spring day 'lying dead upon the stone' (13). Contrast this with the book's opening pages in that the Narrator is uncomfortable and suspicious of the relationship between grandfather and granddaughter. My background in social work and, especially, child protection led me to question the motives behind Trent's behaviour towards Nell. Indeed, her reaction to him would raise safeguarding alarms today. That said, most commentators consider that whilst Trent was certainly neglectful, he was motivated by the overriding need to protect Nell from Quilp, that the relationship was, at the end of the day, one of love, devotion and care, which was reciprocated by Nell. The actual narrative Dickens penned reflects a depiction of a kind, compassionate, wise, and experienced grandfather with a high level of resilience and willingness to sacrifice his own well-being. When rereading the novel, I was struck by the fact that Trent reflects Dickens's ambivalence about old Age. On the one hand, familial love, reflection, nurturing and selflessness, yet on the other, highlighting the Victorian neglect and abuse of older people.
Grandfather Trent's portrayal demonstrates social neglect, marginalization and abandonment. Perhaps I should set aside the social work texts and re-enforce Dickens as a social reformer. If he sought to spotlight older people's mistreatment, Trent should possibly be considered an Oliver Twist grown old! Later in life, Dickens feared his ageing, but did he in his late twenties and early thirties? If the ambivalence is correct, his picture of Samuel Pickwick in his later years living in "Camelot", cared for and supported, represents the ideal old Age. Trent, however, is robbed of such an ending. He had a young carer who died as a result of the burden and responsibility she had taken on, not as a result of her grandfather's social and economic needs, even dementia and mental frailty, but the abandonment of him by the lack of Victorian society's compassion.
The death of both Little Nell and her grandfather certainly captured the sentimentality of Victorian and American readers. As Professor James Kincaid points out, it is in complete contrast to that of later generations of readers. Kincaid argues that "alone among Dickens's novels, it is so emphatically centred on the dominant emotion of pathos, the most horrifying and deceptive appeals" (14). Readers were invited to weep, thus keeping Nell as the central figure ("Nellyism"). Whilst we will focus on Quilp later, Kincaid is absolutely right to assert that "Nell is made possible by Quilp and by Dick Swivellor, and the pathos is guaranteed by the humour" (15). I would also add Grandfather Trent!
Notice the "age" of Little Nell- said to be 12/13years, but this
illustration, more like 9 or 10 years
Professor Kincaid makes an interesting observation that there is an "unconscious logic" towards death. I quote it at length, which is "comic in the sense that it is so strongly dedicated to youth and so violently opposed to Age: if youth and its attendant values can no longer win in the world, then they will turn greater victory in death, thereby defying the aged, who want to adopt their corruption. The grave becomes almost sanctified...the glorification of the grave is matched by repulsion from it.....The perverse comedy of Nell cannot ultimately be sustained because the grave cannot be sanctified for the young. The old die too'. (16)
Kincaid's discussion of Dickens's own ambivalence about death and dying can be considered in the context of his sense of humour; he was, after all, a comic writer and Kincaid's propositions that comedy and ambivalence is "a relentless underground attack on the old" and Dickens uses humour to evidence it. "At the funeral of Nell, the Narrator makes this attack explicit by arguing that the old horrors are more dead than Nell: old men were there, whose eyes were dim and senses failing grandmothers, who might have died ten years ago, and still be old - the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that early grave. What was the death it would shut in, to that which still could crawl and creep above it!" (17). In the words of Dick Swivellor ( Dickens), "... these old people there's no trusting 'em Fred. There's an old aunt of mine down in Dorsetshire who was going to die when I was eight years old and hasn't kept her word yet. They're so aggravating, so unprincipled, so spitful- unless Fred, you can't calculate upon 'em, and even then, they deceive you just as often as not" (18). The joke, as Kincain so astutely observes, is a serious one. It also begs the question not only about Dickens's own ambivalence towards death but also about old Age.
The Narrator describes the curiosity shop in terms of "old murky rooms, junk, dust and decay" as an environment in which Nell lived and cared for her grandfather. Professor Jewusiak comments we imagine an "ugly age which is stigmatized through images of decay." (19). The Narrator ( Humphry) is fictional and subsequently portrayed as the 'irascible single gentleman', the estranged younger brother of Grandfather Trent (20). Jewusiak argues that the difference between Humphry and the Single Gentleman represents " the transformative potential of old age" (21). It is one of physical and mental decline, deterioration, and cognitive impairment. There is no disparity between the Narrator and the Single Gentleman in that decline, decay, and old Age can facilitate new perspectives. (22) Trent writes the professor " has this catalyzing effect on the imagination of the characters in the Old Curiosity Shop, and Dickens's plot motivation "falls on the feeble Trent" (23). The burden falls on a thirteen-year-old young carer.
