Dickens

A long chapter halfway through book 2 of Dickens's Little Dorrit describes an elaborate dinner at which Mr Merdle is host; M is entirely indifferent to all of the social niceties; he is widely celebrated and revered as among the wealthiest people in England , but of course nobody knows the source of his wealth and he doesn't seem to have much of an occupation other than being wealthy. As it turns out the sole purpose of this vast entertainment is to acquire M's blessing for a marriage that will unite his wealth to the political ruling family in England - the Barnacles. This chapter doesn't have the humor or panache of some of D's satirical riffs in book one - such as the description of the Circumlocution Department - but in its way it is far darker and more cynical- the rich get richer, the hard-working entrepreneurs get little, and the poor continue to live their lives in dire and hopeless poverty. Readers will notice how the narrative has entirely left behind the debtors' prison that was central to book one; now we're more focused on the drawing rooms of the wealthy and the stops on the European grand tour. Clearly D's sentiments are on the side of the oppressed poor , but unlike his two previous novels, bleak house and hard times, this novel does not have a specific antagonist. Dickens may have caught some grief for the polemics of HT and set out in LD to create more of a melodrama and a tale of love gone wrong with a background of political and social criticism - the antithesis of HT and the mirror image of BH.

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