Not to belabor the point...well, maybe I am, but must add a bit to yesterday's conversation. Dickens isn't here to explain his position or defend himself but maybe his actions can put his his comment on rich Jews in
Bleak House in perspective . Perhaps it's noteworthy that this was the
only instance in which he mentions Jews in the entire lengthy novel.
"We are all prisoners of the times in which we live, and often adopt the prejudices of those times without thinking."
JoanKEarlier we have spoken of Dickens' habit of incorporating friends, neighbors, acquaintances into the characters in his episodes. Readers delighted in recognizing these actual personnages in his work.
Fagin is noted for being one of the few characters of 19th century English literature, let alone any of Dickens's pieces, who is described as Jewish. Dickens took Fagin's name from a friend he had known in his youth while working in a boot-blacking factory, but Fagin's character was based on a well-known criminal, Ikey Solomon, who was a fence at the centre of a highly-publicised arrest, escape, recapture, and trial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikey_SolomonSome background on Dickens behavior following the early publication of Oliver Twist - "The first 38 chapters of the book refer to Fagin 257 times, calling him "the Jew", with just 42 uses of "Fagin" or "the old man".
In later editions of the book printed during his lifetime, Dickens excised many of the references to Fagin's Jewishness, removing over 180 instances of 'Jew' from the first edition text.This occurred after Dickens sold his London home to a Jewish banker, James Davis in 1860, and became acquainted with him and his wife Eliza, who objected to the emphasis on Fagin's Jewishness in the novel.
In one of his final public readings in 1869, a year before his death, Dickens cleansed Fagin of all stereotypical caricature."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FaginCan we conclude from this that when Dickens portrayed Fagin in "Oliver Twist", he was creating a character who, as
Jude says, "spoke to the masses and wrote what they wanted to hear on this subject" - in order to entertain them? But that when he became aware that the "pricking" was painful, he "atoned" as other mid nineteenth c. writers had begun to do?
I'm inclined to conclude that his one comment in
Bleak House was not intended to be hurtful to a people, or express anything but perhaps admiration in hoping that Allan Woodcourt could be so fortunate. But again, we see things from where we are sitting...
It just occurred - that since this mention is
one detail - and Dickens has slipped in these single details that have become important in the story, maybe there is a reason, for including it here, rather than view the comment as a thoughtless inclusion?
