tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1991402668327441142.post1277294257862061141..comments2024-01-29T15:41:12.310-08:00Comments on Rich Puchalsky's blog: Dickens' The ChimesRich Puchalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10543499708727953026noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1991402668327441142.post-41983210572334902932008-12-20T10:36:00.000-08:002008-12-20T10:36:00.000-08:00'...whilst Dickens was ...'Tch!'...whilst <B>Dickens</B> was ...'<BR/><BR/>Tch!Adam Roberts Projecthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10001572970456425902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1991402668327441142.post-18726608783115511282008-12-20T10:35:00.000-08:002008-12-20T10:35:00.000-08:00I don't think Fern would have been too low down fo...I don't think Fern would have been too low down for Chartism. But the point (to agree with you, actually) is that Chartism by the '40s came in two flavours; and whilst Dickens's was almost-supportive of at least some of the nonviolent 'moral force' Chartists' aims, he was strongly opposed to the 'physical force' Chartists. Fern reads like one of the latter.Adam Roberts Projecthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10001572970456425902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1991402668327441142.post-18081903448473580842008-12-20T09:19:00.000-08:002008-12-20T09:19:00.000-08:00Yes, that's right, it's his sister's daughter. I ...Yes, that's right, it's his sister's daughter. I couldn't really sustain enough interest in them as characters to remember.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the bit about the post-1848 change -- it seems to be implicitly foreshadowed in how Dickens treats Fern here. As far as I remember, Fern is apolitical, but of course the actual working class of the day wasn't. Perhaps Fern would have been too lower class to be a Chartist, but there must have been some organization around <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Swing" REL="nofollow">Captain Swing</A>. Dickens deprives Fern of any kind of constructive or even organized response, other than striking back as he has been struck.Rich Puchalskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13565210317964576866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1991402668327441142.post-75554953601559781192008-12-20T04:12:00.000-08:002008-12-20T04:12:00.000-08:00"William Fern, a laborer who he takes in out of sy..."<I>William Fern, a laborer who he takes in out of sympathy, and Lillian, William's young daughter ...</I>"<BR/><BR/>His sister's kid, surely?<BR/><BR/>"<I>Of course Dickens, a liberal, is not a Marxist, but there's a lot of rhetoric that I associate with Marxism that seems instead to have been common to various political tendencies of the day.</I>"<BR/><BR/>This is right, I think; although one of the standard lines on mid-Victorian literature is that the Revolutions of 1848 scared a number of middle class writers, Dickens included, out of more radical sympthies. This is the difference between a book as radical and ur-Marxist as Gaskell's <I>Mary Barton</I> (written 1847, published '48) and a book like <I>North and South</I> (1854-5), much more sympathetic to the bosses and factory owners and more tacitly suspicious of the chaotic potential of working class unrest. It's that divide that differentiates 1844's <I>The Chimes</I> from a post-48 novel about proletarian immiseration <I>Hard Times</I> (1854), which goes out of its way to demonise the union organiser Slackbridge.Adam Roberts Projecthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10001572970456425902noreply@blogger.com