Characteristics of Victorian Literature The literature of the Victorian age (1837 – 1901, named for the reign

of Queen Victoria) entered in a new period after the romantic revival. The literature of this era expressed the
fusion of pure romance to gross realism. Though, the Victorian Age produced great poets, the age is also
remarkable for the excellence of its prose. The discoveries of science have particular effects upon the
literature of the age. If you study all the great writers of this period, you will mark four general
characteristics
: 1. Literature of this age tends to come closer to daily life which reflects its practical problems and interests.
It becomes a powerful instrument for human progress. Socially & economically, Industrialism was on the
rise and various reform movements like emancipation, child labor, women’s rights, and evolution.
2. Moral Purpose: The Victorian literature seems to deviate from "art for art's sake" and asserts its moral
purpose. Tennyson, Browning, Carlyle, Ruskin - all were the teachers of England with the faith in their
moral message to instruct the world
3. Idealism: It is often considered as an age of doubt and pessimism. The influence of science is felt here.
The whole age seems to be caught in the conception of man in relation to the universe with the idea of
evolution.
4. Though, the age is characterized as practical and materialistic, most of the writers exalt a purely ideal life.
It is an idealistic age where the great ideals like truth, justice, love, brotherhood are emphasized by poets,
essayists and novelists of the age.
The Style of the Victorian Novel Victorian novels tend to be idealized portraits of difficult lives in which
hard work, perseverance, love and luck win out in the end; virtue would be rewarded and wrongdoers are
suitably punished. They tended to be of an improving nature with a central moral lesson at heart. While this
formula was the basis for much of earlier Victorian fiction, the situation became more complex as the
century progressed. Victorian literature is the literature produced during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-
1901) and corresponds to the Victorian era. It forms a link and transition between the writers of the romantic
period and the very different literature of the 20th century. The 19th century saw the novel become the
leading form of literature in English. The works by pre-Victorian writers such as Jane Austen and Walter
Scott had perfected both closely-observed social satire and adventure stories. Popular works opened a
market for the novel amongst a reading public. The 19th century is often regarded as a high point in British
literature as well as in other countries such as France, the United States and Russia. Books, and novels in
particular, became ubiquitous, and the "Victorian novelist" created legacy works with continuing appeal.
Significant Victorian novelists and poets include: Matthew Arnold, the Brontë sisters (Emily, Anne and
Charlotte Brontë), Christina Rossetti, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Joseph Conrad,
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, George Eliot, George
Meredith, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Gissing, Richard Jefferies, Thomas Hardy, A. E. Housman, Rudyard
Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Philip Meadows Taylor,
Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Thackeray, Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll and H. G. Wells (although many
people consider his writing to be more of the Edwardian age)

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2. Victorian Compromise
In terms of philosophical ideas, the Victorian period, unlike the earlier periods of literary history in England,

was marked by conflicting movement carried on through crusades and counter-crusades, attacks and

counter-attacks.

The Victorian Compromise was a combination of the positive and negative aspects of the Victorian Age:
1. The expansion, great technology, communication and colonial empire (Middle Class).
2. Poverty, injustices, starvation, slums (working class).

Whereas, the Romantics could afford to withdraw from the town in the initial stages of the Industrialisation,

the Victorians, facing the flowering of the Industrial Revolution had no such soft option available to them.
Therefore rather than living in solitude, writers of the Victorian Age had to cope with the process of change

in which the old agrarian way of life had to make place for the new individual civilisation.
3. Utilitarianism
Against the chain of thinkers, including Newman, Arnold and Ruskin, who were essentially religious, was

the formidable force of utilitarian thinkers, continued by J.S. Mill and agnostic scientists like Darwin,

Spencer, Huxley, etc.

Although utilitarianism was propounded by Jeremy Bentham, the philosophy came into operation during the

Victorian era.

Both the state and the industry came under the heavy influence of this mechanical approach to matters of the

human soul.

The celebrated principle, “the greatest good of the greatest number” was the governing rule of the utilitarian

thought on morals, law, politics and administration.

