Dicken's crossroads novel : a study of Barnaby Rudge

"Dickens's Crossroads Novel: A Study of Barnaby Rudge" presents evidence that Charles Dickens's historical novel Barnaby Rudge (1841) stands, in spite of a few minor flaws, as a well constructed and in many ways excellent work, certainly a far better piece of writing than many hostile critics have allowed. Though Barnaby Rudge does contain some weak characters, a few prosaic passages, and a smattering of improbable situations, the novel has sound unity, an abundance of well depicted and memorable characters who not only inspire great pathos and humor, but are also organically related to the major themes of the work, and a profound analysis of the dark forces behind the great Gordon Riots of 1780. Furthermore, Barnaby Rudge represents a logical and positive step in Dickens's artistic career, for in this novel he began to exhibit the careful craftsmanship and mature social analysis so characteristic of his later novels. And, remarkably, the light-hearted, optimistic spirit of Dickens's earlier improvised novels and the dark, brooding atmosphere that dominates Dickens's later novels are both present in Barnaby Rudge.

Some attention is given to the small number of important critics of Barnaby Rudge (Harold F. Folland, James K. Gottshall, John Lucas, Steven Marcus, and a few others) and their analyses of the novel's themes, structure, purpose, and worth. In addition, the great biographies of Dickens by Forster and Johnson as well as Dickens's revealing letters are used as background material on Barnaby Rudge. And there is a discussion of Barnaby Rudge's volatile history of composition, an history marked by, among other things, acrimonious quarrels by Dickens with publishers and the first major negative response to Dickens's work.

A major portion of this thesis is given over to a discussion of how Barnaby Rudge's overall unity, which has come in for heavy criticism, especially because of the five-year-gap between the two major sections into which the novel falls, is in fact sound. For Barnaby Rudge is unified by two great themes which pervade the novel: the decay and disintegration of an entire way of life, and the humanitarian vision of man and society that Dickens sees as necessary if a new and stronger social order is to be born out of the ashes of the old.

In respect to the major points discussed in this thesis, four things are demonstrated in detail. First, that Barnaby Rudge is indeed a unified novel, one that evidences careful planning, ingenious orchestration of characters, effective development of situations, a novel with the idiot Barnaby at the very heart, both in respect to the novel's narrative action and its symbolic import. Second, that Barnaby Rudge contains a wealth of well depicted and memorable characters who rank with some of Dickens's more famous characters in other more famous novels. Third, that Barnaby Rudge's well depicted and memorable characters do not merely claim our interest and admiration; they are all organic creations which support the unity of the novel by echoing one or more of its major themes. Fourth, that Barnaby Rudge represents a logical and positive step, a favorable crossroads, as it were, in Dickens's development as a novelist. For in Barnaby Rudge a darker, sometimes brooding, but nonetheless much wiser view of man and society arises in Dickens's work, and this view was to permeate all the novels which followed. However, though a darker side of Dickens does begin to reveal itself in Barnaby Rudge, a goodly number of the spontaneous, carefree, and hopeful elements so characteristic of Dickens's earlier novels still remain. In a sense, then, one benefits in Barnaby Rudge from the best of all the possible worlds in the Dickens cosmos: the light radiancy of the young Dickens and the brooding social consciousness of the older Dickens. Hence, Dickens was at a crossroads with Barnaby Rudge, and one can see both all that was and all that was to be in Dickens in the work. In spite of all the personal and artistic troubles Dickens had about Barnaby Rudge, he saw it through, and created a well constructed and highly imaginative novel.