Impressions: Reading Little Dorrit

Little Dorrit is one of the brilliant imaginations of Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit refers to Amy Dorrit, a meek, shy, quiet, yet in character- one of the strongest that I have read about. It takes strength to be out-going, extroverted, to be able to speak one’s mind in this ocean of a world. But it takes more strength than that to fight one’s day to day battles with quiet, unspoken, inward fortitude. Amy Dorrit falls under the second category.

 

Little Dorrit was the daughter of William Dorrit, who had been living in the Marshalsea Debtors Prison in London for a very long time, probably sometime during the mid of nineteenth century. He was put inside there when he was unable to pay his creditors. Thinking he would somehow get out of that dreadful place, he passed one long day after another. But he did not get out. When the story begins, he had been in there for around twenty-three years.

Little Dorrit was born in Marshalsea and the only “home” that she came to know till half of the story was the Marshalsea. She had taken her first breath with the tainted air of the place and she had lived there so long that she came to be known to everyone around as the Child of the Marshalsea.

She had two siblings, a sister and a brother. Both of them could not exactly be called morally strong characters because even after being completely aware of the fact of their sad situation, they had airs about them. They looked at themselves as high ranking people in low ranking circumstance, humility completely absent from their human nature. However, Little Dorrit was something else. She was not only absolutely aware of her situation but she did all that she could to not fall further down in the ladder of life. She toiled and toiled hard to keep the little that her family had and did not mention one word of her struggles to anyone. Quiet, yielding and productive are the few words that would describe her justly.

I am nearly half-way through the book and what I want to share is the impressions that I received about her selflessness and her ability to take in, without any negative reaction, the harshness of her surroundings and people around her. It touched me very deeply because that blessed nature of selflessness must have surely gone through tremendous trial to be able to defy its severity.

Little Dorrit was the last born in the family. In age she was the smallest of all. Her father, uncle (who lived outside of Marshalsea, but a regular visitor), sister and brother were all above her in age and experience of life. But she stands out on every page as the “sage”, blessed by some unknown and unfathomable wisdom that guided her through and through.

Her father could never leave the prison. Her sister lived with her uncle and worked in a theater (the arrangement of which rooted in Little Dorrit’s endeavours. Her brother was always in and out of trouble, nevertheless, more often than not lived and breathed in the free air. But Amy Dorrit had committed herself to live with her father and take care of him. She went out every day to work as a seamstress and earn their living, but at night she returned back to the prison and called it her home. She made sure her father was not deficient of any provisions that she brought home. She made sure he ate well, slept well and was warm enough. What she did is what every daughter should do, undoubtedly. But the only thing that would break any reader’s heart would be fact that her unselfish efforts were never acknowledged by her father for what they were. William Dorrit, not for once, up until now realized the sacrifice his daughter was making. She did not care for his acknowledgement. She was only happy that she could do it. She did not expect or want her exertions to be taken extra notice of. She was satisfied discharging her duties as silently as possible. That was her generous love for her father and her family.

But as readers and unattached observers of Little Dorrit’s situation, we feel the injustice. For every time she was checking her father was okay, her father should also have been doing the same. We would understand his inabilities to actually provide for her because he was entrapped, but few kind words and honest concern would not have been so hard for him to give his poor child.

Instead, every once in a while he complained and became disappointed at his own helplessness and became unable to restrain his emotions. He showed his unrest and disordered state of mind to his youngest and kindest daughter in the most distraught matter. Likewise her sister and brother, though they cared for her at some level, did not care to make things easier for her. And yet Little Dorrit had nothing to complain about, if there was anything at all, it would be her thinking that she was somehow not able to do it right by her father and her family.

Can anyone be that selfless? I doubt. But what a character to learn from! Because the one trait that we all need to survive the ‘sometimes kind sometimes harsh’ reality is patience. Little Dorrit, I think, is teaching us all that.