4. Agnosticism
Agnosticism is defined as the belief, “that nothing is known or can be known of immaterial things,

especially of existence or nature of God”.

The term “agnostic” was coined by T.H. Huxley in 1869 A.D. The realisation that God’s existence is

neither observable nor provable drove society into a state of uncertainty.

People of the Victorian Era sought to explore and understand questions about the metaphysical world, but

ultimately found no answers and were left in doubt.

Agnosticism was a means of identifying the scepticism that stemmed from the inability to logically support

the existence of the spiritual beings.

Charles Dickens biography

Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870) Victorian novelist who created some of the most memorable characters in
English Literature, while also criticising the worst excesses of Victorian society. Novels included Oliver
Twist, Great Expectationsand David Copperfield.
Early life
Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth on 7 February 1812, to John and Elizabeth Dickens.
As a child, Charles experienced the fickle hands of fate; he was first taught at a private school before being
removed because of his family’s financial hardship.
In fact, his father’s debts were so bad, the whole family (apart from the young Charles was sent to the
debtor’s prison at Marshalsea (this would later be the setting for one of his novels – Little Dorrit). However,
although Charles escaped detention in the debtors’ prison, he was made to work long, 10 hour days, at a
local boot blacking factory. The hard and dangerous work left a lasting impression on Charles Dickens, who
would later incorporate in his writings a sense of social injustice that was endemic in Victorian Britain.
“I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from
anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!” – from David Copperfield.
Charles managed to escape the grind of factory work, by training to be a shorthand writer and gaining
employment as a journalist – reporting on court cases.
In 1833, he became a parliamentary journalist for the Morning Chronicle. The young Dickens was
fascinated with the Houses of Parliament, though he was often left with a lowly impression of the MPs.
Shortly after this, he began writing his first serialised stories, published under a pseudonym – Boz.
In 1836, he married Catherine Hogarth and also in that year, he saw the first publication of ‘The Pickwick
Papers’ His first book proved to be a great seller, and this enabled him to become a full time writer.
As well as writing popular novels, Charles Dickens took great interest in the social issues of the day. He
toured both Europe and the United States speaking against slavery and the various social injustices that he
saw. He even founded his own paper – The Daily News. This was its first editorial:
“The principles advocated in The Daily News will be principles of progress and improvement; of education,
civil and religious liberty, and equal legislation. Principles, such as its conductors believe the advancing
spirit of the time requires: the condition of the country demands: and justice, reason and experience
legitimately sanction.”
The Daily News (21st January 1846)
Charles Dickens has become one of the most popular writers in English. In particular, his novels are
brimming with colourful and eccentric characters which leave a lasting impression. He achieved this through
his vivid memory of the various people he had met through his life, but also he added a touch of fantasy and
exaggeration with his vivid descriptive style.
There are various themes which run throughout his writings, which often reflect a degree of autobiography.
Dickens loved the Rags to Riches stories, exemplified by Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. He
frequently highlighted the worst excesses of Victorian society and made a passionate case for a more caring
and moral society.
For his attacks on social injustice, Dickens was considered a “Radical” of his time. Though in a later essay
by the socialist, George Orwell, Orwell questioned his lack of alternatives:
“In Oliver Twist, Hard Times, Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Dickens attacked English institutions with a
ferocity that has never since been approached. Yet he managed to do it without making himself hated, and,
more he has become a national institution himself. In its attitude towards Dickens the English public has
always been a little like the elephant which feels a blow with a walking-stick as a delightful tickling.
Dickens seems to have succeeded in attacking everybody and antagonizing nobody. Naturally this makes
one wonder whether after all there was something unreal in his attack upon society.”
– George Orwell, Charles Dickens 1939
Charles Dickens had ten children with his wife, but, became estranged from her and ended his life living
with his mistress Ellen Ternan. Also towards the end of his life, in June 1865, he was involved in the tragic
Staplehurst rail crash where he narrowly avoided injury.
Dickens died on June 8th, 1870 after a stroke. He was writing a book ‘Edwin Drood’. He had wished to be
buried at Rochester Cathedral in a simple and private manner, but contrary to his wishes, he was buried at
Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey.
His epitaph read:
“To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England’s most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham,
near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the
oppressed; and by his death, one of England’s greatest writers is lost to the world.
Hard Times

