Montreal Dickens Fellowship Study Questions: “The Old Curiosity Shop”
Westmount Public Library
November 3, 2015 1:00-3:00
Chapters 21 - 50
- Six Pounds per year (plus room and board) does not seem like much, but must have been a very large amount to Kit who had to leave his home where he was the “man of the house” and so helpful to his mother. Comment.
- The description of the overhanging tavern on the mud (which Quilp frequents), complete with rats, is very reminiscent of Dickens’s description of Warren’s Blacking factory on Hungerford stairs, where he worked as a boy. Comment on Dickens’s use of this personal experience in his novels despite his great secrecy about this “shameful” episode in his life, which only came to public light after his death.
- “Richer than any Jew alive”. Comment on Dickens’s Anti-Semitism. Did it only reflect popular opinion (prejudiced indeed) of the time? Or did it go deeper?
- What does “Little Bethel” represent and why does Dickens lampoon it as he does through Kit and his mother?
- What is Quilp’s motive in following the old man and Nell? Does he think he has missed some hidden fortune the grandfather might have amassed? Is it because he was outsmarted by them, even though he was going to evict them at the end of the week? Is it only to thwart Fred Trent and Dick Swiveller’s plans to marry Nell to Dick? Does he have some residual jealousy toward Fred regarding his wife and want to hurt him? Or is he just mean and perverse and really want Nell for himself?
- In saying “Nature often enshrines gallant and noble hearts in women’s breasts” Dickens reveals his admiration for the opposite sex. He is often criticized for his angelic, insipid female characters, but has also given us Betsy Trotwood, Peggoty, Amy Dorrit, Mrs. Bagnet, Miss Pross, etc.… Discuss.
- Mrs. Jarley’s travelling caravan is described as a miniature house on wheels, a true curiosity (something akin to the toy-like quality of Daniel Peggoty’s miniature house made out of a boat). Comment on Dickens’s use of the fantastic and extraordinary to grab his readers’ attention.
- Comment on the coincidence of Little Nell and Quilp passing each other in the night.
- Nell and her Grandfather are portrayed as curiosities themselves among the oddities in Jarley’s Waxworks. Comment.
- How do you think Dickens’s contemporary readers would have reacted to his very realistic portrayal of the terrible addiction of gambling? As a cautionary tale, warning of the dire consequences of this vice, do you think it had any real impact on people’s behavior?
- Do you think Dickens’s description of Miss Montflather’s Ladies’ Academy is overdone? What do you think his readers would have thought of the snobbishness and class distinctions portrayed?
- Why does Dick Swiveller take the job of law clerk with the Brasses?
- What do you make of the Brasses’ mysterious lodger?
- Compare and contrast the working conditions of Barbara and the Brasses’ servant-girl.
- Dickens suggests that the poor and disenfranchised have a nobler love of their country than the rich and privileged, even implying that they are closer to God. Do you agree that the poor who love their country despite not owning land and not deriving profit from it are more patriotic than the rich and greedy landowners who love their country for the monetary gain they derive from it?
- Has Dick Swiveller’s interactions with the Brasses and with the lodger and Kit, made you change your opinion of his character?
- Dickens often emphasizes food, appealing to all our senses. Comment on the Nubbles’ family oyster dinner. What status did oysters have in Dickens’s time? Has this changed in today’s society?
- Dickens sounds cynical when he says, “After the play we always have regrets…. Our enjoyment of life is always dampened by too high expectations…We are always going to the play or coming away from it”, implying that life is unsatisfactory to most of us. Comment.
- Dickens believed very strongly in early rising and punctuality. (He praises the Garlands and Kit for this). Do you think these traits contributed to his success? Does today’s society value such behavior?
- Mr. Chuckster is a man who likes to talk without any regard for his “audience”. Do you know anyone like that? Although Dickens wrote this novel 174 years ago, his characters often ring true today. Discuss.
- Dickens took the view that the poor deserved to have Sundays as a day of entertainment contrary to many religious sects that believed this was a sin. Comment.
- Dickens’s earliest memories of Portsmouth and Chatham as idyllc countrysides contrasted to his harsher memories of life in busy, impersonal London. His contrast between the peaceful countryside and the highly industrialized Birmingham with its dirt, crowding, pollution and uncaring people may be as much a result of his early childhood experiences of country and city as his indignation at the ravages of the Industrial Revolution. Comment.
- Dickens likens the total hopelessness of the industrial town with its ignorance, want, starvation and sickness and “chimneys spewing black vomit” to a “black plague”. He tells the public that society is at a breaking point. Do you think his warning that workers are on the edge of erupting into violence, helped to stave off the public chaos and violence which he had seen erupt into revolution in other European countries at that time? Do you think his writing helped to open the eyes of those in power?
- What do you think of the alcohol consuming doctors who have little to offer in way of science but bow to common sense remedies?
- Do you think the feeble grandfather could have walked so far without himself becoming sick?
- Why do you think Quilp is so interested in the Brasses’ servant? Some sources claim she was meant to be Quilp and Sally Brass’s illegitimate child. Comment. Do you think the Brasses might be Jewish? (Red hair, Samson and Sarah, money-hungry?)