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Summary
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens is the supreme comic novel in English language. It centres round the pleasure tours of the Pickwick Club. Samuel Pickwick was the permanent president of the club. The tours lead to some sparkling encounters. A jaunt to Rochester involves saving Miss Wardle from the rascally Mr. Jingle. The novel definitely improves when Pickwick meets Sam Weller, the cockney boot-black of the White Hart Inn. Weller's homely wit and unshakeable presence of mind thereafter extricate the Pickwickians from many a scrape. But the adventurers become involved in the toils of law and even redoubtable Sam Weller could not prevent it. Pickwick is found guilty ot breach ot promise in a trumped up case by his landlady Mrs. Bardell. Refusing to pay, Pickwick is thrown into Fleet Prison whence Mrs. Bardell also goes when she cannot pay her wicked lawyers, Dodson and Fogg. To reconcile Mr. Allen to the marriage of his daughter to Mr. Winkle, Pickwick pays his fines and is free. Miss Wardle is properly married to Mr Snodgrass. Pickwick dissolves the club and retires to the country, interrupting a quiet life only to be god-father to little Winkles and Snodgrasses.
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| Pickwick Papers |
Critical Analysis
Pickwick Papers is not strictly a novel. It is a burlesque on the picaresque adventures of the eighteenth century novels. It may be at best called a panoramic novel in which about three hundred characters move in and out in a bewildering succession. The characters are old comic stand-by, but Dickens charges them with a wild fantasy and infectious gusto. Pickwick, Sam Weller are great comic creations. The book reminds one of Cervante's Don Quixote. In the book, a whole picture of rural England rises up.