Who’s Who in Dombey and Son

This list of characters from Dombey and Son is presented in alphabetical order.
Chick, Louisa – The sister of Mr. Paul Dombey.
“It’s nothing,” returned Mrs Chick. “It’s merely change of weather. We must expect
change.”
Cuttle, Captain Edward (Ned) – He is a retired sea captain and a friend of Solomon Gills.
“It’s an old habit of mine, Wal’r,” said the Captain, “any time these fifty year. When you see
Ned Cuttle bite his nails, Wal’r, then you may know that Ned Cuttle’s aground.”
Dombey, Florence – She is daughter of Paul Dombey. She yearns for the love of her father. Eventually
she marries Walter Gay and reconciles with her father.
But what was a girl to Dombey and Son! In the capital of the House’s name and dignity, such
a child was merely a piece of base coin that couldn’t be invested–a bad Boy–nothing more.
Dombey, Paul – He is The owner of Dombey and Son. He longs for a son and is very disappointed that his
first child is a girl.
Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and
Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee
immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of
a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new.
Dombey, Paul Jr. – The son of Paul Dombey. Young Paul is a sickly child who doesn’t live to adulthood.
Gay, Walter – He is the nephew of Solomon Gills. He works for Mr. Dombey. Dombey notices that
Walter is a friend to Florence and sends Walter away. The ship Walter was on is lost however in the end
Walter returns and marries Florence.
Gills, Solomon – He is also known as Uncle Sol. He is the owner of a shop named The Wooden
Midshipman. He is the uncle of Walter Gay.
“As I said just now, the world has gone past me. I don’t blame it; but I no longer understand
it. Tradesmen are not the same as they used to be, apprentices are not the same, business is
not the same, business commodities are not the same. Seven-eighths of my stock is old-
fashioned. I am an old-fashioned man in an old-fashioned shop, in a street that is not the
same as I remember it. I have fallen behind the time, and am too old to catch it again.” –
Uncle Sol
Granger, Edith – She becomes the second Mrs. Dombey.
“There is no wealth,” she went on, turning paler as she watched him, while her eyes grew yet
more lustrous in their earnestness, “that could buy these words of me, and the meaning that
belongs to them. Once cast away as idle breath, no wealth or power can bring them back. I
mean them; I have weighed them; and I will be true to what I undertake.” – Mrs. Dombey
(Edith Granger)
Nipper, Miss Susan – Florence’s nurse
“My comfort is,” said Susan, looking back at Mr. Dombey, “that I have told a piece of truth
this day which ought to have been told long before and can’t be told too often or too plain . . .
“
Uncle Sol – see Gills, Soloman

