The novel Dombey and Son by C. Dickens and its place in the writer's work Contents

2.4. Analysis of Charles Dickens ' Dombey and Son"
Dicken s ' best work of the 1940s was Dombey and Son. Work on it began in England in October 1846, continued in Switzerland and France, and was completed in April 1848 after returning to London.
The novel was created during the period of the highest rise of Chartism in England. In the second half of the 1940s, the baselessness of many of the writer's illusions and, above all, his belief in the possibility of a class world became more and more obvious. The writer's confidence in the effectiveness of his appeal to the bourgeoisie was also shaken. The brutal suppression of the working-class movement by the English bourgeoisie served as a serious lesson for him. The experience of life, the wealth of observations, the heated atmosphere of pre-revolutionary Europe allowed Dickens to create a work with great ideological depth and artistic value. convincingly revealing the anti-humanistic essence of bourgeois relations. A great achievement of Dickens is that he was able to show the relationship and interdependence that exists between individual aspects and phenomena of life. This indicated a more in-depth approach of the writer to the phenomena of social reality, and could not in turn but have an impact on the originality of the novel and, first of all, on its construction.
Dombey and Son presents a broad picture of the life of England, where everything down to the smallest detail is subordinated to the unity of design. All the plot lines of the novel converge and intertwine in a single center. A large number of characters in the novel are centered around the figure of the central character; the fate and originality of each of them serve a single task - to reveal the character of the main character of the narrative more deeply. The ideological and artistic center of the novel is the image of Mr Dombey , a major English merchant who heads the firm of Dombey and Son.
Dickens intended Dombey and Son as a novel that would solve the " pride problem." But the moral category of pride is most closely connected with the social conditions that give rise to it. The tragedy of Dombey is the tragedy of human pride defeated, and yet Dombey's story proves the fallacy of the notion that money is all-powerful and can buy affection, happiness, and love. Moreover, in telling the story of the downfall of the family and Dombey's ambitious hopes, Dickens proves with great force of conviction that money brings evil with it, poisons they enslave people's minds, turn them into heartless, proud and selfish people. Such is Mr Dombey. Dombey embodies the power of money, which governs the life of bourgeois society.
Dombey is soulless, hard, and cold. The prosperity of the firm is the goal of his life, the meaning of his existence - "Dombey and Son! These three words expressed one single idea of Mr Dombey's life. The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade on, and the sun and moon were made to give them light... Rivers and seas were made for the navigation of their ships, rainbows promised them good weather; winds favored or opposed their activities; stars and planets moved in their orbits to keep the system of which they were the center inviolable."
The interests of the firm determine the way of thinking of its owner, his attitude to others, and his actions. As a matter of fact, Dombey is not the master of his enterprise, but a wretched slave "enslaved by his own greatness, harnessed to his own triumphal chariot like a beast of burden." In the mind of little Paul Dombey, the image of his father merges with a powerful firm. When asked what his father's name is, he answers "Dombey and son".
Dombey is self-confident, and this quality is based on a firm belief in the unshakable power of wealth: "Money is the reason that we are revered, feared, respected, fawned upon, and admired."
Dombey is a typical English bourgeois. This is shown in his desire to get into the aristocratic environment, to get close to people of a social circle (Dombey's attitude to Major Bagstock). This is also evident in his snobbery. Dombey has the greatest contempt for all those below him in the social scale.
Mr Dombey's pecuniary interests and the activities of his firm influence in one way or another the fate of the other characters in the novel, and above all those who are related to him. In this regard, it is impossible not to pay attention to the following feature of the novel. The title of the novel is the name of the firm - Dombey and Son. However, all the writer's attention is focused on the image of Dombey not in the sphere of his daily practical activities, but in the sphere of his relationship with members of his family or people who have one or another relationship to it. It is true that the writer also takes us to Mr Dombey's office, reveals his relationship with the manager Carker, tells the story of the happy rescue of Walter Gay, who turned out to be one of the victims of the criminal plans of Mr. Dombey. But still the businessman Dombey is shown mainly in the walls of his house. It would be wrong to assume that in this way Dickens limited the scope of the image of reality, focusing on problems of a family moral and ethical nature. The merit of the writer is that through family relations, he revealed the nature of relations between people in bourgeois society, one of the cells which is Mr Dombey's family. In this family, everything is subject to the harsh laws of the inhuman world of capital. And it is in this regard that the title of the novel takes on a deep meaning. Dombey and Son is the name of the firm, but it is also the story of a family in which the head of the firm, Mr Dombey, saw no human beings, but only obedient agents of his will and uncomplaining servants of the interests of his prosperous firm. Dombey looks at the people around him only from the point of view of their usefulness to his cause. So he just doesn't notice his daughter Florence. In his eyes, she is just a "fake coin"., which cannot be invested in the business." Dombey places all his hopes in a small Field. The son should become the heir and successor of his father's business, who has increased the company's wealth all his life. Dombey is quite unmoved by the death of his first wife: she had done her duty by giving him a son to inherit, and that was enough to make him forget about her. "The Dombys often dealt with the skin, but they never dealt with the heart," says Dickens.
