Charles Dickens first published his sixth novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, as a 10-part serial between January 1843 and July 1844. He later stated that he thought the lengthy tale of a young man’s emotional and ethical maturation the “best” of his stories.

In young Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens creates a prototype of the overly ambitious gentleman who bases his actions in self-interest. Such egoism will be tempered by experience, leading to a better understanding of the human condition. However, when Martin goes to work for his grandfather, the elder Chuzzlewit despairs that his namesake will ever be worthy of that family name. He does not care for Martin’s interest in his companion and ward, Mary Graham. He puts Martin to work with a hypocritical architect, one of Dickens’s most popular villains, Pecksniff, but becomes so annoyed with the young man that he instructs Pecksniff to fire him.

Martin decides to depart England with his loyal servant, Mark Tapley, and they travel to America. Basing many events in this section on his own experience in America, Dickens could not see what critics later found as a serious weakness. The America diversion becomes an annoyance, introducing too many superfluous characters who will later be dropped and fracturing the novel’s continuity. However, it works well to emphasize Dickens’s theme of greed, personified in the grasping materialistic characters necessary to Martin’s eventual redemption.

Meanwhile, Chuzzlewit’s wicked nephew Jonas Chuzzlewit murders his father and carries out a plan to marry Mercy Pecksniff, even though the elderly Chuzzlewit had warned her against Jonas. Mercy ignores Chuzzlewit’s advice, inviting grief and abuse at the hands of Jonas. Jonas also joins the schemer Montague Tigg and draws his father-in-law into their nefarious activities.

The dedicated and naive Tom Pinch, a loyal assistant to Pecksniff and a devotee of Mary Graham, loses his position, and circumstances grow grim in the Chuzzlewit household. Again, the somber tone remains necessary to Dickens’s study of selfishness, as circumstances must darken before Martin’s epiphany helps return the Chuzzlewit world to order.

In America, Martin invests in the Eden Land Corporation, which defrauds him. He becomes ill and nearly dies, but recovers in time to care for the dedicated but also ill Mark Tapley, a character sometimes criticized as too cheerful to prove realistic. That first act of mercy on Martin’s part teaches him the value of selflessness, and his character begins to change for the better.

He decides to return to England, hoping to become close to his estranged grandfather, but he finds Chuzzlewit in Pecksniff’s house, seemingly under his complete control. Alarmed, Martin proves his new devotion to his family by remaining staunchly loyal to his grandfather and defending him against Pecksniff. Eventually he learns that the elder Chuzzlewit had been testing both him and Pecksniff, having actually retained control of his life and his fortune. While Martin passes the test famously, Pecksniff’s true nature is revealed.

Chuzzlewit celebrates Martin’s devotion to Mary and agrees the two shall marry. Not only is Pecksniff exposed as a scoundrel, Jonas Chuzzlewit is arrested for murdering Montague Tigg; the crook had threatened to blackmail Jonas over his killing of his father. Tom Pinch, almost destroyed by his faith in Pecksniff, is hired to work for Chuzzlewit and celebrates the marriage of his beloved sister Ruth to Martin’s friend and confidant, John Westlock. Having resigned his love for Mary Graham, Tom finds happiness living with the newly married couple.

Dickens’s clear message is that virtue will be rewarded, and although he shapes a novel containing some of his best villains, its comic highlights prevent the tragedy that often haunted his later youthful protagonists. The critical view of America is now understood through Dickens’s problems in retaining rights to his own works. Unscrupulous American publishers often stole his works, publishing and selling them and paying Dickens and his publisher nothing. The novel remains available in print version, as well as in electronic text.

Bibliography
“Locution and Authority in Martin Chuzzlewit.” English Studies 74, no. 2 (April 1993): 143–154.
Matz, Nancy. The Companion to Martin Chuzzlewit. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2001.
Selby, Keith. How to Study a Charles Dickens Novel. Basingstoke, U.K.: Macmillan Education, 1989.

Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis

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