8)Had he looked with greater interest and with a father's eye, he might have read in her keen glance the
impulses and fears that made her waver; the passionate desire to run clinging to him, crying, as she hid her
face in his embrace, "Oh father, try to love me! there's no one else!" the dread of a repulse; the fear of being
too bold, and of offending him; the pitiable need in which she stood of some assurance and encouragement;
and how her overcharged young heart was wandering to find some natural resting-place, for its sorrow and
affection. ~ Dombey and Son
" . . . for not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living
parent's love." ~ Dombey and Son
7) While Squeers's designs are undeniably malevolent, in Dombey and Son Dickens focuses on a well-
intentioned schoolmaster whose shortcoming is a deficient methodology. Little Paul progresses from Mrs.
Pipchin's, where the system was "not to encourage a child's mind to develop and expand itself like a young
flower, but to open it by force like an oyster" (DS 8), to Dr. Blimber's academy, where he is sent by a father
impatient for his son's advancement. The pompous Blimber runs "a great hothouse, in which there was a
forcing apparatus incessantly at work," assisted by his daughter Cornelia, "dry and sandy with working in
the graves of deceased languages," and Mr. Feeder, BA, the "human barrel-organ" (DS 8, 11, 12). Dickens
seized the opportunity to offer a critique on the premature acquisition of mathematical skill, but more
importantly of classical languages, which were not only essential for university entrance, but were seen as
valued culture-tokens for increasing self-respect. The boys' plight is communicated through Mr. Feeder's
method of instruction: "They knew no rest from the pursuit of strong-hearted verbs, savage noun-
substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of exercises that appeared to them in their dreams"
(DS 11). They reach the conclusion that "all the fancies of the poets, and lessons of the sages, were a mere
collection of words and grammar, and had no other meaning in the world" (DS 12). It is interesting to note
that although Paul Dombey's death is accelerated by the Blimber regime he -- and other pupils like Toots --
regard the school with affection.
6) aul does not want to be a trouble to anybody, and keeps repeating ‘Tell my papa I am quite well’ (this to
the father who has essentially neglected him). Paul merely wishes to be surrounded by the people he loves
and who have been kind to him – his sister ‘Floy’, his old nurse Polly, and his friend Walter Gay.
As Dickens wrote in his own notes for the novel: ‘His illness only expressed in the child’s own feelings –
Not otherwise described’.
Dombey and Son – critical commentary
Title
The title of this novel is particularly apt, because it incorporates principal aspects of its two major
themes. The term ‘Dombey and Son’ is obviously the name of a commercial firm. It conveys the
notion of a business enterprise which has passed through at least two generations and is therefore
effective and reliable.
But in fact the enterprise has this name before the birth of his son. He already has a daughter, but he
does not consider her adequate to represent his dynastic ambitions. So all his hopes are pinned on
his son Paul
But he has put so much of his energy and enterprise into his commercial endeavours, he has lost the
ability to love even his own offspring. So the term ‘Dombey and Son’ also encompasses the second
major theme of the novel – which is the gulf that separates parent from child.
Dickens’ primary meaning in his title is the commercial establishment. This is signalled by his full
description of the novel on its title page – Dealings with the firm of Dombey and Son, Wholesale,
Retail, and for Exportation.. But the secondary meaning coexists without any doubt.
Educating the child
Much of the first part of the novel is about the poor raising, the neglect, and the false education of
children. Paul Dombey (senior) has his expectations set on a son who will inherit the commercial
success of Dombey and Son and promote its good name into the future. The father ignores and
neglects his firstborn child Florence because she is female. He sees her as insignificant in the
paternalistic dynasty of business and inheritance. As he says to her: “Girls … have nothing to do
with Dombey and Son”.

