Voorjaar 2009 no.66
The Dutch Dickensian Volume XXIX 14
Curiosity Shop, Dickens hides Nell's grandfa
ther's brother as "the Single Gentleman," and
Dick Swiveller turns the Marchioness" - oth
erwise unnamed - into Sophronia Sphynx.
Maypole Hugh turns out to be Sir John
Chester's son in Barnaby Rudge. In Martin
Chuzzlewit, Mr Pecksniff is a hypocrite, old
Martin a pretender and Tom Pich's secret
benefactor; Mrs. Gamp has an imaginary fiend
named Mrs. Harris, and Montegue Tigg is
sometimes Tigg Montague. In Dombey and
Son Polly Toodle becomes Richards, and Rob
the Grinder is called Biler in the Toodle fami
ly; Mrs. Skewton is Cleopatra, and Mr. Morfin
is an unnamed friend to Harriet Carker for
most of the novel. David Copperfield is vari
ously know as Trot, Daisy, Doady, Master
Copperfull, Brooks of Sheffield, and Towzer;
Mr. Dick's name is Richard Babley. In Bleak
House Esther Summerson is Dame Durden
and Dame Trot, Miss Barbary is not her god
mother but her aunt, Hortense disguises her
self as Esther, and Nemo is - or was -
Captain Hawdon. Mrs. Pegler turns out to be
Mr. Bounderby's mother in Hard Times. In
Little Dorrit, Blandois is Rigaud, Tatycorum is
Harriet Beadle, and Mrs. Clennam isn't Arthur
Clennam's mother after all. Sydney famously
becomes Charles Darnay in A Tale of Two
Cities.
In Great Expectations, Philip Pirrip names
himself Pip, and Orlick - according - to Pip -
has named himself as well; Magwitch becomes
Provis, and to Herbert Pocket, Pip is Handel.
Mr. Wopsle becomes Mr. Waldengarver, play
ing Hamlet. Wemmick pretends to live two
completely separate lives. Which brings us to
Our Mutual Friend - who, in person, is vari
ously Julius Handford, John Rokesmith, and
John Harmon. In Edwin Drood, deputy is also
Winks, Helena Landless once disguised her
self as a boy, John Jasper is false, and some
body is masquerading as Dick Datchery.
In the preface to Pickwick Papers Dickens
proposed that "the peculiarities and oddities
of a man generally impress us first, and it
is not until we are better acquainted with him
that we usually begin to look below these
superficial traits, and to know the better part
of him." By the time he wrote Our Mutual
Friend Dickens wasn't thinking so casually
about getting t know characters, or character.
He insists that we look closely at everything -
at every little clue to anything - from the
beginning.
In the opening paragraphs of Our Mutual
Friend Dickens teases us to make us pay
attention. The chapter is called, appropriately,
On the Look Out."
Lizzie and Gaffer Hexam
The figures in [the boat were those of a
strong man with ragged grizzled hair an a
sun-browned face, and a dark girl of nineteen
or twenty, sufficiently like him to be recognis
able as his daughter. [The man] had no net,
hook, or line, and he could not be a fisher
man; his boat had no cushion for a sitter, no
paint, no inscription, no appliance beyond a
rusty boat-hook and a coil of rope, and he
could not be a water-man; his boat was too
crazy and to small to take in cargo for deliv
ery, and he could not be a lighter-man or
river-carrier; there was no clue to what he
looked for, but he looked for something.
(OMF 1,1)
We don't know what the men in the boat
looked for, "but he looked for something; with
a most intent and searching gaze," and the girl
- "recognisable as his daughter" - "watched
his face earnestly, with "intensity [in] her
look." The two of the meet another man, part
of whose name we will get - Riderhood - in
chapter six; his full name is revealed in chap
ter twelve, as Roger, though "Rogue," he tells
us, is "the name I'm mostly called by - not for
any meaning in it, but for meaning it has
none, but because of its being similar to
Roger."
The Veneerings have a dinner party in the sec-