Dombey's selfishness knows no bounds. But even his attention to someone can not bring good. Sickly little Paul dies. He cannot bear the system of upbringing that his soulless father subjects him to.
Dombey sees his son as a future businessman. He tries to teach his son the principles of selfishness, talks with the child about the power of money. Paul is forbidden to love his sister Florence and his wet nurse, forbidden to play with his peers. The heir to a rich family name is deprived of a normal childhood.
Blimber's school and Mrs Pipchin's boarding school are disastrous for him: weak and tender, he needed care and affection. Paul dies, and the hopes placed on him are not destined to come true. So Dombey sacrifices to the firm the one thing he loved in life – his son.
Dombey is further embittered by the death of his son. And if he had never noticed Florence before, now he feels a deep hatred for his daughter, who continues to live, while his son and heir is dead.
Dombey sees relationships between people as a kind of trade deal. He buys himself a beautiful wife, Edith. Edith is an aristocrat by birth. Such a wife would be a great and useful ornament to Dombey's house. This is beneficial for the company. When Dombey marries Edith, he does not for a moment doubt the nobility of his action. Dombey believes that money can buy submission and obedience, loyalty and loyalty. However, the power of money is far from omnipotent when faced with a proud and strong Edith. She leaves Dombey's house. And for the first time Dombey's confidence is shaken in the invincibility of his power.
Dombey's family life is in complete disarray. His first wife dies, Paul dies, and Edith and Florence run away from home. Dombey also suffers from bad luck in his affairs. The steward, Carker, in whom Dombey has blindly trusted, ruins him and runs away with his money. Carker, who is perfectly skilled in the weapons of flattery and hypocrisy, passes through Mr Dombey's school, and, having learned the dishonest methods of getting rich, turns them against his master. Dombey is left all alone.
The main method of creating an image of Dombey is hyperbole. Hyperbole is one of the tools of Dickens ' satirical skill. Exaggerating the main character trait or appearance of his hero, the writer reveals through it the most significant aspects of the described phenomenon.
The peculiarity of Mr Dombey's character - that of a prim English bourgeois-is beautifully rendered by Dickens's constant attention to the cold that emanates from Dombey, to the atmosphere of freezing cold that reigns in his house. The gloomy, cold, deserted rooms suggest a recent death at Mr Dombey's house: "Bell-handles, curtains, and mirrors wrapped in newspapers and magazines... they imposed fragmentary reports of deaths and terrible murders. Each chandelier, wrapped in canvas, looked like a monstrous tear falling from a ceiling eye. From fireplaces there were smells coming from crypts and damp basements." The front of Mr Dombey's house is grand and gloomy. Its windows overlook the street, where the sun almost never looks in. There are only two stunted trees in the yard, and their leaves are so smoked that they do not rustle when the wind blows, but knock against each other.
The whole appearance of the owner is in harmony with his gloomy gloomy dwelling. Dickens clearly exaggerates Dombey's character traits and behavior. He notes that Dombey's appearance usually causes the temperature in the room to drop. Dickens likens his hero to an eternally straight and cold poker, to fireplace tongs.
At the same time, it is impossible not to notice that in Dombey and Son, Dickens refuses to be too direct in his portrayal of the characters of his characters. The characters of Dombey, Carker, and especially Edith Dickens are sought to reveal in their inherent psychological complexity. Dombey is cruel, soulless, and cold, but his feelings for Paul are great, and his feelings about the boy's death are painful. Dombey is both selfish and infinitely lonely. Dombey is proud, but the doom of this lone proud man becomes apparent long before his final downfall. A warning about it can be found in the distant sound of the waves, which the little Field hears; and it is recalled, as it were, over and over again, by those gloomy and somewhat sinister scenes which accompany the description of Dombey's life. And this warning is already quite clearly heard in the chapters devoted to the description of the relationship between Dombey and Florence. The author speaks plainly of Mr. Dombey's impending retribution for his callousness and cruelty. "He is destined to remember it in that very room in the years to come. The rain pounding on the roof, the wind moaning outside, perhaps foreshadowed this in their melancholy noise. He's destined to remember this in this room in the years to come!»
Even more complex is the character of Edith Granger. She grew up in a world where everything is sold and everything is bought. She was also sold, married first to Granger and then to Mr Dombey. "I was sold as shamefully as a woman with a noose around her neck is sold in the slave market," she complains bitterly. Edith is proud, arrogant, but also "too humiliated and depressed to save herself." And yet Edith rebelled against Dombey's despotism, against the disenfranchised position in which she found herself when she became his wife. She also leaves Dombey's house and thereby strikes a blow at his firm. Humiliation and pride, depression and rebelliousness are combined in Edith's nature.