Yet when his wife bears him a male child (Paul junior) the son is
immediately removed from his primary sources of emotional comfort – first of all from his mother
because she dies, then from his beloved nurse, Polly Toodles, because Dombey fires her. Dombey
then submits his son to the dubious care of his stupid sister Mrs Chick and her friend Miss Tox.
Even worse, he subsequently sends Paul to the appalling establishment run by the fraudulent Mrs
Pipchin in Brighton. She neglects the children placed in her care to an almost criminal extent.
Following this ruinous beginning, Paul is sent to a boarding school owned by Dr Blimber, who is
obsessed with teaching ‘classics’ (Latin and Greek language and history). Blimber runs the
establishment on the Spartan and cheerless lines of an English public school (that is, a fee-paying,
private school) where Paul is miserably unhappy. It is significant that the only real learning he
imbibes is delivered to him by his elder sister Florence, whom he loves dearly and acts as a
substitute mother to him.
Dombey péreis a cold, unloving and distant father who wants a son who will continue the
commercial enterprise he has created – but he has no love for that child as a human being. He is
more interested in the idea of Dynasty than his own flesh and blood.
Paul is intensely aware that he has lost his mother, and he clings to his sister Florence as a means of
emotional support.
Point of view
Dickens often appears in his own novels commenting on events, characters, and the situations he has
created. But in terms of ‘point of view’ he does something very interesting in the case of young Paul
Dombey. It is quite clear to the reader that Paul is a weak and sickly child. He is fragile and
enervated; he has been emotionally neglected; and he leads an intense inner life frequently
 immersed in thoughts about his mother – of whom he has no conscious recollection, since she died
immediately following his birth. These thoughts are often bound up with images of the sea and the
stars.
The actual nature of his disability is never made clear. [Given Paul’s precocious and philosophic
turn of mind, we might today think he was autistic] But Dickens’s masterstroke is that he gives an
account of Paul’s demise and eventual death – entirely from the boy’s own point of view. Paul does
not want to be a trouble to anybody, and keeps repeating ‘Tell my papa I am quite well’ (this to the
father who has essentially neglected him). Paul merely wishes to be surrounded by the people he
loves and who have been kind to him – his sister ‘Floy’, his old nurse Polly, and his friend Walter
Gay.
Given that Dickens is often accused of being sentimental, his rendering of Paul’s death is wonderful
piece of pathos – because Paul feels that he is quite happy to be drifting in and out of fantasies of his
mother and the sea, whilst it is clear to the reader that the child is dying:
Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the golden light came streaming in, and
fell upon them, locked together.
“How fast the river runs, between its green banks and the rushes, Floy! But it’s very near the sea. I
hear the waves! They always said so.”
Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the stream was lulling him to rest. How green
the banks were now, how bright the flowers growing on them, and how tall the rushes! Now the
boat was out at sea, but gliding smoothly on. And now there was a shore before him. Who stood on
the bank! —
As Dickens wrote in his own notes for the novel: ‘His illness only expressed in the child’s own
feelings – Not otherwise described’.
The main theme
Unlike the other major novels of Dickens’ mature period – Bleak House (1852-53), Great
Expectations (1860-61), and Little Dorrit (1855-57)- Dombey and Son is mainly focused on family
and personal matters, even though there are similarly larger political and financial issues in the
background to the events of the narrative.
Dombey is the head of a commercial enterprise, and he invests his trust in his villainous manager
Carker – who betrays him by bad business practices and attempting to steal his beautiful wife. But
the actual mechanisms of commercial deceit are never examined in any detail.
Dombey is rich and powerful. He is proud, emotionally guarded to the point of being a psychopath
towards his own daughter (and others). His empire eventually collapses, and he realises that he has
no friends and no family as comforts against the catastrophic nature of his downfall. He is
psychologically injured by the shock of events, but he recovers, supported by the unstinting
devotion of his daughter, and he ends in a tranquil old age devoted to his two grandchildren.
Characterisation
Two major issues of characterisation haunt the novel. Florence’s devotion to her father and her
endless search for his love are stretched almost to breaking point. She has been neglected, ignored,
and even beaten by him – yet after her marriage to Walter she comes back to Dombey to beg his
forgiveness for deserting him. This is virtue, patience, and devotion taken to an almost masochistic
level.
The other major problem is Dombey himself. He spends nine tenths of the novel as a ruthless, cruel,
and heartless businessman and father, but when his company collapses we are asked to believe that
he suddenly realises the error of his ways and regrets a lifetime of bad parenting to the extent of
becoming a devoted father and grandfather. Dickens is clever enough to plant thoughts of Florence
into Dombey’s mind even before this spiritual transformation, but this transformation of character
takes place too rapidly to be really credible.

Paul Dombey Senior (Mr. Dombey)

