Has anyone seen the new issue of Reason? Apparently it's not online, but the magazine's Web editor, Tim Cavanaugh, has a blog entry up describing an article he wrote for it about Dickens and anti-capitalism. Sounds a little simplistic to me, but (a) I'm no economics expert, and (b) as I indicated, I haven't seen the magazine. So I won't sound off on that, at least not until I've had a chance to look at the magazine and see if it's worth sounding off about. (Two prepositions at the end of one sentence! They'll take away my degrees in English.)
What really bugs me about Cavanaugh's blog post is this:
I started rereading Bleak House while working on it, and
though I found that book as heavy as a pile of cinder blocks when I
read it twenty years ago, I've been completely absorbed by it this
time.
In addition to being a fabled attack on lawyers, Bleak House is central to George Mason economist David M. Levy's study of Dickens
as an enemy of both free markets and the abolition movement. The
characters Mrs. Jellyby and Mrs. Pardiggle are parodic philanthropists,
who shower unwelcome charity on poor strangers (in Mrs. Jellyby's case,
the unfortunates of "Borrioboola-Gha" on the banks of the Niger), while
neglecting and mistreating their own family members. According to Levy,
the emphasis on these characters' families is a direct reference to the
family-centered nature of British evangelical abolitionism, in which
several generations of Anabaptist familes would commit themselves to
agitating for the cause.
As Levy points out, objections to
Dickens' lampooning of abolitionists date back to the time of
publication. Chief Justice of England Lord Thomas Denman, accused
Dickens of using "his powers to obstruct the great cause of human
improvement — that cause which in general he cordially advocates… We
do not say that he actually defends slavery or the slave-trade; but he
takes pains to discourage, by ridicule, the effort now making to put
them down… The disgusting picture of a woman who pretends zeal for
the happiness of Africa, and is constantly employed in securing a life
of misery to her own children, is a laboured work of art in his present
exhibition."
In the way of these things, the skill of the
writer outlives the specifics of the real-life model. Mrs. Jellyby has
become an iconic representation of pain-in-the-ass do-gooders, while
only a handful of people recall the pettiness of Dickens' motivation.
All this based on two characters in one book? Really? With all his advocacy for the oppressed in his books and his efforts to help them in real life, two characters make the man petty, anti-philanthropic, and anti-abolitionist? Ever hear of, say, creating well-rounded characters, or looking at all sides of an issue, or realizing that people have flaws and trying to reflect that in one's writing?
I'm sorry, Mr. Cavanaugh (and Mr. Levy), but if that's what you get out of Dickens, you don't get Dickens at all.
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