The Mighty Mother into Death & Decay:
In Martin Chuzzlewit, Mr. Pecksniff, the master of self-serving morality, reflects on his higher status, contrasting himself with a beggar he saw on the way to London. With seemingly insincere tears, he tells his daughters:
“For if every one were warm and well-fed, we should lose the satisfaction of admiring the fortitude with which certain conditions of men bear cold and hunger.”
Here, Dickens exposes Pecksniff’s hypocrisy, his performative righteousness, and self-congratulatory attitude toward the suffering. This recalls Joyce’s critique of social and religious structures in Ulysses, where institutions uphold inequality while masking it as virtue.
Shortly after, Mr. Pecksniff, declares:
“We start from The Mother’s Arms, and we run to The Dust Shovel,”
Here, he frames the human condition as an downward trajectory—from birth’s embrace to death’s inevitability. At first, this seemed like a simple reflection on the mother as an origin of life, something both Dickens and Joyce explore. But on deeper reflection, this line mirrors Joyce’s obsession with the mother, as well as his persistent themes of death and decay.
In Ulysses, Joyce repeatedly invokes the mother, particularly in Episode 1, where Buck Mulligan mocks Stephen’s grief:
“God! he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a great sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea.”
This refers to Algernon Charles Swinburne’s 1866 poem The Triumph of Time, which begins:“
“I will go back to the great sweet mother, Mother and lover of men, the sea”.
Later in Episode 3, Stephen Dedalus walks along the shoreline and muses on the passage from birth to death:
“Bridebed, childbed, bed of death, ghostcandled”
Each compressed image reflects a stage in life:
Bridebed, refers to Marriage & Sexual Union.
Childbed, refers to the moment of birth.
Bed of death is the grave.
Ghostcandled is the candle traditionally set at the wake.
Both Dickens and Joyce use the mother figure to explore the cycle of life, history, and human folly:
In Ulysses, the “Mighty Mother” embodies history, Ireland, and the feminine force of creation and destruction. The past gives birth to the future but also shackles it.
In Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens’ “Mother’s Arms to Dust Shovel” mirrors this obsession with cycles - both personal and historical.
Both authors suggest history is doomed to repeat itself:
Dickens shows generations falling into the same traps of greed and ambition.
Joyce suggests the nationalism, religion, and family legacies continue to bind people to the past.
While Dickens’ take is more straightforward and personal, Joyce elevates the mother figure into a grander, mythic force. At their core, both grapple with the inevitable cycle of life—birth, struggle, and death—whether on the personal level (Dickens) or the grand scale of civilization (Joyce)
The Theme of the Key: Dickens & Joyce
The Key as a Symbol in Martin Chuzzlewit
In Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens presents the key as a symbol to power, access, and exclusion. When Martin Jr leave’s Pecksniff’s home, stripped of privilege and forced to fend for himself, he faces a harsh realization:
"being shut out, alone, upon the dreary world, without the key of it”
Here, Dickens captures the struggles of those disconnected from society:
“Shut out” – A metaphor for social and emotional exile.
“Alone, upon the dreary world” – The isolation of those who cannot integrate into life’s structures.
“Without the key of it” – The key here is both literal (security, belonging) and symbolic (status, knowledge, opportunity).
Both Martin Jr. and Tom Pinch experience this exclusion, navigating a world controlled by those who hold keys — the wealthy, the powerful, the gatekeepers of social success.
Joyce’s Key:
Like Dickens, Joyce uses the key to explore power and alienation, but transforms it into an intellectual and existential crisis.
In Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:
Stephen Dedalus is “shut out”—from his country, family, and religion.
The “key” represents knowledge & control, but for Stephen, intelligence alone doesn’t unlock power—he lacks the social and financial capital to break free.
Stephen’s lost key in Ulysses — in Episode 1, Stephen literally lacks a key to Martello Tower, reinforcing his homelessness, instability, and outsider status.
Just as Martin Jr. stands helpless and homeless in Dickens’ world, Stephen wanders through Dublin without a clear path, searching for the metaphorical key to meaning itself.
The Key as Power & Exclusion
Both Dickens and Joyce use the key to symbolize who holds power and who is left out:
In Dickens’ world, society is structured by class, wealth, and opportunity. Those without the key—like Tom Pinch or the poor—are at the mercy of those who own the doors.
In Joyce’s world, the barriers are intellectual, religious, and existential. The key is not just wealth or social standing, but also the ability to define oneself and escape from imposed structures.
Dickens presents the loss of the key as a tragic exclusion—the barriers are social, but surmountable. Joyce, however, deepens the struggle: Stephen doesn’t just lack a key to a house, he lacks a key to meaning itself.
Martin Jr. may be lost, but there is a door he can eventually unlock. Stephen on the other hand, isn’t sure which door to look for.
The Dreary World & Existential Exile
Both Dickens and Joyce explore alienation, but through different lenses.
In Dickens, the problem is social & economic. A key would grant access to belonging.
In Joyce, Stephen and Bloom are exiles in their own land, both struggling to find belonging. The problem is intellectual & existential—even if Stephen had a key, would he know where to use it?
For both writers, to be without a key is to be cast into uncertainty, left to wander a world that is cold, indifferent, and frustratingly locked away.
Tom Pinch & Stephen Dedalus: A Server of a Servant
In Martin Chuzzlewit, we encounter the ever-nice Tom Pinch—a humble, eager-to-please man, the quintessential “Mr. Nice Guy.” In Chapter 6, he receives a letter from his old friend John, stating:
“My dear Pinch, I often think of you.”
Pinch excitedly discusses this with Martin Jr., but the conversation quickly turns from warmth to doubt:
Martin Jr: “I should have thought he would have had enough to do to enjoy himself, without thinking of you, Pinch.”
Pinch: “Just what I felt to be so very likely.”
Martin Jr: “He must be a devilishly good-natured fellow, because he can’t mean that, you know.”
Pinch hesitates. Was John truly thinking of him? Or was it just a polite phrase? The moment lingers in his mind, transforming a simple sentence into a quiet crisis of self-worth.
The Rituals of Social Courtesy
This moment highlights a larger cultural phenomenon—how language often serves as social lubrication rather than genuine sentiment. In both Dickens’ time and today, phrases like “I often think of you” or “How are you?” function as rituals rather than invitations for truth.
Dickens critiques this subtly through Martin Jr.’s skepticism and Pinch’s innocence. Pinch wants to believe in the sincerity of friendship, but Martin Jr. dissects the phrase as an empty courtesy. The tension between hope and doubt mirrors a universal human experience—grappling with our importance in others’ lives.
Is this dishonesty or just social necessity? In a fast-paced world, pleasantries allow people to acknowledge one another without delving into overwhelming complexities. Yet, as Pinch realizes, this cultural norm can also lead to feelings of isolation when questioned too deeply.
A Literary Parallel: James Joyce
This struggle over identity and self-worth finds a striking parallel in James Joyce’s Ulysses, where Stephen Dedalus famously describes himself as a “servant of a servant.”
Like Pinch, Stephen grapples with the weight of societal expectations—caught between religious duty, intellectual ambition, and a deep-seated need for validation. Just as Pinch wrestles with how much he truly means to John, Stephen questions how much he truly controls his own fate.
In Episode 1 of Ulysses, Buck Mulligan mocks Stephen’s brooding nature, calling his deceased mother “beastly dead.” Stephen, unable to respond, simply swallows his pain. Like Pinch, he is trapped in a world where pleasantries mask deeper struggles.
Who Do We Serve?
Both Dickens and Joyce use seemingly small social interactions to ask profound existential questions:
• How much do others truly think of us?
• How much of our identity is shaped by what society expects us to be?
• Who do we serve—ourselves, others, or a social script written long before we were born?
For Pinch, the letter forces him to confront a hard truth—not everyone who writes “I think of you” actually thinks of you deeply.
For Stephen, his struggle is even more existential—does he even own his own thoughts, or is he just a “server of a servant,” acting out preordained roles set by church, state, and history?
Dickens and Joyce, though writing in different eras, both masterfully explore the human need for recognition. Whether through Pinch’s polite letter or Stephen’s intellectual rebellion, both novels remind us that identity is often shaped not just by how we see ourselves—but by how we are (or aren’t) seen by others.
References:
The Joyce Project. Telemachus - Notes. Edited by John Hunt, www.joyceproject.com/index.php?chapter=telem¬es=1. Accessed Feb 9,2025.
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