Home > Gothic Literature > Dickens, Charles (1812 - 1870) - Little Dorrit

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page
4. Tweet This

Little Dorrit

DAVID JARRETT (ESSAY DATE SEPTEMBER 1977)

SOURCE: Jarrett, David. "The Fall of the House of Clennam: Gothic Conventions in Little Dorrit." Dickensian 73, no. 383 (September 1977): 155-61.

In the following essay, Jarrett analyzes Dickens's use of the Gothic in Little Dorrit.

Charles Dickens had no time for the kind of romance of history celebrated by the garish Mrs Skewton in Dombey and Son (1847–8). 'Those darling bygone times,' she exclaims to Mr Carker in Warwick Castle, 'with their delicious fortresses, and their dear old dungeons, and their delightful places of torture, and their romantic vengeances, and their picturesque assaults and sieges, and everything that makes life truly charming! How dreadfully we have degenerated!'¹

To write a Gothic romance would be as foreign to Dickens as to idealise the Middle Ages, and Mrs Skewton herself supplies...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Primary Sources
   1. Charles Dickens (Story Date 1836–1837)
4. General Commentary
   1. Julian Wolfreys (Essay Date 2000)
5. Title Commentary
   1. Bleak House
   2. Great Expectations
   3. Little Dorrit
6. Further Reading

1. Charles Dickens