Voorjaar 2009 no.66
15
The Dutch Dickensian Volume XXIX
ond chapter; Alfred Lammie and Sophronia
Akerhem are in attendance, though not yet
named. All are false, as their names suggest.
We also meet Lady Tippins, with "a dyed Long
Walk up the top of her head" and "a bunch of
false hair behind"; she will later be described
as being "dyed and varnished" so that "any
fragment of the real woman may be con
cealed" (bk. 1 ch. 10). The stoiy of John
Harmon is introduced by Mortimer
Lightwood, and in the third chapter we meet
the body supposed to be Harmon's, and Julius
Handford.
In the fourth chapter we meet Reginald
Wilfer, known in the neighbourhood where he
works as Rusty,Retiring Ruddy, Round, Ripe,
Ridiculous, Ruminative, Raving, Roaring,
Raffish, and Rumty. the narrator frequently
calls him "the Cherub." We also meet John
Rokesmith; we are given a hint that he may be
Julius Handford, but as yet we have no way of
knowing that he may be Julius Handford, but
as yet we have no way of knowing that he is
John Harmon. Bella Wilfer's immediate suspi
cion that Rokesmith is "a Murderer" is hardly
a hint as to his identity.
We next meet the Boffins, and Silas Wegg.
Wegg's character is immediately made clear to
us; and in the coarse of the novel, he doesn't
change. Noddy Boffin's character is more diffi
cult - and we have no way of knowing, as the
novel progresses, of his benevolent scheming
with Bella or of the trap he is setting for the
avaricious Wegg.
We don't meet Jenny Wren until the second
book of the novel, when Charley Hexam and
Bradley Headstone come to the doll's dress
maker's to see Lizzie. Jenny isn't jenny, of
course; she is Fanny Cleaver. And her bad boy,
whom Eugene calls Mr. Dolls, is her besotted
father, fascination Fledgeby and Mr. Riah are
both in disguise, Riah as an avaricious Jew,
Fledgeby as a young Christian gentleman. We
never get Fledgeby's given name; Jenny calls
Mr. Riah her 'Fairy Godmother"; Eugene calls
him "Mr. Aaron."
In The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens will
warn us that "seemings may be false or true"
(ch. 22) and that "few languages can be read
until their alphabets are mastered" (ch. 17).
He has always asked us to observe carefully,
and to work hard - and imaginatively - to
make sense of what we see. He has also both
continued to reveal characters as his stories
progress - as he says he did with Mr. Pickwick
- and showed them to us undergoing signifi
cant change. Most notably he shows us serious
change in young Martin Chuzzlewit, Loo
Bounderby, Sydney Carton, Pip, Bella Wilfer,
and Eugene Wrayburn.
Robert Heaman has written about the change
that occurs to many of Dickens's central char
acters, as they undergo what Dickens himself
calls "the crisis of adversity." Martin
Chuzzlewit, for example, becomes ill with the
fever in America; when he recovers he begins
to zee, to his same, how selfish he has been.
David Copperfield has his crisis after Dora
dies, as he journeys through the Alps, weeping
selfishly for what he has lost; eventually he
weeps for Dora, rather than for himself, and
begins to recover. He says that he has been
trying to "got a better understanding of
myself, and be a better man." Esther
Summerson suffers through a serious illness,
and though her character doesn't change sig
nificantly, her understanding and lookout do.
Richard Carstone suffers from a disease which
Allan Woodcourt can't diagnose. Richard
finally learns that he has been corrupted to
death by the promise of an inheritance; he
dies before he can "begin the world" anew.
Arthur Clennam's crisis brings him to the
Marshalsea. In describing Clennam's situa
tion, Dickens writes about how "adversity"
afflicts us, and what can come from it as
"some marked stop in the whirling wheel of
life brings the light perception with is." For
Clennam, such a perception comes "in his
adversity, clearly and tenderly."
Pip undergoes a great change, brought on by
the collapse of what have been his "great
expectations." He wants to run away, but
Herbert won't let him; Herbert insists,
instead, that he must be responsible to the
man who has been his benefactor. Shamed by
Herbert's sense of goodness, Pip learns to be
Magwitch's friend. After Magwitch's death,
Pip falls dangerously ill; when he recovers, he
knows more, and knows more about himself -
but still not enough to be a good man. He has
been utterly insensitive to Biddy throughout
