Introduction

     A noticeable occurrence sustained throughout the works of Charles Dickens is the affliction of narrators or protagonists with an incapacitating brain fever that renders him or her senseless for an extended period of time. Dickens employs this technique too often, and describes it in too rich of detail, for this to be a coincidence or mere plot device. While some critics doubt Dickens' literary qualities and would claim these events are merely occasions of narrative storytelling, his symbollic use of brain fevers are among those instances that prove this claim false. Indeed, Dickens use of this technique is integral to the theme of guilt that appears in several of his works.

     While it is obvious that the comatose states of Oliver, Esther, and Pip all signal a time of transition in Oliver Twist, Bleak House, and Great Expectations, to reduce all analysis to such simplicity is underestimating Dickens. A proper analysis shows that these characters collapsing into an unintelligible fever represents a sublimation of their oversaturated guilts.   G. Robert Strange wrote of Dickens, that "[c]ompared to most of the writers of his time the Dickens of the later novels seems to be obsessed with guilt."¹  Yet, it can be shown that Dickens experimented with themes of guilt throughout his career, including even his earlier, comic novels. In particular, it can be shown that Oliver, Esther, and Pip were all burdened by various self-pressures and cognizances that their minds could no longer process: culminating in a self-abnegating physical collapse. Thus, rather than being mere plot markers, Dickens employs the brain fevers not as a result of his characters' biological failings, but rather as a symbolic gesture to demonstrate how guilt can burden a person, and that if not allayed, can even consume and incapacitate one.

Oliver Twist

     Dickens describes Oliver Twist with near-angelic qualities. Upon being seen, he is universally heralded as "a poor boy" and one "not capable of such deeds" of which he finds himself accused. A character inscribed with such extreme goodness, is however, ripe to fail such expectations and become a victim of guilt. Ultimately, Oliver succumbs to no fewer than two debilitating brain fevers, both of which serve distinct purposes, each relating to the other.

     Oliver's first fever comes as he is brought to court on charges of theft after having left the company of Charley Bates and the Artful Dodger. When he is first captured, the narrator says, "Oliver, who could hardly stand, made a shift to raise himself on his feet, and was at once lugged along the streets by the jacket-collar, at a rapid pace."²   When Oliver was under the corrupting, though kind, influence of Fagin, his guilt was repressed. But when faced with the thievery that occurred on the streets, he begins to realize that things have gone terribly wrong. Thus, while being arrested, (presumably to Oliver, for merely keeping such company), the symbolic transformation of physical sickness begins to overtake him even as the psychological manifestation of guilt does.

     Under the harsh authority of the magistrate, Oliver's case becomes even worse when he is accused of the actual crime of theivery and he faces a harsh reprimand. At this point, Oliver becomes so weak that he faints before the assembly. Indeed, this is the first evidence of his belief in his culpability; he becomes completely unconscious and is found on the pavement by Mr. Brownlow.3   Rescued by Mr. Brownlow, Oliver is feverish and comatose for days. As the narrator portrays him: "Weak, and thin, and pallid, he awoke at last from what seemed to have been a long and troubled dream."4 There is also the association of the fever and the resultant unconsciousness with a dream-like state. Besides the obvious correlation, there is a conscious effort on Dickens' part to describe Oliver's psychological progression, and juxtapose it with this dream-like transition. Yet, in attempting to reconcile his guilt, Oliver only disassociates himself from the locus of that guilt, trying to dream of the Sowerberrys or even of the orphanage, as if that was where he would awaken. Yet he wakes in a better place than either: in the home of the kind Mr. Brownlow. It is there, free from the series of cruel guardians and the disreputable associations that Oliver can begin to find a new role for himself and thus move past the guilt: blaming that on a past of negative influences, rather than his own ill-bred self.