Mr. Dombey is the head of the shipping and export firm Dombey & Son. He is married twice, first to Fanny,
who dies at the beginning of the novel, and then later to Edith. He is the father of two children, Paul Junior
and Florence, but his feelings for them are very unequal. He loves Paul almost obsessively, but is
disinterested in, and even cruel towards, Florence. Mr. Dombey is extremely proud of his position and
family name, and the novel traces the story of him coming to be humbled and finally understand the true
nature of love.
Florence Dombey
Florence is the eldest child of Mr. Dombey and Fanny Dombey. She is the older sister of little Paul, and
becomes Edith's stepdaughter. Much of the novel's plot traces her growth from a child into a woman.
Throughout, Florence remains steadfastly good, loving, and patient. She marries Walter after he returns from
being lost at sea, and at the end of the novel, she is the mother to two children, a boy and a girl.
Mrs. Fanny Dombey
The first wife of Mr. Dombey and mother of Florence and Paul. She dies at the beginning of the novel after
giving birth to Paul. She is described as being a meek and docile character, but she shows great love to her
daughter in her final moments.
Paul Dombey Junior (Little Paul)
Paul is the son of Mr. Dombey, and the pride and joy of Dombey's life. He is expected to inherit the firm of
Dombey & Son and continue the family lineage. Paul is a very frail and sickly child. He is also very
precocious and wise beyond his years. He dies at age 6, causing great grief to his father and sister.

Through his novel, Dombey and Son, Dickens wants to influence his readers by using emotional language and
especially powerful rhetorical devices such as parallels, hyperboles, irony, metaphors and others.
The solid relationship between the novel and historical context shows that the Victorian values and ideologies
were strongly reflected in contemporary writings. During the Victorian period, mother's personality was not
important; Victorians believed in 'the mother's presence within the family home, and the farther's in the
workplace' (Marshall 2002, 1-2). Barbara Thaden affirms that 'the idealized middle-class mother's function
became providing for the health, happiness, and peace of all family members while appearing to have no needs
of her own'
John Ruskin discusses this ideology in 'Of Queens' Gardens', where he states:

'The man's power is active, progressive, defensive […] But the woman's power is for rule, not for battle, - and
her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision. The man, in his
rough work in open world, must encounter all peril and trial […] But he guards the woman from all this; within
his house, as ruled by her, unless she herself has sought it, need enter no danger, no temptation, no cause of
error or offence. This is the true nature of home - it is the place of Peace. (Twells 2007, 31)

In the Victorian age 'women and men were essentially opposite sexes, and […] marriage to a man was the
chief end of a woman's existence

Florence is portrayed as an ideal, and her qualities seem to illustrate and anticipate Ruskin's views. As it is
mentioned previously, the discussion of woman's role and duties was not limited to the marital sphere only - her
behaviour as a sister, a mother or a daughter was to reflect her nature and place as well. In his portrayal of
Florence in Dombey and Son, Dickens focused on making her an undoubtedly ideal daughter, her perfection to
be stressed even more by the fact of her rejection on the part of a proud and cold father. Florence is also a
devoted sister to little Paul, and later a wife to Walter and a mother of her children, ideal, it seems, in all these
qualities. Florence is a character, who, as Ruskin would say, revives where she passes, and although neglected
by her father, reaches out lovingly to him again and again (Ruskin 2008, 68). Although the contemporary
society believed that '[l]ove of home, children, and domestic duties, are the only passions [women] feel',
Florence seeks education (Acton 1867, 145). She is intelligent - it is never really explained in detail who teaches
her and how, but she seems to be learning by herself, naturally, just as Ruskin claimed girls would do. She is an
innocent and self-renouncing daughter, sister, wife and mother. She seems to be Ruskin's ideal woman,
personified as a gentle spirit who never uttered a word of reproach throughout the whole novel.

Top of FormDuring the Victorian period, middle-class women were seen as commodities, who had just one task
- to raise the family and to represent its welfare. The woman was a symbol of the home, and any step out of it
would suggest the instability of the family. In Dombey and Son, Florence ran away from the household, as
'[s]he saw she had no father upon earth, and ran out, orphaned, from his house' (Dickens 2002, 721). As a
daughter, she is tenderly devoted to her father. Dombey was not interested in his daughter and 'his feeling
about the child had been negative from her birth. He had never conceived an aversion to her [...] It was not
difficult to perceive that Florence was at as great disadvantage in her farther's presence' (Dickens 2002, 42-3).
Despite being rejected by him only wishes to find a way to his heart so that they can be close, and she could
give him her love. She shows no pride or jealousy at meeting her new mama, Edith, but instead cries out
passionately: 'Oh Papa, may you be happy! may you be very, very happy all your life!' (Dickens 2002, 443). And
when in the end of the book she comes and asks forgiveness of him, never requiring any apologies from his
side, and saves him from suicide, Dickens notes that she was '[u]nchanged still. Of the entire world, unchanged'
(Dickens 2002, 910). Her personal love, goodness and morality have a saving force, the one Ruskin ascribes to
women. Florence saves the home, after all her troubles, and the end is a family idyll. Unquestionably, home
would be her first priority and the public sphere would be left to men. And her father, having been ruined by the
public sphere, has a home in her, a devoted daughter.

