No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Dickens and the Evolution of Caricature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Out of the pages of Pickwick step many of Dickens's funniest eccentrics. Characters with mannerisms and tags of speech parade through the novel, illustrating a distinctive style of characterization which is usually labelled caricature in every novel he writes later. How and why did he begin this style? Much light can be thrown upon his early narrative development by a study of Mr. Jingle, the character which has one of the most extreme of all Dickens's uses of eccentric mannerism—a rapid-fire, staccato habit of speech. Furthermore, an unbelievable anecdote usually constitutes the subject-matter of Mr. Jingle's remarks, as:
Don Bolaro Fizzgig—Grandee—only daughter—Donna Christina—splendid creature—loved me to distraction—jealous father—high-souled creature—handsome Englishman—Donna Christina in despair—prussic acid—stomach pump in my portmanteau—operation performed—old Bolaro in ecstasies—consent to our union—join hands and floods of tears—romantic story—very.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1940
References
1 Pickwick Papers, Ch. ii.
2 A much earlier (isolated) use of such a manner of speaking in English literature is in The Pleasant Comodie of Patient Grissill, Thomas Dekker and others, produced about 1603. The hungry servant, Rice, a minor character, does have a few speeches in the staccato manner. It may safely be dismissed as far as having anything to do with Mr. Jingle is concerned.
3 Ch. i.
4 Ch. i.
5 David Copperfield, Ch. iv. Also Letter to Frank Stone, May 30, 1854.
6 F. D. Wierstra, Smollett and Dickens (1928), gathers the abundant evidence for the influence of Smollett upon Dickens. Ch. iv, “Sir Launcelot Greaves and Pickwick,” pp. 59–63, gives the literary evidence for Dickens's knowledge of this book and his borrowings from it.
7 Act ii, Scene i.
8 Act iii, Scene i.
9 See Dickens's remarks, John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens, ii, 356 (Lippincott Edition, Philadelphia, 1872–74). There is a reference to young Dornten, a character in the play, in “Private Theatres,” Sketches by Boz. Lascelles Abercrombie, LTLS, May 10, 1934, p. 332, suggests that Goldfinch is the source not only for Dickens's Mr. Jingle, but also for Hook, Surtees, and for the general popularity of such a manner of speech in the ordinary conversation of the London cockney in the early part of the nineteenth century.
10 W. S. Mackie, LTLS, June 14, 1934, p. 424, suggests this possible origin for Mr. Jingle.
11 Ch. vii.
12 There is no direct evidence that Dickens knew any play of Reynolds, nor was How to Grow Rich as popular as The Road to Ruin in Dickens's day. However, Dickens saw a great many plays as a young man, for most of which we have no records, and How to Grow Rich was revived occasionally in the first part of the nineteenth century.
13 Sir Hubert Stanley, a character in the play, is quoted by Captain Cuttle, Dombey and Son, Ch. i. See also Sketches by Boz, “Private Theatres.”
14 Act ii, Scene ii.
15 Act iv, Scene i.
16 E. B. Watson, Sheridan to Robertson (1926), p. 325.
17 S. J. Arnold, Forgotten Facts in the Memoirs of Charles Mathews, p. 30. Arnold was the manager who first backed Mathews's At Homes and guaranteed him a salary of £1,000 yearly. When the venture became extremely popular, Mathews and his wife felt the contract to be unfair. Arnold is the authority for the names of the dramatists who helped write Mathews's copy.
18 Undated, but probably 1823. Mathews tried to keep his program from imitation and never consented to the publication of any of his programs.
19 Op. cit., pp. 116–117.
20 Ibid., pp. 120–121.
21 Percy Fitzgerald, The History of Pickwick (1891), p. 123, suggests that Quanko Samba, in Mr. Jingle's cricket story, may have come from this tale of Major Longbow's. That there is a particular borrowing is doubtful, but Fitzgerald might have made more of the general debt of Mr. Jingle to the Major.
22 The London Mathews: containing an Account of this Celebrated Actor's Memorandum Book (London: William Cole, 1825?), pp. 11–12.
23 Mr. Mathews' New Entertainment for 1826, called Invitations (London: William Cole), pp.14–15.
24 Mathews At Home: Home Circuit; or, Cockney Gleanings (London: William Cole), pp. 7–8. That Mathews had thoroughly taken over the staccato style may be seen from his letters. When he attempts to amuse his correspondent he often uses the mannerism he used on the stage. For example, in a letter to Mrs. Mathews, November 29, 1819, he describes a journey thus: “140 miles by land—mountains of Cumberland almost impassable in frosty weather—bad road—post horses scarce—only eight hours' daylight—two long days on the road. By sea:—about half-way—safe passage—constant traders—do it in twelve hours—save ten pounds. It was agreed! Daw always looking blank—Saturday morning, fair wind—Fishing smack hired on purpose—carriage ‘pood aw to bits’—put on board—wretched looking vessel—no cabin or beds—deep fog came on—felt a horror—longed to say I won't go—recollected Captain Skinner saying, ‘Never afraid of anything at sea but a fog.’ However, desperate courage—made up my mind. …” He then goes into straight narration and ordinary punctuation to tell how they went by land after all. Mrs. Anne Mathews, The Life and Correspondence of Charles Mathews the Elder (1860), p. 224.
25 Forster, ii, 205–207.
26 J. B. Van Amerongen, The Actor in Dickens (1927), reprint of playbill opposite p. 22.
27 See Sketches by Boz, “Private Theatres.”
28 Forster, ii, 206.
29 The characters who talk in the staccato manner include a strolling player, The Friend of the Family; Kekewich, Gervase Skinner; Major Overall, Maxwell; Daly, Gilbert Gurney. All of these novels were in print by 1836.
30 W. L. Cross, The Development of the English Novel (1899), cites a speech of Kekewich as the origin of Mr. Jingle, p. 176. Myron F. Brightfield, Theodore Hook and His Novels (1928), shows clearly that Dickens took suggestions for the famous scene where Mr. Pickwick's friends surprise him holding the fainting Mrs. Bardell in his arms, from a similar scene in Gervase Skinner, pp. 326–327. Brightfield curiously notes only two examples of the staccato manner in the novels of Hook; the other instances, including one in Jack Brag (1837), would have materially strengthened his case for the influence of Hook on Mr. Jingle.
31 Bulwer-Lytton, Eugene Aram (1832), creates Corporal Bunting; Surtees, Jorrock's Jaunts and Jollities (1831–34), makes Jorrocks and a Yorkshireman talk in the staccato fashion; Marryat gives the device to Phineas Cophagus in Japhet in Search of a Father (1836).
32 Ch. II.