     Oliver, however, is soon torn away once again and returned to Fagin via Nancy. As Geoffrey Thurley notes in The Dickens Myth: Its Genesis and Structure, this degression is described masterfully:

In one's faith in Oliver's purity, one was not seriously concerned when he initially fell in with the Dodger and Fagin; nor even when he was implicated in the theft outside the booksellers. But after the blissful awakening in Pentonville, and the serene existence amid china and chintz, with the promise of a life of quiet study, the lunge back into the labyrinth of Saffron Hill and the clutches of the ogre Fagin, has a natural horror which engages our susceptibility to nightmare and regressive fear as few incidents in fiction do.5

Understandably, Oliver is just as terrified as the reader. Worse, in his recuperation at Fagin's, he is given to Sikes and Toby Crackit to take part in a crime far worse than the original pickpocketing that was planned for him. Oliver is taken off with these housebreakers to rob a house. The increase in both his relative horror and his impending culpability lead to an overwhelming amount of guilt. When he is finally rescued again and taken care of by the Maylies:

Oliver's ailings were neither slight nor few. In addition to the pain and delay attendant on a broken limb, his exposure to the wet and cold had brought on fever and ague, which hung about him for many weeks, and reduced him sadly.6

As Oliver's guilt multiplies, so does its representative association: beyond being simply feverish, Oliver has a broken arm. Dickens increases the level at play in the symbolism, while staying consistent with this structure of the brain fever and guilt. Dickens also maintains the existence of the dream in the fever: "The boy stirred, and smiled in his sleep, as though these marks of pity and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and affection he had never known."7   In this passage, Dickens connects the events of the fevers and Oliver's psychology. Oliver wants to escape this subculture of crime and neglect; he wants to heal and to move on, to escape to a place where he can be loved. He did not dare desire it before, as his life did not hold even the possibility for this kind of existence, only a "long and troubled dream." But now that Oliver has had the slightest taste of generosity through Brownlow, his dreams are of that kind love. Thus, as Oliver undergoes this symbolic transition and catharsis of guilt, his dreams are always of a life away from the source of the wrong-doing that has led to the guilt.

     Yet this level of complexity is not enough for Dickens, who continues to work the symbolism, adding even more depth. The conditional weaknesses that accompany both sicknesses have their purposes in the symbolic structure connecting fevers and guilt. There is a double sense of guilt on Oliver's part, which is harder for him to reconcile than that of his guilt by association.

     The first instance of this complication arises from Oliver's uneasiness about leaving Mr. Sowerberry. The unfairness of Mrs. Sowerberry and Noah Claypool overwhelm Oliver to such a degree that he feels it necessary to leave, yet compared to the care of Mr. Bumble or his other alternative, Gamfield, it was still an improvement. As Thurley states: "The sweep Gamfield's brutality is in part at least the cause of Oliver's falling under the kinder influence of Mr. Sowerberry."8  Despite the antagonists in the Sowerberry household, Mr. Sowerberry, at least, was good to him. Thus, despite the fact that he is more than willing to leave, there is still an uncomfortability on Oliver's part over his leaving; this residual guilt results symbolically in his continuing weakness after his recovery from the fever. Then, as he is exposed to the kindness of Mrs. Bedwin and Mr. Brownlow, he begins to feel more comfortable about his choice to run away from the Sowerberrys. Left to his own devices, Oliver soon would have recovered his full strength from his debilitation, but he is taken away again.

     The second and more troubling complication of guilt for Oliver, which leaves him weak for a long time, is the guilt he feels over having disappointed Mr. Brownlow. Despite the fact that he was taken from his protector against his will, he fears that Mr. Brownlow will think he ran away, stealing his books and money. For as Thurley says: "The five pound note and the parcel of books symbolize Mr. Brownlow's faith in Oliver."9 Thus, this is a faith which Oliver feels he has betrayed. Indeed, the narrator says of Oliver that:

He had pleased himself, many times during his illness, with thinking of all that Mr. Brownlow and Mrs. Bedwin would say to him, and what delight it would be to tell them how many long days and nights he had passed in reflecting on what they had done for him, and in bewailing his cruel separation from them. The hope of eventually clearing himself with them, too, and explaining how he had been forced away, had buoyed him up, and sustained him, under many of his recent trials; and now, the idea that they should have gone so far, and carried with them the belief that he was an impostor and a robber -- a belief which might remain uncontradicted to his dying day -- was almost more than he could bear.10

As this passage shows, this matter weighs heavily upon Oliver. In fact, it is not until Oliver is reunited with Mr. Brownlow that he fully recovers, as only then, can he truly dispel the last remnant of his residing guilt.

Bleak House

     In a very different way, Dickens leads Esther Summerson through the thematicaly similiar symbolic trials of fever and guilt. As Alex Zwerdling writes in "Esther Summerson Rehabilitated:" "Between Oliver Twist and Bleak House, [Dickens'] vision of childhood suffering became much more psychological."11  While Oliver's guilt comes primarily from the interaction or association with others (external sources), Esther's guilt is internalized and thus more difficult to reconcile.

