SotA Anthology 2015-16
Despite his inability to face the past,
Mr Dick is not denied the compassion
generally associated with those who have
learnt through experience. Safeguarded
by the care of Betsey, the innocence he
clings to in his self-imposed blindness
allows him to approach the seemingly
irresolvable problem of the Strong’s
marriage with childlike simplicity. With
echoes of 1 Corinthians 1:27: ‘and God
hath chosen the weak things of the world
to confound the things which are mighty’,
Mr Dick successfully tackles the ‘delicate
and difficult’ task of reconciling Annie
and Dr Strong, indirectly causing David
to reflect on his own marriage. Whilst his
innocence can be protected on Betsey’s
‘hallowed ground’, there can be little doubt
of the catastrophe that would ensue outside
the environs of her domain. Although Mr
Dick’s confinement is protective it is also
restrictive and isolating; denied the potential
for development through experience, he
remains emotionally and artistically stunted.
As David outgrows the preoccupations he
shared with Mr Dick: kite flying, fashioning ‘a
boat out of anything’, it is telling that his last
account of the solitary ‘old man’ records him
engrossed in the childhood pursuit of kite
making, whilst clinging to the unachievable
notion of completing his ‘Memorial’. His
failure to personally progress is one of the
sadnesses of the novel.
The vulnerability of us all to trauma and
dementia is reflected in the original title of
Little Dorrit: ‘Nobody’s Fault’, a notion that
serves as a cautionary reminder of the
indiscriminate and unaccountable nature
of forces that randomly incarcerate not only
body but mind and reason. The fine line
between madness and sanity is recognised
and explored by the narrator in ‘Night
Walks’ (Dickens, 1860), who associates the
ramblings of patients at Bethlehem Hospital
with the stuff of his own dreams:
Are not the sane and the insane equal
at night as the sane lie a dreaming?
[...] Are we not nightly persuaded,
as they daily are, that we associate
preposterously with kings and
queens [...] Do we not nightly jumble
events and personages and times
and places, as these do daily?
Th