Commenter Jun made a good point the other day about how Arthur in Little Dorrit — like several other Dickens heroes — has to be "brought down" before he and Amy are able to come together, and we had an interesting little chat about how this tends to be a trend in 19th-century literature, often with both the hero and heroine needing to undergo a great change of some sort. It's a fascinating topic.
In Arthur's case, though, I find myself focusing more on his rebirth. I've always been struck by this part of the introduction in my copy, written by John Holloway:
Dickens does not, of course, go back on his generalities and his portrait of society. The closing words of the book emphasize that society is entirely unchanged. [That's one reason I rather missed the smaller wedding scene, with its depiction of one couple's happiness against the larger backdrop of society's "usual uproar," even though the movie's big wedding was certainly enjoyable in its own way. –GRD] But the crashing into ruin of Clennam's house, home of a generation-long deception and self-deception, focuses our vision of how at least those few who reject and destroy the false 'surface' may arise from life's ruin, into new and valid life, as if reborn.
Elsewhere in this essay — which is a really good piece of writing; I wish I could find it on the Web so I could link to it for you — Holloway explores how Arthur has been living a life of self-deception, seeing himself as old, solitary, and unloved, and how his false image of himself has to be destroyed before he can find happiness with Amy. And she herself has to break out of her shell to help him destroy it — as Holloway points out, she proposes to him. True, she waits until he's a captive audience (har!) to do it, but she does it, and shatters both their "surfaces": her timid exterior and his "avuncular" self-image.
And it makes the image of rebirth all the stronger that Arthur literally has a new mother, even though in the book he doesn't know it yet. It's a very nifty fitting together of narrative and theme.
(Speaking of Arthur's mothers, I was looking at the book the other day and came across Mrs. Clennam's letter to Arthur in prison again. I meant to mention in my review that I'd been surprised the filmmakers left that part out, but had eventually decided that it was just as well they had. Hoo boy, what a stinker of a letter! When you think about it, even though he still had a bad time, movie Arthur got off relatively easy compared to the book version.)
There's lots more that could be said on the subject, but I'll leave it for now and let you commenters take it up, if you'd like. Here are a couple of other Little Dorrit-related points I've been meaning to mention:
- The site Jane Austen Today has some lovely photos from the production, both stills and behind-the-scenes shots. The majority are here, but you'll find even more if you just keep scrolling down the homepage. I've seen other photos scattered around the Web here and there, but haven't kept very good track of where they were. If anyone else would like to let us know where you've found photos, please feel free!
- One thing I learned back when I was doing my honors undergraduate project is that if an author is really great, I can spend tons of time reading his or her works and still enjoy them just as much as I did at the beginning. (I would spend hours during the day writing about Dorothy L. Sayers, and then read her books for relaxation at night!) The same holds true of particular stories. Here we've spent all this time on Little Dorrit the miniseries, and now I've got a BBC radio dramatization in my room and I'm raring to go on that! Plus I still have the older miniseries to review. However, I understand that my readers may be ready for a little break, so I'll save both of those for later, probably sometime in the summer. We'll have plenty of other topics to cover in the meantime!
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