     From the beginning of the novel, Esther doubts herself, and Dickens presents to readers a dual image of how she behaves and speaks, which is visible in the contrast of the reader's objective point of view and how she subjectively writes of herself:

I had always rather a noticing way -- not a quick way, O no! -- a silent way of noticing what passed before me, and thinking I should like to understand it better. I have not by any means a quick understanding. When I love a person very tenderly indeed, it seems to brighten. But even that may be my vanity.12

Zwerdling speaks to this last statement of Esther's when he says, "Vanity and pride are her great fears; she has never been taught a comparable fear of underestimating herself."13 Yet all of this is merely the foreground to her true shame and source of guilt: her illegitimacy. Esther is haunted from her earliest days by the words of her godmother:

"Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time will come -- and soon enough -- when you will understand this better, and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can. I have forgiven her;" but her face did not relent; "the wrong she did to me, and I say no more of it, though it was greater than you will ever know -- than any one will ever know, but I, the sufferer."14

Thus the seed of guilt is planted in Esther's mind very early in her life.

     When Esther goes to live with John Jarndyce, she becomes the housekeeper and seemingly the moral custodian of not only him, but also of Richard and Ada: all of whom depend on her for advice. But, always in the back of her mind are those stinging words of her godmother's and her own growing guilt over her illegitimacy. As Jasmine Yong Hall writes in "What's Troubling about Esther? Narrating, Policing and Resisting Arrest in Bleak House:"

Esther's illegitimacy makes her the novel's moral housekeeper, policing the family which is her protection from the social dangers posed by illegitimacy. At the same time, Esther's illegitmacy always threatens the family's ability to provide protection, so that Esther must be ever vigilant in those duties.15

It is this very conflict which burrows its way into Esther's psyche, nagging at her conscience, until finally it becomes too much for her to bear and Dickens supplies her with the narrative plausibility to develop a physical sickness. The guilt spills over Esther like water from a broken dam and a brain fever takes hold of her for several weeks. Zwerdling also realizes this connection when he notes: "Esther's illness . . . and the shame of her illegitimacy which is so closely related to it."16

     In the discourse of her illness, Dickens gives the reader much to work with relating to self-realization and guilt. First of all, as opposed to both Oliver and Pip, Esther has the unique detriment of becoming blind during her illness. While her difficulty is obviously more complex than Oliver's, one might think that Pip had his own blindness, so to speak, and question the significance of this effect on Esther. But Esther has, in a sense, a double-blindness. Both she and Pip are ignorant of certain of their features, but whereas Pip refuses to acknowledge his shortcomings, Esther fails to see her positive attributes, as well as the fact that her illegitimacy is not her sin—a fact that she does not come to understand until the end of the novel.

     Esther says of her first lapse into illness, that "In falling ill, I seemed to have crossed a dark lake, and to have left all my experiences, mingled together by the great distance, on the healthy shore," and also characterized this time as a "long delicious sleep, [a] blissful rest."17  Just as with Oliver, this time is characterized for Esther as a dream-like state. Arguably, the "dark lake" she refers to is her guilt; by leaving her experiences behind, she strives to move past this stage, to push away from the guilt and reconcile her feelings: arriving at "the healthy shore." Thus, in regaining her sight, Esther comes to accept her better qualities; but she still cannot face the shame of her birth.

     Esther is constantly reminded of who she is and where she came from. For example, she is always worried about the state of the housekeeping without her influence, when such a job is only necessary because she is an orphan. Ada and Richard are engaged, though she was never considered a match for him. Even when John proposes to her, she partially accepts because she cannot yet reconcile the facts of her birth and assumes that this is her best and only choice in life. Ultimately, it is the very strength of her self-incriminations and guilt which leave its lasting marks on her: symbolically manifested as the marks of her fever. Esther is scarred and changed by this brain fever:

I put my hair aside, and looked at the reflection in the mirror; encouraged by seeing how placidly it looked at me. I was very much changed -- O very, very much. At first, my face was so strange to me, that I think I should have put my hands before it and started back, but for the encouragement, I have mentioned. Very soon it became more familiar, and then I knew the extent of the alteration in it better than I had done at first. It was not like what I had expected; but I had expected nothing definite, and I dare say anything definite would have surprised me.18

As her face becomes more familiar, this represents Esther coming to grips with her own guilt and acquiescing to its continual presence in her life. She has come to accept much of her self: her good and bad attributes, as well as her illegitimacy. In some ways it is admirable of her to accept this status, as it shows great patience and constancy; however, at this point, she has yet to acknowledge that it is not even her sin to accept.

