DICKENS, TRAVEL AND LITTLE DORRIT

An interview with Dr Charlotte Mathieson, English and Comparative Literary Studies

Charles Dickens was fascinated with travel, and this is reflected in Little Dorrit which features continental locations such as Marseilles, Rome and the Alps. Yet why did he represent Europe as a hostile place in this novel, and what can we glean from him about British tourists of the period?

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"I found that Europe is an interesting topic to research because Europe occupies a very complex position in the Victorian imagination," says Dr Charlotte Mathieson, Associate Fellow in the Department of English and Comparative Literature Studies. "There’s the appeal of history, culture, education... with travel increasing rapidly throughout the 19th century, this perpetuated through this period."

Despite the appeal of travel to the continent, many of the associations held by the British were not so positive. "There also was a long-standing problematic relationship between Britain and Europe, a lot of negative associations of the continent," she says. It was seen as a disruptive space and these anxieties were fuelled by the increase in accessibility of the continent through new travel possibilities. "I found that Little Dorrit is particularly interesting because, for Dickens, it’s quite an unusually lengthy and sustained engagement with the idea of Europe as compared with some of his other novels."

"The idea of Europe as a hostile space is quite familiar in 19th-century literature," Dr Mathieson goes on to explain. The continent, especially France, was often viewed as a space of villainy and sexual licence. In the novel, disreputable figures tend to originate from, or are transported to, Europe. This contains the threat and danger of such characters within continental space. In Little Dorrit, the murderer Rigaud is part of this familiar discourse of criminality on the continent. He’s the villain of the novel. The story begins with him in Marseille prison, but he moves gradually closer to London, eventually reaching the epicentre of the novel. "It’s interesting that Dickens doesn’t just represent the character as hostile, he extends this to the landscape," says Dr Mathieson. Marseille - with its staring white houses and walls - suggests an overriding sense of repulsion, as if the foreign space is attempting to reflect or repel anyone who enters. Europe is constructed as a hostile space within itself.

The contradictory views of the continent continue throughout Little Dorrit. Dr Mathieson explains: “the novel… oscillates between both embracing continental openness and then retreating into national enclosure. We’ve got the appeal of Europe as a place of leisure, pleasure and wealth. The Dorrits, for example, travel to the Alps and to Italy, following their rise in fortunes. To a large extent, Europe is really kept away from a lot of the more serious and financial concerns which are tied up within Britain. But underpinning this there’s always the sense of Europe as an unsettling space… right from the start of the novel when we open in Marseille prison, Europe is set up as a space of danger; an alienating landscape... Dickens often depicts Italy, for example, in ways that talk about it being dirty and haggard, where the very air is diseased."

For Dickens, Venice is founded in unreality. Rome has a sense of ruinous dissolution. Alpine landscapes have a haunted atmosphere throughout. "Although the novel engages with Europe at more length than, say, Bleak House for example, there’s a real ambivalence here about what the continent represents and how it might impact upon the British traveller."

The British traveller is an object of satire for Dickens, along with the popular tourist trail. "Europe had long been a popular tourist destination for British travellers and the Grand Tours of the 18th century had established it as the place to visit. So throughout the 19th century, with developments in transport, technology and the beginnings of tourist infrastructures, travel became quicker, easier and crucially more affordable, so many more people began to travel and we had the beginnings of mass tourism begin to take shape."

"There was a real sense that everyone was going around Europe following the same route, viewing the same popular tourist sites, perceiving everything through the same received opinions in the Mr Eustace guidebook… this is what Dickens was getting at in his depiction of Rome and Venice, in particular with Mrs General. Dickens’ reference here makes light of that, but he also extends it to the rest of the travellers. He describes the whole body of travellers as a collection of voluntary human sacrifices, bound hand and foot and delivered over to Mr Eustace’s attendance. For Dickens, the British abroad represent polite society at its worst."

Nearer home, how does Dickens portray London in the novel? "The novel keeps Britain tightly away from the rest of the continent. It confines Britain just to London. We don’t see anything apart from London and the surrounding locale in Little Dorrit." The sense of enclosure really permeates the depiction of London, with defined boundaries such as the Marshalsea Prison and the Bleeding Heart Yard. Even the close proximity of the city streets gives the sense that there are "gateways, borders and boundaries everywhere".

The novel is recreating a sense that it is protecting London. Its boundaries maintain the national border against the threat of the European landscape that it depicts elsewhere. “Characters travel between the two locations and Rigaud makes his way into the city”, says Dr Mathieson. There’s a sense that the novel is trying to maintain these national boundaries, but we don’t ever see those threads of connection.

For more indepth interviews and comment, see the University's Celebrating Dickens website.

Dr Charlotte Mathieson is an Associate Fellow in the Department of English and Comparative Literature Studies. Her PhD research looked at 19th-century representations of travel in the novel.

By Penelope Jenkins