Before Dombey realised the truth, Florence had shown herself a loving sister to Paul, giving him freely of her
otherwise neglected love. She was helping him with his studies, after finishing her own, to make his life easier,
sometimes staying up half a night - that is, she was using her education or knowledge to aid the men in her life,
precisely what Ruskin meant a woman ought to do. Finally, her projected marriage to Walter is represented as
positively as possible. She tells him she would be his wife and promises her total devotion from the heart.
Sexless, chaste and innocent, passing on from calling Walter her brother to calling him her husband naturally,
she is domestic and pure, as opposed to Edith Granger, whose sexuality is portrayed as destructive. Florence is
not proud at all. She is eager to be a helper and her innocence makes her unthreatening to a male ego. It also
seems that her "goodness" and domesticity are offered as a starting point for transforming her home, and then
the society at large, from its pride, vice or weakness. As Ruskin claims that a woman's public work or duty
should be an expansion of her personal duty related to home, so Dickens makes a point of Florence's kindness
and servility to those around her, which, if expanded to a larger society, would undoubtedly do more good than
all railways and commercial enterprises altogether.

Although Florence is an idealised character, she is not very successfully realised, in terms of her appeal as a
personality. Gissing names Florence 'too colourless for deep interest' (Gissing 2004, 45), and makes a true
observation that 'were Florence Dombey anything like so well depicted as her maid, the story, as a story, would
greatly benefit by it' (Gissing 2004, 49). Another point is made by Kate Flint:

'a reading of Dickens' works does not turn up a galaxy of believably happy families who serve to support his
theoretical celebration of the household gods: the hard work necessary to create or sustain such an
environment is thereby stressed'. (Flint 1986, 115)

In conclusion, although the representation of women in Victorian novels reflects reality, it is hard to decide in
what way Florence is related to the real world, because she is idealised and portrayed as a little household
angel, without any qualities that would make her really interesting as a human being, not just a literary heroine;
she is too 'flat'. This might be precisely the Victorian ideal of a woman, stripped of all dangerous qualities that
men may feel uncomfortable with. John Ruskin praised the guiding, supporting and arranging function of
women. According to him, a woman should order the domestic sphere and encourage and support her husband,
or any other male relative for that matter. Her place was primarily in the private, domestic sphere, while man
belonged to the public world. All the positive qualities of a woman as praised by Ruskin are represented also in
the character of Florence Dombey. Ruskin's implications of a 'saving' effect a woman ought to have on a man,
who is often misled by the world, are realised by Dickens in Florence's character interacting with that of her
father's and her eventual success in changing him. In Dombey and Son, Dickens stated the same ideals, as
Ruskin in his essay, in his representation of Florence. Her character is, however, much less convincing than
Ruskin's statements, but still reflects the contemporary ideas on the role of women. [3119]

Paul Dombey

Paul Dombey, his son and heir, who is the essence of Dombey’s life. Before the child
was born, Mr. Dombey had yearned for a son; during Paul’s life, he is jealous of his
attentions to others, over-solicitous for his health, and unrealistic in treating the child
as his longed-for business partner. After Paul’s death at the age of six, Mr. Dombey in
his disillusionment considers the death a personal injustice to himself. Paul, a weak,
precocious child, is uncommonly preoccupied with death, an interest that seems, in the
Dickensian manner, to portend his early demise.