     Despite this growth as a character, these doubts and self-recriminations resurface when the identity of Esther's mother is revealed and suddenly all she can do is recall her godmother's words. Dickens also creates an association between her state during this revelation and her fever state. Esther says: "Stunned as I was, as weak and helpless at first as I had ever been in my sick chamber."19   Esther is made to associate the two because both what she feels then and what she had endured during the fever stem from the same causal emotion: guilt. This guilt-driven despair is apparent when she reads what her mother has written to her, and then runs away:

My first care was to burn what my mother had written, and to consume even its ashes. I hope it may not appear very unnatural or bad in me, that I then became heavily sorrowful to think I had ever been reared. That I felt as if I knew it would have been better and happier for many people, if indeed I had never breathed. That I had a terror of myself, as the danger and the possible disgrace of my own mother, and of a proud family name. That I was so confused and shaken, as to be possessed by a belief that it was right, and had been intended, that I should die in my birth and that it was wrong, and not intended, that I should be then alive.

These are the real feelings that I had. I fell asleep, worn out; and when I would, I cried afresh to think that I was back in the world, with my load of trouble for others.20

Esther clearly depicts her own guilt, associating it again with the fever-state by feeling asleep. She is symbolically trying to gain the grace from that kind of catharsis, but it eludes her, as she awakes and feels no better. In so doing, Dickens justifies the scars that continue to pain Esther. Her desire to burn the letter, the proof of "her" guilt, is important also—as if that would eradicate any of the internal guilt she felt. Yet even Esther realizes the uselessness of such a gesture.

     It is only near the end of the novel that Esther finally accepts that the sin was not hers and that it was the choice of her parents that led to her birth. This enables her to move past John and accept that she deserves to marry Woodcourt. Nonetheless, her insecurity is still visible in the final passages when her husband asks her: "don't you know that you are prettier than you ever were?" and she responds that she:

Did not know that; I am not certain that I know it now. But I know that my dearest little pets are very pretty, and that my darling is very beautiful, and that my husband is very handsome, and that my guardian has the brightest and most benevolent face that ever was seen; and that they can very well do without much beauty in me.21

Although Esther is still uncomfortable with her looks and struggles with self-doubt—externalizations of guilt over her illegitimacy—she at least has come to realize that others accept her for who she is and this lets her be comfortable with them, a triumph of sorts. Dickens is not wrong in supplying the reader with this partial triumph, for even in real life, persons rarely conquer all of their doubts and fears.

Great Expectations

     Dickens' involvement with the theme of guilt reaches its apex in Great Expectations. As Robert Barnard says in "Imagery and Theme in Great Expectations:" "The ALL-PERVASIVE theme of Great Expectations is not money, but guilt—guilt imposed, guilt assumed, guilt transcended."22  As Barnard says, this is not a theme which slowly develops all throughout the book, but rather one that is with the reader from the very beginning. Right away, Pip is forced to become a thief for Magwitch, and that robbing of the larder weighs on Pip as soon he has committed the petty larceny: "The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me. This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind."23  This depiction of guilt is also picked up on by Barnard:

Of course the guilt he feels on the score of this minor theft is only part of a larger guilt -- congenital, as it were, since it seems to have been generally regarded as criminally stupid in him to allow himself to be born at all -- fostered in him by his sister, his sister's friends, and his surroundings.24

Barnard is, of course, correct. Pip's own words illuminate the external affect in fostering his guilt:

Mrs. Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a mournful presentiment that I should come to no good, asked, "Why is it that the young are never grateful?" This moral mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, "Naterally wicious." Everybody then murmured "True!" and looked at me in a particularly unpleasant and personal manner.25

