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Title: Dombey and Son
Series:
----------
Author: Charles Dickens
Rating:
5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages:
876
Words: 357.5K
From Wikipedia
The
story concerns Paul Dombey, the wealthy owner of the shipping company
of the book's title, whose dream is to have a son to continue his
business. The book begins when his son is born and Dombey's wife dies
shortly after giving birth. Following the advice of Mrs. Louisa
Chick, his sister, Dombey employs a wet nurse named Mrs. Richards
(Toodle). Dombey already has a six-year-old daughter Florence, but,
bitter at her not having been the desired boy, he neglects her
continually. One day, Mrs. Richards, Florence, and her maid, Susan
Nipper, secretly pay a visit to Mrs. Richard's house in Staggs's
Gardens so that Mrs. Richards can see her children. During this trip,
Florence becomes separated from them and is kidnapped for a short
time by Good Mrs. Brown, before being returned to the streets. She
makes her way to Dombey and Son's offices in the City and there is
found and brought home by Walter Gay, an employee of Mr. Dombey, who
first introduces her to his uncle, the navigation instrument maker
Solomon Gills, at his shop The Wooden Midshipman.
The
child, named Paul after his father, is a weak and sickly child, who
does not socialise normally with others; adults call him "old
fashioned". He is intensely fond of his sister Florence, who is
deliberately neglected by her father as a supposedly irrelevant
distraction. Paul is sent to the seaside at Brighton for his health,
where he and Florence lodge with the ancient and acidic Mrs. Pipchin.
Finding his health beginning to improve there, Mr. Dombey keeps him
at Brighton and has him educated there at Dr. and Mrs. Blimber's
school, where he and the other boys undergo both an intense and
arduous education under the tutelage of Mr. Feeder, B.A. and Cornelia
Blimber. It is here that Paul is befriended by a fellow pupil, the
amiable but weak-minded Mr. Toots.
Here,
Paul's health declines even further in this 'great hothouse' and he
finally dies, still only six years old. Dombey pushes his daughter
away from him after the death of his son, while she futilely tries to
earn his love. In the meantime, young Walter sent off to fill a
junior position in the firm's counting house in Barbados through the
manipulations of Mr Dombey's confidential manager, Mr James Carker,
'with his white teeth', who sees him as a potential rival through his
association with Florence. His boat is reported lost and he is
presumed drowned. Walter's uncle leaves to go in search of Walter,
leaving his great friend Captain Edward Cuttle in charge of The
Midshipman. Meanwhile, Florence is now left alone with few friends to
keep her company.
Dombey
goes to Leamington Spa with a new friend, Major Joseph B. Bagstock.
The Major deliberately sets out to befriend Dombey to spite his
neighbour in Princess's Place, Miss Tox, who has turned cold towards
him owing to her hopes – through her close friendship with Mrs
Chick – of marrying Mr. Dombey. At the spa, Dombey is introduced
via the Major to Mrs. Skewton and her widowed daughter, Mrs. Edith
Granger. Mr. Dombey, on the lookout for a new wife since his son's
death, considers Edith a suitable match due to her accomplishments
and family connections; he is encouraged by both the Major and her
avaricious mother, but obviously feels no affection for her. After
they return to London, Dombey remarries, effectively 'buying' the
beautiful but haughty Edith as she and her mother are in a poor
financial state. The marriage is loveless; his wife despises Dombey
for his overbearing pride and herself for being shallow and
worthless. Her love for Florence initially prevents her from leaving,
but finally she conspires with Mr. Carker to ruin Dombey's public
image by running away together to Dijon. They do so after her final
argument with Dombey in which he once again attempts to subdue her to
his will. When he discovers that she has left him, he blames Florence
for siding with her stepmother, striking her on the breast in his
anger. Florence is forced to run away from home. Highly distraught,
she finally makes her way to The Midshipman where she lodges with
Captain Cuttle as he attempts to restore her to health. They are
visited frequently by Mr. Toots and his prizefighter companion, the
Chicken, since Mr. Toots has been desperately in love with Florence
since their time together in Brighton.
Dombey
sets out to find his wife. He is helped by Mrs. Brown and her
daughter, Alice, who, as it turns out, was a former lover of Mr.
Carker. After being transported as a convict for criminal activities,
which Mr. Carker had involved her in, she is seeking her revenge
against him now that she has returned to England. Going to Mrs.
Brown's house, Dombey overhears the conversation between Rob the
Grinder – who is in the employment of Mr. Carker – and the old
woman as to the couple's whereabouts and sets off in pursuit. In the
meantime, in Dijon, Mrs. Dombey informs Carker that she sees him in
no better a light than she sees Dombey, that she will not stay with
him, and she flees their apartment. Distraught, with both his
financial and personal hopes lost, Carker flees from his former
employer's pursuit. He seeks refuge back in England, but being
greatly overwrought, accidentally falls under a train and is killed.
After
Carker's death, it is discovered that he had been running the firm
far beyond its means. This information is gleaned by Carker's brother
and sister, John and Harriet, from Mr. Morfin, the assistant manager
at Dombey and Son, who sets out to help John Carker. He often
overheard the conversations between the two brothers in which James,
the younger, often abused John, the older, who was just a lowly clerk
and who is sacked by Dombey because of his filial relationship to the
former manager. As his nearest relations, John and Harriet inherit
all Carker's ill-gotten gains, to which they feel they have no right.
