Mr. Dombey of Charles Dickens’ Dombey and Son was originally the son of the establishment by that name. Now he’s the father, his only son having just been born. Already he has plans and dreams for when his son is old enough to go into the family shipping business with him.
The Dombeys had a girl six years before, “But what was a girl to Dombey and Son! In the capital of the House’s name and dignity, such a child was merely a piece of base coin that couldn’t be invested” (p. 8, Kindle version).
Mr. Dombey’s wife, however, weakens fast and dies before the baby, little Paul, is a day old.
A wet nurse is hired, and Paul grows, but he’s never very strong. He and Florence are sent to Brighton to be aided by the sea air. Paul does so well that he stays there for school, with Florence helping him with his studies.
But Paul dies at age six.
Mr. Dombey does not open his heart to grieve with Florence. He’s barely aware of her.
Some years later, on a vacation with a friend, Mr. Dombey meets a widowed Mrs. Edith Granger, who is beautiful but proud and cold—just his type. Her mother and his friend connive to get the two together. Eventually they marry.
But once again, Mr. Dombey is disappointed. He had thought his wife’s pride would be blended with his own and transferred to his reputation, standing, and business. But proud people do not usually blend their pride with others. Thus the Dombey establishment is set for conflict.
In one brief scene, we see the reason behind Edith’s demeanor. For all her coldness to everyone else, the new Mrs. Dombey loves Florence. Yet Mr. Dombey is jealous that Florence receives the attention and warmth he doesn’t, and he takes it out on her.
Aside from his dysfunctional household, Dombey has a conniving, obsequious assistant named Mr. James Carker. We know Mr. Carker is up to no good, despite his flattery, but it takes a while before we find just what he is planning.
As always, Dickens weaves together many subplots into his narrative.
A young boy named Walter Gay works for Dombey. His uncle runs a shop where he makes and sells shipping instruments. One day when Florence is separated from the children’s nurse and lost, she runs into Walter, who sees her safely home. Though Mr. Dombey appreciates the effort, he doesn’t like him. When he misunderstands an action of Walter’s, he sends him to Barbados. But the ship is not heard of again, and Walter’s uncle goes to look for him.
A creepy, avaricious elderly woman named Mrs. Brown finds Florence when she is lost and makes her change her fine clothes and shoes for rags so she could sell them. Later, Mrs. Brown’s daughter returns from prison nursing a hatred for Mr. Carker, who had some part in sending her there. These two appear at intervals through the book.
Mr. Toots is a kind-hearted but weak-minded fellow student at Paul’s school who loves Florence and also turns up at intervals.
Mr. Carker’s brother, John, was guilty of wrongdoing in the firm some years earlier, but is repentant, humbled, and reformed. James continually belittles and argues with him. Their sister, Harriet, went to help John in his trouble, causing James to cut off relations with her. A mysterious stranger shows up later to John and Harriet’s home to offer help when they need it.
Besides these, there are a number of colorful characters, some comic and some cruel.
I love how Dickens phrases some things:
Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new (page 7, Kindle version).
Time and his brother Care had set some marks, as on a tree that was to come down in good time—remorseless twins they are for striding through their human forests, notching as they go (p. 7).
. . . the nurse, a simpering piece of faded gentility (p. 8).
He was a slow, quiet-spoken, thoughtful old fellow, with eyes as red as if they had been small suns looking at you through a fog (p. 27).
Snails were constantly discovered holding on to the street doors, and other public places they were not expected to ornament, with the tenacity of cupping-glasses (p. 70).
It being part of Mrs. Pipchin’s system not to encourage a child’s mind to develop and expand itself like a young flower, but to open it by force like an oyster . . . (p. 71).
There was never a man who stood by a friend more staunchly than the Major, when in puffing him, he puffed himself (p. 185).
Sometimes she tried to think if there were any kind of knowledge that would bespeak his interest more readily than another. Always: at her books, her music, and her work: in her morning walks, and in her nightly prayers: she had her engrossing aim in view. Strange study for a child, to learn the road to a hard parent’s heart! (p. 208).
Harriet complied and read—read the eternal book for all the weary and the heavy-laden; for all the wretched, fallen, and neglected of this earth—read the blessed history, in which the blind lame palsied beggar, the criminal, the woman stained with shame, the shunned of all our dainty clay, has each a portion, that no human pride, indifference, or sophistry, through all the ages that this world shall last, can take away, or by the thousandth atom of a grain reduce—read the ministry of Him who, through the round of human life, and all its hopes and griefs, from birth to death, from infancy to age, had sweet compassion for, and interest in, its every scene and stage, its every suffering and sorrow (pp. 520-521).
I think I can say the story is redemptive without giving away the ending. And though this is a sad story in many ways, Dickens sprinkles many choice comic moments throughout.
I wanted to read this book partly because I’ve purposed to read the Dickens books I’ve not read yet, and partly because this book played a significant part in The British Booksellers by Kristy Cambron, which I recently read. I wondered if there was some connection between the stories or whether it was included because it would have been popular at the time.
I listened to the audiobook superbly read by David Timson. His voice characterizations and inflections added so much to my enjoyment of the book. When I look for my next Dickens’ book, I am going to see if I can find one narrated by Timson. That may be soon, as this book reminded me how much I love Dickens.
Stray Thoughts 