Thus, before the reader has even gotten to the prime parts of the novel, Dickens has already crafted a character who is saturated with guilt from multiple negative sources of reinforcement. How heavy an influence then, must the haughty hand of Miss Havisham have brought down upon Pip, using Estella as her tool? Indeed, Miss Havisham's bitter spite, in time, manages to destroy the one source of Pip's happiness, Joe, by manipulating Pip's insecurities created by this almost inherent guilt.   Moreover, even the random events in Pip's life leave him wracked with guilt, such as when the young gentleman appears. When young Herbert Pocket asks Pip to fight, Pip does so, though he feels he has no choice—and fairly well beats this young gentleman. And what thoughts ensue? "I felt that the pale young gentleman's blood was on my head, and that the Law would avenge it."26   It is as Barnard says: "Pip soaks up guilt like a sponge."27

     Pip cannot sleep without being troubled about his prior criminal behavior, as he fears what Estella would think. Pip is unable to stop thinking of how a "guiltily coarse and common thing it was, to be on secret terms of conspiracy with convicts."28  His visits to Miss Havisham only make the guilt worse. Before his visits there, he was not concerned with what was "coarse" or "common." Nonetheless, troubled by his past, the only way he can coax himself to sleep is to think of going to Miss Havisham's again.

     Pip's distaste for crime does not end in childhood, but draws upon him as an adult when he learns that the same criminal that has been the source of so much of his guilt has been his benefactor all along. Yet even knowing that he is who he is because of Magwitch, that all he had secretly hoped for had been accomplished by him and through legal means, Pip chills to think what Estella would think if she knew:

Why should I pause to ask how much of my shrinking from Provis might be traced to Estella? Why should I loiter on my road, to compare the state of mind in which I had tried to rid myself of the stain of the prison before meeting her at the coach-office, with the state of mind in which I now reflected on the abyss between Estella in her pride and beauty, and the returned transport whom I harboured?29

The sheer irony of the above passage is too rich to go into fullyhere, but knowing all that he does about himself and Magwitch (Provis), Pip nonetheless loathes the thought of his own complicity with such a character. The guilt brought onto him by himself is the accumulation of self-consciousness founded by his sister and her relations, warped by Miss Havisham and Estella, and cemented by his own doubt.

     Yet, as alluded to earlier, the worst wrong that Miss Havisham has done to Pip was bolstering his pride to such a degree that he is turned against Joe. Joe who had always defended Pip, stuck up for him, and loved him; Joe who no matter what Pip did or said, was always there for him. It cannot even be said that Pip's money made him look down on Joe. For nearly as soon as he had been discharged from Miss Havisham's, he remarks of Joe:

Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This statement sounds so well, that I cannot in my conscience let it pass unexplained. I wanted to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my society and less open to Estella's reproach.30

It is far too late, in some senses, by the time Pip realizes what he has done. By then, in understanding the person that he has become, his eventual guilt overpowers him, as large as it has then grown. Sadly, it is only through the direct threat of danger that Pip even begins to feel compassion instead of disdain for Magwitch. For when Pip departs Magwitch's company, as he is secreted away in the home of Herbert's betrothed, he thinks:

Looking back at him, I thought of the first night of his return when our positions were reversed, and when I little supposed my heart could ever be as heavy and anxious at parting from him as it was now.31

It is at this moment that Pip truly starts to change his feelings for Magwitch, and in doing so, begins to realize the monster he has become. Alhough he still is anxious about the money that Provis/Magwitch offers him, he in all other ways begins to change his opinions and lifestyle, reforming his former, conceited self.

     A particularly poignant moment in his recovery comes from his interview with Miss Havisham, the author of so much of his pride. She has finally been scorned by Estella, the girl whom she taught to scorn, and only then is Miss Havisham able to realize the bitter crimes she has committed against Estella and Pip. As Havisham tries to deal with her own guilt, she asks Pip for forgiveness. In his reply, we begin to see Pip's burgeoning self-cognizance:

"O Miss Havisham," said I, "I can do it now. There have been sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you."32

As Julian Moynahan points out in "The Hero's Guilt: The Case of Great Expectations," Pip's tolerance continues to mature: "Pip reaches the height of moral insight at the start of the trip down the river, when he looks at Magwitch and sees in him only 'a better man than I had been to Joe.'"33  With such insight, Pip realizes both that he has wronged Joe and that Magwitch does have redeeming qualities—indeed qualities which place Magwitch above himself. By the time Magwitch is captured and he tells Pip that a gentleman wouldn't do to visit him in prison, Pip replies: "'I will never stir from your side . . . when I am suffered to be near you. Please God, I will be as true to you, as you have been to me!'"34   Moreover, as Robert Strange says: "The last stage of Pip's progression is reached when he learns to love the criminal and to accept his own implication in the common guilt."35