Consequently, they surreptitiously give the proceeds to Mr. Dombey,
through Mr. Morphin, who is instructed to let Dombey believe that
they are merely something forgotten from the general wreck of his
fortunes. Meanwhile, back at The Midshipman, Walter reappears, having
been saved by a passing ship after floating adrift with two other
sailors on some wreckage. After some time, he and Florence are
finally reunited – not as 'brother' and 'sister' but as lovers, and
they marry prior to sailing for China on Walter's new ship. This is
also the time when Sol Gills returns to The Midshipman. As he relates
to his friends, he received news whilst in Barbados that a
homeward-bound China trader had picked up Walter and so had returned
to England immediately. He said he had sent letters whilst in the
Caribbean to his friend Ned Cuttle c/o Mrs MacStinger at Cuttle's
former lodgings, and the bemused Captain recounts how he fled the
place, thus never receiving them.
Florence
and Walter depart and Sol Gills is entrusted with a letter, written
by Walter to her father, pleading for him to be reconciled towards
them both. A year passes and Alice Brown has slowly been dying
despite the tender care of Harriet Carker. One night Alice's mother
reveals that Alice herself is the illegitimate cousin of Edith Dombey
(which accounts for their similarity in appearance when they both
meet). In a chapter entitled 'Retribution', Dombey and Son goes
bankrupt. Dombey retires to two rooms in his house and all its
contents are put up for sale. Mrs. Pipchin, for some time the
housekeeper, dismisses all the servants and she herself returns to
Brighton, to be replaced by Mrs. Richards. Dombey spends his days
sunk in gloom, seeing no-one and thinking only of his daughter:
He thought of her as
she had been that night when he and his bride came home. He thought
of her as she had been in all the home events of the abandoned house.
He thought, now, that of all around him, she alone had never changed.
His boy had faded into dust, his proud wife had sunk into a polluted
creature, his flatterer and friend had been transformed into the
worst of villains, his riches had melted away, the very walls that
sheltered him looked on him as a stranger; she alone had turned the
same, mild gentle look upon him always. Yes, to the latest and the
last. She had never changed to him – nor had he ever changed to her
– and she was lost.
However,
one day Florence returns to the house with her baby son, Paul, and is
lovingly reunited with her father.
Dombey
accompanies his daughter to her and Walter's house where he slowly
starts to decline, cared for by Florence and also Susan Nipper, now
Mrs. Toots. They receive a visit from Edith's Cousin Feenix who takes
Florence to Edith for one final time – Feenix sought Edith out in
France and she returned to England under his protection. Edith gives
Florence a letter, asking Dombey to forgive her her crime before her
departure to the South of Italy with her elderly relative. As she
says to Florence, 'I will try, then to forgive him his share of the
blame. Let him try to forgive me mine!'
The
final chapter (LXII) sees Dombey now a white-haired old man 'whose
face bears heavy marks of care and suffering; but they are traces of
a storm that has passed on for ever, and left a clear evening in its
track'. Sol Gills and Ned Cuttle are now partners at The Midshipman,
a source of great pride to the latter, and Mr and Mrs Toots announce
the birth of their third daughter. Walter is doing well in business,
having been appointed to a position of great confidence and trust,
and Dombey is the proud grandfather of both a grandson and
granddaughter whom he dotes on. The book ends with the highly moving
lines:
'Dear grandpapa, why
do you cry when you kiss me?'
He only answers,
'Little Florence! Little Florence!' and smooths away the curls that
shade her earnest eyes.
This was a book about Luciferian Pride and just how destructive and
ruinous such pride is.
While I enjoyed this tremendously while reading, it took me over 2
weeks to get through simply because the subject matter was so tough.
Dickens does an admirable job of showing how Florence just wants her
father to love her and how he does everything but that.
Even with the semi-happy ending, this was a book simply drenched in
meloncholia. While Florence had a greater capacity than I to
persevere, she was no bright eyed Pollyana with a song on her lips.
She was greatly affected by her father's treatment.
I also found that I wanted to throttle Captain Cuttle, another of the
characters that I mentioned in my currently reading post earlier this
month. He was so kind and gentle and at the same time he simply made
everything worse. Everything. Even near the end when he finds out
that Walter is back in England, he spends the whole day reminding
Florence that Walter is drowned and dead:
'Poor
Wal'r, aye, aye. Drownded, ain't he?'
I
just wanted to throttle him even while laughing at his antics.
This
is the book I'll think of when someone mentions Dickens and run-on
sentences and bloviated writing. It was quite noticeable and this is
coming from me, who's been re-reading Dickens for almost the last 3
years, so you know it was “bad”. I suspect that is another reason
I took so long reading this. You couldn't read this quickly or you'd
lose yourself in his maze of words and have no clue what he was
talking about by the end of a paragraph. This was definitely a book
calling for comprehensive reading.
Overall,
another great entry but not one I'd recommend to anyone new to
Dickens. Save this for once you've had some experience. In other
words, don't try to run before you can walk!
★★★★★