Dickens created in the novel a remarkable gallery of images of people from the people in terms of artistic expressiveness and diversity of individuals. Each of them, individually and collectively, is opposed to Dombey's world - not only morally, but socially. This contrast reflects the contradictions between the ruling classes and the people. Stoker Toodle and his wife, Captain Cuttle, and shopkeeper Giles, the maid Susan Nipper, embody the best qualities of ordinary people. Speaking of the stoker Toodle, Dickens points out that this worker is "the complete opposite in every way to Mr Dombey." He is a wonderful family man, and his family is not infected with all-pervading greed and self-interest. He has no flattery or admiration for the power of gold. The self-esteem inherent in him and other ordinary people is combined with a clear mind, kindness, and responsiveness. Dickens is very sympathetic to the hard-working Toodle, the eccentric Cuttle, the sharp-tongued and quick-to-work Susan Nipper. All of these people are drawn together by their true humanity and willingness to help each other in need. It is in their midst that Florence finds shelter and support.
The general tone of the story in Dombey and Son is melancholy, and more and more often anger and indignation are replaced by cheerful laughter. And the very nature of laughter becomes different. Dickens ' laughter not only completely loses its harmlessness, but also becomes angrily condemnatory whenever the writer directs it against those who personify the injustice of the existing order. And in Dombey and Son, Dickens reaches a great depth of typification, capturing in the image of Dombey the most characteristic features of the English bourgeois and showing the depth of the abyss that separates people like Dombey from the world of Stoker Toodle. The traditional happy ending of this novel is in clear contradiction with the entire narrative. In Dombey and Son, the transition from humor to satire is quite obvious; it is not only about the elements of satire, but also about the nature of the worldview and the emotional reflection of reality.
Researchers of Dickens ' work rightly note that in the novel Dombey and Son, the very manner of characterization of comedic images is directly related to their social affiliation. For example, Captain Cuttle and the owner of the marine tool shop Gile are clearly comic figures, even caricatured. But these simple, honest and sympathetic people are deeply sympathetic to the author, and he laughs at them cheerfully and good-naturedly. And this laughter, this subtle irony over the weaknesses of old cranks affirm the good principles in a person and serve a great task - creating positive images. ordinary people.
Mr Dombey and the English aristocrats are depicted in a very different light. Satirical, for example, is the caricature of Edith's mother, Mrs. Skewton. She is funny with her simpering antics, hypocritical speeches, fake smiles. But not only is this avaricious and wicked, youngish old woman ridiculous: she traffics in her daughter to profit by her beauty, Dickens laughs maliciously at Mrs. Skewton, mocks her attempts to look like a blooming beauty at seventy, her desire to "reign" in society, and her willingness to grovel before Dombey's wealth. Its sharply negative attitude to Mrs. Skewton and other members of the "upper class" (image
Miss Susan Nipper: Flash Florence is a loyal nurse who was about 14 years old at the time of meeting the reader. She believes that "childhood, like money, needs to be shaken, shaken and pushed a lot to keep it bright."
"Wooden midshipman" of the eponymous sea uncle Sol. Statue at the Charles Dickens Museum.
Solomon (Uncle Sol) Gills: "Elderly Gentleman in a Welsh Wig", manufacturer and merchant of ship tools, owner of The Wooden Midshipman.
The Good Mrs Brown: An elderly rag vendor who briefly abducts young Florence from the street crowd and steals her pretty clothes. She only refrains from cutting Florence's hair because she has a daughter of her own who is "far away," which is a foreshadowing of Alice's appearance later in the book. Eagerly provides Mr. Dombey with information from Rob Grinder about where his name and Mr. Carker the steward have fled.
John Carker (Mr. Carker, Jr.): James's older brother who disgraced himself by stealing Dombey's firm. and the Son when Mr. Dombey's father was running it. “Not old, but his hair was white; his body was bent or bent by "deep wrinkles in his tortured and melancholic face." Called "Junior" to indicate his place in the firm, and not in relation to his (younger) brother.
Major Joseph Bagstock: Retired Ambitious Major. "Wooden face, blue face" with "last elephant ears", he annoyingly calls himself third person Josh,
Native: Bagstock's servant who came from an unknown country, presumably a British colony, and "has no specific name, but responded to any offensive epithet." Bagstock mistreated her mercilessly
Mrs. Wickham: Replacing young Paul as nanny after the disgrace and dismissal of Mrs. Richards, "a gentle woman with a fair face, constantly raised eyebrows and always down."
Mrs. Pipchin: A dour widow who runs a "very special kind of children's boarding house" in Brighton, where Paul is sent to seek his health.
Master Beaterstone: Another child with Mrs. Pipchin, where he is abused by the mistress. Much later, a student of Dr. Blimber
Miss Punky: Another child at Mrs. Pipchin's "Shampooed every morning and seemed in danger of being completely erased."
Brogley: Used goods dealer and broker. "A man with wet eyes, a pink complexion and fresh hair, a large figure and a light character."
Mrs McStinger: rents rooms in her building on the East End docks; Ferocious landlady and enemy of Captain Cuttle
Dr. Blimber: Runs a school in Brighton ("a big greenhouse with a continuous blower") that Paul visits briefly
Mr. P. Toots: The oldest student at Dr. Blimber's school, "the coarsest voice and the most piercing mind", something like a dandy ("people said ... when he started whiskers he stopped having brains").
Mr. Feeder, BA: Assistant to Dr. Blimber, teacher at the school, and also the owner. “Has a habit of shaving his head.
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