The ‘Barnaby Rudge’ Read: Week 34

Categories:

He had never loved his life so well as then, but nothing could move him. The savage faces that glared upon him, look where he would; the cries of those who thirsted, like wild animals, for his blood; the sight of men pressing forward, and trampling down their fellows, as they strove to reach him, and struck at him above the heads of other men, with axes and with iron bars; all failed to daunt him. He looked from man to man, and face to face, and still, with quickened breath and lessening colour, cried firmly, "I will not!"

Chapter 64

In the last installment, Miggs made a nuisance of herself, and Gabriel took a heroic stand. This week, read chapters 65 and 66.

Response

  1. David Avatar

    Gabriel Varden’s defiance of the mob is by far my favorite scene in Barnaby Rudge and, in my view, is one of the greatest stagings of an intractable moral dilemma in all of Dickens. I love the way Dickens makes absolutely clear that Varden had every reason to expect immediate death for an act that was completely futile in checking the mob. It’s every bit as telling as Esther offering shelter to Jo the crossing sweeper in Bleak House in spite of the fact that it was too late to save Jo and only led Esther to contract the same fever. We see how a Dickens hero or heroine would behave in such a situation, but if it were our own lives on the line I wonder how many of us would be as steadfast in doing what is right rather than what is easy.

Leave a Reply

Search

Latest Comments

  1. He did an audiobook of A Christmas Carol too.

Discover more from Dickensblog

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading