Caricature in Dickens and James

CARICATURE IN DICKENS AND JAMES WILLIAM F. HALL One can distinguish between two kinds of literary caricature: the first may be called the caricature of "likeness"; the second, that of "equivalence ." It is the caricature of likeness that most critics have had in mind when they have used the term in, generally, a pejorative sense. Caricature then implies exaggeration, crudity, eccentric romantic inflation, a grotesque sketching of outer appearance that misses, by being superficial , the essential character. At best it is regarded as a technique related to Ruskin's notion of the grotesque with all of its suggestion of a weakness within the caricaturistl The caricature of likeness is based on two assumptions noted by Hogarth: It was a widespread belief, codified in a text attributed to Aristotle himself, that to read the character of a man one had only to trace in his physiognomy the features of the animal he resembled most ... With regard to character and expression; we have daily many instances which confirm the common received opinion, that the face is the index of the mind; and this maxim is so rooted in us, we can scarce help - if our attention is a little raised - forming some particular conception of the person's mind whose face we are observing, even before we receive information by any other means ...2 Fielding's novels provide some of the most successful literary examples of this in English. In fact the technique is ideally suited to his purpose concerning the presentation of character: "I declare here, once for all, I describe not men but manners, not an individual, but a species." Mrs. Slipslop, for example, emerges from Fielding's description of her as the type of the ugly wOman who is rendered ridiculous and hence comic by her affectation of the manners of a "fair creature" as charming as Fanny.' There are many obvious examples of this kind of caricature in Dickens ' novels: Major Bagstock in Dombey and Son; Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield; Sarah Camp in Martin Chuzzlewit. There are many equally obvious examples in James's fiction. The description of the American "countess" in What Maisie Knew most clearly fits Hogarth's definition: Volume XXXIX, Number 3, April 1970 CARICATURE IN DICKENS AND JAMES 243 She literally struck the child more as an animal than as a "real lady"; she might have been a clever frizzled poodle or a dreadful human monkey in a spangled petticoat. She had a nose that was far too big and eyes that were far too small and a moustache that was, well, not so happy a feature as Sir Claude's.' There are in fact numerous examples to be found in his work from every stage of his career. One might cite, as a sampling only, Christina Light's mother in Roderick Hudson; Mrs. Luna, Selah Verrant, and Matthias Pardon in The Bostonians; Mona Brigstock in The Spoils of Poynton; Davy Bradham and Gussy in The Ivory Tawer. Quite as obvious as the frequency of this kind of caricature in the fiction of both James and Dickens is its function. In Dickens' novels characters are caricatured in this way who appear infrequently to play mainly mechanical roles. The caricaturing method acts as a triggering device for the reader's memory. Such caricatures are invariably and clearly established as social types. They are often described and defined Cas is Mrs. Gamp for example) almost exclusively in terms of their social function. They thus embody a certain social setting as well as an attitude towards it. This is, I think, the case even in the three novels, Bleak House, Great Expectations, and David Copper- (ield, in which the controlling vision is that of first-person narrative. For it is as characteristic of Esther's attitude towards Krook, as of Pip's towards Pumblechook, as of David's towards Mr. Mell, that it does not change and that it not only defines the caricatured individual in social terms hut (more significantly) that it compels the narrator to define himself in the same way. The function of the caricature of likeness in James is rather different. The caricature of the "countess" in What Maisie Knew that I...