luka

Well-known member
Not that I want tO read the book that way, but it can be read that way. He allows it To be read that way, deliberately
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I put dissensus down 5 minutes ago and picked up bleak house and after 2vor 3 pages I get this sentence, which seems an odd bit of coincidence, given whats being discussed in the other thread!

"Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and a mixed biscuit, for all those who chose to partake of those refreshments. And there was science to an unlimited extent."

I wasn't gonna bother posting it, but then the Tuesday evening bit really made me sit up.
Just after talking about wanking, can't be a coincidence.
 

jenks

thread death
Shadow Dickens
Could this shadow be the tension between comedy and tragedy? In DC he’s primarily comic - the bad are punished, the good triumph (if a little bashed about a bit) and marriages are successful. In the shadow text - childhood sweethearts don’t marry the hero, the feckless are punished, Australia isn’t a land of second chances but certain death, strange aunts are bitter not indulgent...as I pointed out before - this is Great Expectations which has comic moments -Pumblechook etc but is altogether more serious.
 

jenks

thread death
Heep as hero seems unlikely as we are told early on that we are not to trust him but we know Heeps who have worked their way like creeper vines up the ladder of success. It is instructive that he is placed next to Steerforth’s pander in the prison - as if their crimes were complementary in some way.
But I suppose the question is why Copperfield and not Heep - why can’t Heep, moist hands and all, be the hero?
 

luka

Well-known member
It's the prison scene which really posed this question of a shadow Dickens. I had your clue about wank joke Dickens already in my mind as a prompt
 

luka

Well-known member
I think Heep as hero is eminently arguable if we assume the book is cant and wittingly so. I think that book exists provided you assume the ostensible book is morally unjustifiable
 

luka

Well-known member
I think we can take the book as morally unjustifiable fairly easily, and so Heep as hero asserts itself. As a rule the good people in the book are beholden to the great. Heep isn't good, but he is beholden. He is the one character who rebels against the social order
 

luka

Well-known member
The mere fact of rebelling against the ordained order is what makes him the hero of our shadow Dickens
 

luka

Well-known member
How does Dickens come to understand his own role and the role of his fictions within 'The System'? How jaundiced does this understanding make him
 

luka

Well-known member
I think the nature of episodic fiction means we get several Dickens more or less disillusioned and etc
 
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luka

Well-known member
It puts him directly in touch with 'the market' which is simultaneously 'the public'
 
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luka

Well-known member
My feeling is it stands around this question of whether Dickens felt his social status to be earned or arbitrary
 
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luka

Well-known member
If earned then everything is as it should be in the best of all possible worlds if arbitrary then why shouldn't Heep be hero
 
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luka

Well-known member
ThaT his own fame is arbitrary, and anyone meeting success owes their success to something arbitrary
 
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