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Mr. Pecksniff Discharges a Duty Which He Owes to Society
Phiz
December 1843: Part XII
Steel-engraving
13.9 cm high by 9.9 cm wide (5 ¼ high by 2 ¾ inches)
[Compare colored version from a later edtiion]
Twenty-third monthly illustration for Dickens's Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, facing p. 387 (1844 edition) in Ch. XXXI. Running head: "Tom Starts for Salisbury."
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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There were several people, young and old, standing about the door, some of whom cried with Mrs Lupin; while others tried to keep up a stout heart, as Tom did; and others were absorbed in admiration of Mr. Pecksniff — a man who could build a church, as one may say, by squinting at a sheet of paper; and others were divided between that feeling and sympathy with Tom. Mr. Pecksniff had appeared on the top of the steps, simultaneously with his old pupil, and while Tom was talking with Mrs. Lupin kept his hand stretched out, as though he said "Go forth!" When Tom went forth, and had turned the corner Mr. Pecksniff shook his head, shut his eyes, and heaving a deep sigh, shut the door. On which, the best of Tom’s supporters said he must have done some dreadful deed, or such a man as Mr. Pecksniff never could have felt like that. If it had been a common quarrel (they observed), he would have said something, but when he didn’t, Mr. Pinch must have shocked him dreadfully. [Chapter XXXI, pp. 377-378 — not near the plate, which faces p. 387]
This illustration in its composition and focus on Pecksniff recalls the architect's quest for Mrs. Gamp in Part VIII, ch. 19, "Mr. Pecksniff on his mission" (August, 1843). However, whereas the large, animated crowd in the former scene was chiefly female and largely unsympathetic, leaving Pecksniff at a disadvantage, here he is firmly in control of his emotions and the situation, as his commanding gesture of dismissal and Napoleonic pose suggest. In describing Tom Pinch's departure from Pecksniff's, Phiz combines two related moments from the letterpress: in the first, Tom stands in the foreground, coat and carpet-bag in his left hand, at the bottom of the steps alongside the tearful Mrs. Lupin; in the second, further down the page, "Mr. Pecksniff had appeared on the top of the steps, simultaneously with his old pupil, and while Tom was talking with Mrs. Lupin kept his hand stretched out, as though he said 'Go forth!' (ch. 31).
At the centre of the arch above Pecksniff's head appears a bust wearing a helmet which, given Pecksniff's profession, might be a reproduction of the bust of the first citizen of classical Athens, Pericles, whose building projects have left a lasting impression of the the glory that was Greece. The armed head may also be a visual allusion to Macbeth, but that identification depends upon which character Phiz is signifying by the armed head. In Shakespeare's tragedy, Macduff, having lost his family in a Macbeth-engineered raid on his castle, has plenty of justification for taking a bloody vengeance, and eventually slays the tyrant, a task for which metaphorically in Martin Chuzzlewit old Martin and John Westlock rather than the hapless Tom are responsible. However, if one relates the helmeted bust above Pecksniff to old Martin, leering out of the window (left), the allusion may be pertinent: "old Martin's head peering out of the window hints at the dubiety with which he views the whole business — something of which the reader has had no hint at this point in the novel" [Steig, DSA 2, 136].
The picture's subject, the departure of a community figure for the great world beyond the village, recalls that of the plate complementing ch. 7 in which Mark Tapley dressed as a countryman strikes off for Salisbury, and thence for London. Mark, unencumbered by trunks, feigns jollity, and likewise here Tom, respectably clad in bourgeois fashion, tries "to keep up a stout heart." However, whereas the entire village seems sad to see Mark leave, Pecksniff (in sharp contrast to the sobbing Jane in the doorway) is unmoved by the general display of sentiment, and the villagers to the right seem inclined to take Pecksniff's part. Recalling the child who is upset by Mark's departure in the earlier illustration, here Phiz has inserted a child tugging at Tom's great-coat, as if forcibly trying to prevent him from leaving. Having at last discovered for himself what a humbug Pecksniff is, Tom ignores him in the plate as in the text rather than attempting to defend himself; his calm demeanour is as genuine as Pecksniff's self-righteous hauteur is contrived. Phiz communicates Pecksniff stagey attempt to take the moral high ground by his elevated position at the top of the steps. The removal man from The Dragon (who bears Tom's box out of the house as if it were a coffin containing his happy memories and erstwhile good opinions of his former employer) connects the two principals of the illustration. The flourishing tree above Tom and his trunk signifies not merely the time of year but Tom's fair promise of success in the great world beyond the little village on the Salisbury Plain. Tom's progress physically, emotionally, and morally has now begun.
Allingham, Philip V. "Phiz's Illustrations, Part Three." [Ch. 29-35] The Dickens Magazine: Martin Chuzzlewit. 5.3 (February, 2009): 8-11.
Cohen, Jane Rabb. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. 2.
_____. Martin Chuzzlewit. Edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne. The Works of Charles Dickens in Thirty-four Volumes, vol. III. The Gadshill Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1897. 2 vols.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Steig, Michael. "III. From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock and Martin Chuzzlewit." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978, 51-85.
_____. "Martin Chuzzlewit's Progress by Dickens and Phiz." Dickens Studies Annual 2 (1972): 119-149.
Vann, J. Don. "Martin Chuzzlewit, twenty parts in nineteen monthly installments, January 1843 — July 1844." New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Pp. 66-67.
Modified 8 January 2019
Last updated 14 November 2024