Dickens was at pains to maintain the centrality of Nell in the story. Indeed, he feared that even the tiny, wretched, half-starved servant girl, The Marchioness, also referred to as Sophronia Sphynx (servant of Sally and Sampson Brass ), whose childhood was arguably more abusive than Nells. She is married off to Dick Swiveller, a friend of Frederick Trent Nell's 21-year-old brother, whilst Nell is killed off to protect the pathos and imagery and proxy for Mary Hogarth, the younger sister of Dickens's wife. The death of Nell, which Oscar Wilde found amusing, allows the older characters, including perhaps Dickens's own, to escape their mortality.
We explored in previous blogs that the Old Age, especially males in the late Georgian and Victorian eras, was about wealth, social standing, status and independence. They feared mental ill health and physical frailty would steal these attributes and, hence, their own masculinity and power. Old Age, as a dependency, sickness, poverty, workhouses, and irrelevancy and abandonment, perhaps a second childhood. Grandfather Trent's portrayal is not one of masculinity but re-enforced the social role of females ( in Dickens's mind), even a 13-year-old! The feminization of Victorian old men, as Teresa Mangum asserts, is to make them "rendered absurd." (24)
The transformation related to Trent is a 'nasty one', asserts Jenny Hartley, who emphasizes that what surprised her when researching Dickens's old male characters is " how they can change; how much and how often they can transform themselves or be transformed or reveal themselves to be other than what we thought." (25) In referencing both Master Humprey and Grandfather Trent Jenny acknowledges about Trent " He's frail, pathetic, affectionate, but transforms into a terrifying figure who creeps into Nell's bedroom and gropes under her pillow to steal her money to feed his gambling habit." (26) He underwent a series of transformations throughout his life course but also within his later years culminated in what we might call a 'Greyfriars Bobby' vigil.
Madelene Emerald Thiele. Word Press.com
The Grave of Little Nell / George Cattermole. Victoria and Albert
The Old Man among the tombs. Cattermole Woodcut. 1840-41
What, therefore, do we learn about Dickens's transformation in how he regarded Age and Ageing as illustrated in this particular portrayal? The narrative of my experiment with an A.I. platform is engaging. To avoid any copywriter hurdles, I quote: "He (CD) began to embrace and even appreciate the ageing process. A significant factor that contributed to this shift was Dicken's personal experiences and introspection. As he aged, he gained a deeper understanding of life's complexities and the wisdom that comes with time. This newfound wisdom allowed him to see the value of each stage of life, including the later years" (27). What does a reasonably intelligent journalist and novelist in his late twenties and a celebrity know of ageing and old age? We need to view Dickens and his portrayal of Grandfather Trent through the prism of a young adult. It would be unfair to do otherwise.
Did Dickens's acute sense of observation and empathy play a crucial role in shaping his view of ageing and old age about Trent and other older characters in this novel? In his childhood, youth and early adulthood, he interacted with different social classes across the generations, thus exposing him to diverse perspectives, challenges and joys associated with ageing. Without a doubt, he was able to use these experiences to create memorable personalities and characters and their relationship with economic and societal conditions, more comprehensive social issues, and their interfaces. His older characters, in general, and Grandfather Trent, in particular, evidence this. His insight into the process of growing old needs to be more nuanced, but what 20-plus-year-old has this degree of refinement and subtlety? Commentators do not unreasonably consider that Dickens's view of ageing changed as he grew older "to personal growth, empathy towards others' experiences, and his creative exploration of life's intricacies". The assertion that "he came to appreciate the wisdom and value that comes with ageing, ultimately embracing the process with open arms"(28) is highly questionable.
The typical lengthy Victorian novel leans toward sentimentality and romanticism, and thus, we become sympathetic to the character of Grandfather Trent. Professor Karen Chase points out that there was generally, in the 19th Century, a "literary narrative of old age just as there are narratives about old age."(29) Her analysis places Dickens in the camp of "the harshness of irony to the softness of sentimentality" which was his hallmark in the writing of both old age and about old age. In both the illustrations in The Old Curiosity Shop and after it, he uses Grandfather Trent to identify the social vulnerability of older adults and through Nell that 'youth will comfort or provide for age'. Nell being a proxy for the traumatic loss of Mary Hogarth, I refer back to a central point: youth, beauty and goodness set against broken, senile, selfish and 'lying dead upon a stone. Chase writes, "No one weeps for old grandfather Trent though they do for Nell. But it is the prostrate figure of the old man, dead but still bent in devotion, that enacts the most powerful work of mourning. The scene lingers in Dickens..."(30).
