Voorjaar 2009 no.66
The Dutch Dickensian Volume XXIX
16
the novel, but decides conceitedly that he will
now marry her. He faints when he finds that
Biddy has married Joe Gargery - and then
can admit how ungrateful and self-centred he
has been. Pip's change happens in stages,
through the last third of the novel.
Estella has suffered, too, and has changed; in
the end she can propose friendship with Pip.
My point is that Dickens is always looking for
characters who might change, though some of
them, as he notes in the preface to Martin
Chuzzlewit, are rendered incapable of such by
their character, upbringing and the circum
stances of their lives. Magwitch, however,
overcomes his having "grown up took up" in a
world which assumed that he was nothing but
a "warmint." He changes, thanks o what he
understands as Pip's friendship out on the
marches. And Pip changes, ever so slowly. If
we read the ending of Great Expectations as
many people do, having Pip ignore Estella's
insisting that she and Pip are "friends," and
"will continue friends apart" - if we read that
final sentence as meaning that Pip and Estella
marry - Pip hasn't changed; he is still the
same selfish, self-centred creature he has been
all through the novel.
But of course Pip is not a solipsist; rather, he
has always been critical of his character-self s
selfishness. So Pip doesn't carry Estella off
against her expressed wishes. They remain
friends. As Joe Gargery says, "partings" from
friends are what life is made of.
Dickens rarely finds hypocrites who change,
even if they do suffer through some crisis. And
most of Dickens's serious villains are hyp
ocrites - like most of this world.
I have said nothing much about Our Mutual
Friend yet, but wish now to spend the rest of
my time talking about that marvellous, glori
ously beautiful novel. I have mentioned a
number of its characters who are not what
they seem: the Veneerings, the "mature young
gentleman" named Lammie and the "mature
young gentlewoman" named Akersham, John
Harmon-Handford-Rokesmith, Fledgeby and
Riah, Jenny Wren and her bad child, Noddy
Boffin the great pretender at greed. But the
characters I want to focus upon are Bradley
Headstone, Rogue Riderhood, Bella Wilfer,
and Eugene Wrayburn. And I want to do so by
comparing them to each other: as a sort of test
of our judgement.
The choices in life are basically two, at the
beginning of Our Mutual Friendcivilisation
or savagery. Charley Hexam is introduced as a
fifteen year-old mixture of "uncompleted sav
agery, and uncompleted civilisation." (1,3).
But "civilisation' in this novel isn't necessarily
a good thing: as Mortimer proposes in the
final chapter, or the "savages" to become
"civilised" means that they begin "eating one
another." And as Charley becomes more
"civilised," "raising" himself in the world and
in society, he becomes more and more selfish.
Severing his connection with his former men
tor and benefactor Bradley Headstone,
Charley uses no fewer than eighty first-person
pronouns in six short paragraphs. Savagely
isn't good, but in this novel civilisation - like
"Society" - is often worse. True John
Rokesmith remains untainted by this greedy,
false world; Noddy Boffin remains an honest
rustic, even when he is wealthy and courted by
Society; and though Henrietta Boffin becomes
"a high-flyer at fashion" she doesn't quit being
generous and kind. As John says of her good
ness, "Some of us supply the shortcomings of
the rest." (2,10)
In being in love with money, Bella Wilfer is
like two other characters in the novel, but
Dickens treats her differently from them. Silas
Wegg gets so lustfully excited reading about
misers that his wooden leg "elevate[s] itself'
in front of him, and falls into an orgasmic
"pecuniary swoon" (3,6); in the end, because
he is unrepentant, he is thrown into a scav
enger's cart, fascination Fledgeby is born of a
bad debt (2,5), and grows toward manhood as
"a kind of outlaw in the bill-broking line."
"Avarice" is his main characteristic; but the
gesture which defines him is his anxiety to be
growing whiskers - which he can't. Fledgeby
is in love with money, and though he desper
ately wants to grow up, Dickens won't let him
- and names his business house "Pubsey and
Co." Wegg couldn't love if he wanted to,
because he literally lust after money.
Bella is in love with money, too; she tells her
Pa that she is a "mercenary little wretch"
(2,8). She is "always avariciously scheming,"
and is "resolved to marry money." "Talk to