The fleeing from London protects Nell and grandfather Trent from Quilp, and others can be seen on the one hand as Nell rescuing him, yet on the other, it is Trent who pushes her to exhaustion and ultimately death. If Quilp is seen as a classic gothic villain, Trent is seen as a Victorian take on The Pilgrim's Progress, of which Dickens was familiar and hence was Little Nell, with her well-thumbed copy (31). Trent is indeed a complex and multifaceted character, and Dickens uses his portrayal as themes of redemption, family bonds and the corrupting influence of obsession. He was a proud and enigmatic old man but, in addition, arguably portrayed as well-meaning to the welfare of his granddaughter alongside Kit Nubbles and the Marchioness exhibiting moments of general compassion, marking the beginnings of his transformation and redemption. He was keen to provide her with financial and material security but, as a result, was obsessive and greedy (32)
If Grandfather Trent was, at best, neglectful of Nell's well-being and safety, he was also manipulative and abusive, and at worse, coming close to the character of Daniel Quilp. Does this portrayal evidence in any way a tendency of Dickens to gerontophobia or ageism in the context of Victorian attitudes to old age and ageing? A single character does not in and of itself tell us one way or the other. What is relevant is our quest to see whether Dickens was simply reflecting the 19th Century's pathologizing of old age and the values and culture of its time. How far was Dickens's character and personality shaped throughout his life, and how did his attitude and older adult creations result from the interface between the two? We need to analyze his overall portrayals significantly. Is there a pattern or predisposition on his part towards negative and/or ageist assumptions and presumptions?
ooo-OOO-ooo
What does the character and portrayal of Daniel Quilp, one of Dickens's most grotesque older adults, tell us? This will be the focus in Part Two.
References:
1. Taken from The Dickens Collection: The Old Curiosity Shop (TOCS) 17-18 Vol 1+2. G.E Fabbri Ltd. London (2004) (Vol 1 p9/Vol 2 p9
2. Quoted in Wikimedia Commons.Queen Victoria's Journals. Princess 13. Copies.RA VIC/MAIN/QV J (W). 5.03.1841 (Retrieved 24.05.2013)
3. BRENNAN.E. Edited with an Introduction. Charles Dickens: OCS with original illustrations. Oxford World Classics. OUP 1998 (p vii). Introduction.
4. Ibid (p xxvii)
5. ELLIS. J.W. A Critical Analysis of Charles Dickens; TOCS Cardinal Scholar. Ball State University Libraries. Doctoral Disseratations . 3300. ( 2002-2015)
6. The Pine-Scented Chronicles. Book Review //378: The Old Curiosity Shop. (2022)
7. HOULE.Z. A Review of Charles Dickens TOCS. A Victorian-Era Curisoity. Blog 19.04.2020.zacharyhoul@rogers.com
8. SCHLICK. P. Oxford Readers Companion to Dickens. OUP 1999. (p.433)
9. Ibid
10.PHILIP.A, GADD. L. The Dickens Directory. Crescent Books (New York). (1989) p295
11. HOWES. D. Whose Who in Dickens. Routledge. ( London & New York) 2002 edition. p95
12. Ibid p95
13. Ibid p95
14. KINCAID J. Laughter and Pathos: Dickens and the Rhetoric of Laughter: Introduction. Chapter 4 The Old Curiosity Shop The Victorian Web book (10.03.2010)
15. Ibid
16. Ibid
17. Ibid
18. Ibid
19. JEWUSIAK. J. Ageing, Duration, and the English Novel. Chapter 2 " No Plots for Old Men". Cambridge University Press (2013)
20. Ibid p196
21. Ibid p 197
22. Ibid p197
23. Ibid p197
24. MANGUM. T. 'Little Women: The Ageing Female Character in 19th Century British Children's Literature Figuring Age: Women, Bodies, Generations. Ed. Katherine Woodward. Bloomington: Indiana University Press (1999) p 59-87. References by JEWUSIAK J (p76)
25. HARTLEY J. The text of a Presentation to The Dickens Fellowship " Dickens and the Old Men. Fagin, Chuffley and the Aged P" (October 2022)
26. Ibid. Hartley J
27. ChatON-AI chat Bot. narrative. ( 5.08.2023)
28. Ibid (5.08.23)
29. CHASE. K. The Victorians and Age. Oxford University Press. p135
30. Ibid p 273
31. INGHAM. P. The Language of Dickens. Chapter 8. In PAROISSIEN. D. (Ed). A Companion to Charles Dickens. Wiley-Blackwell (2011)
32. Ibid ChatON -A.I. (28.11.23) [This is my paraphrase from a ChatOn-AI narrative asking for a summary of the character Grandfather Trent. The report acknowledges the complex relationship between him and Little Nell, concluding that " Dickens masterfully weaves a range of themes into the narrative, creating a character who evolves and engages the readers in thought-provoking ways"]
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