     By this point, the only reason Pip's guilt has not collapsed on him is that the only shred of decency to which he could cling to to redeem his moral character was his visitations to Magwitch; and more than just for his own needs, Pip realized that Magwitch took pleasure in these visits, and the least he could do was to give him that. But even this abeyance of symbolic judgment and acceptance of his guilt could not hold off the symbolism of the brain fever. As Pip himself says, "The late stress upon me had enabled me to put off illness, but not to put it away; I knew that it was coming on me now, and I knew very little else, and was even careless as to that."36

     Pip could not hold off the effects of his own guilt forever and suddenly it comes careening into him. In comparison to that of his earlier novels, Dickens depicts it in an increasingly interesting manner:

That I had a fever and was avoided, that I suffered greatly, that I often lost my reason, that the time seemed interminable, that I confounded impossible existences with my own identity; that I was a brick in the house-wall, and yet entreating to be released from the giddy place where the builders had set me.37

Rather than simply transitioning through the dream-like state of his brain fever, Pip continues to describe his feelings and thoughts. Instead of simply writing that Pip was in a feverish dream, Dickens delves into the description of what that dream state is like, creating new symbolisms and metaphors as he does so, and enriching the narrative of the story.

     The long fever that takes hold of Pip, as it did Oliver and Esther, is analyzed well by Strange:

This middle phase of his career culminates in a sudden fall, the beginning of a redemptive suffering which is dramatically concluded by an attack of brain fever leading to a long coma. It is not too fanciful to regard this illness as a symbolic death; Pip rises from it regenerate and percipient.38

Appropriately enough, Pip is brought out of his fever by the caring attention of Joe. Pip's first response is disbelief: "Is it Joe?" And as soon as he realizes that it really is, he immediately replies, "O Joe, you break my heart! Look angry at me, Joe. Strike me, Joe. Tell me of my ingratitude. Don't be so good to me!"39 Strange appears to be correct; it does seem that Pip wakes changed. However, much of his change occurred before the fever. The fact is, that his initial metamorphosis could not stave off the judgment of his own guilt, which in symbolic terms, decreed a balancing of the moral scales by his lapsing into a comatose brain fever.

     Nonetheless, it is Pip's initial reaction to Joe that leads me to disagree with Moynahan, when he says that: "The novel dramatises the loss of innocence, and does not glibly present the hope of a redemptory second birth for either its guilty hero or the guilty society which shaped him."40 As already indicated in the primary text, Pip had begun to show contrition towards both Magwitch and Joe before the brain fever. Moreover, he has even been inspired to help Herbert quite altruistically. Indeed, Pip's new conscience-laden reflexes show remonstrance over his past sensibilities and greed, as he declines to ask anything for himself when he is at Miss Havisham's.

     Although Pip may still have a haughty and presumptuous tone when he believes he will marry Biddy, this merely reinforces the insight on partial triumph from Bleak House. Change does not often occur completely and instantly, so as to change an entire character in one swift redemptory stroke, be it real life or a well-written novel. Just as Esther, cloaked in self-understanding and acceptance could not hope to perfect her character, neither can Pip. Pip can, however, reconcile his past, by moving beyond his guilt and toward a new future with reborn attitudes, beliefs, and hopes.

Conclusion

     Although few of the secondary texts reviewed here drew any direct correlation between the existence of brain fevers and guilt in Dickens, there is plenty of support for this thesis in Dickens’ texts.   Oliver, Esther, and Pip all struggle to fight through periods of guilt, which no matter how it begins, becomes all-consuming and results in a comatose state that is the symbolic catharsis for their inner conflict.

     Oliver was the easiest mark for such over-powering guilt. As cherubic as he was depicted, it was not hard to overwhelm his character through either the evil of his unfortunate associations or the guilt over those whom he was forced to abandon. Conversely, he easily reconciled his guilt under the loving guidances of Brownlow and Mrs. Maylie.

     Bestowed with a much stronger character, Esther holds out against the guilt for much longer, battling her own inner doubts and insecurities, which are much more nebulous demons. But even she could not delay the inevitable fact that her guilt would catch up with her; and because she was not able to fully escape her own recriminations, Dickens bestowed her with lasting effects of her illness, outwardly manifesting the troubles within.

     Pip, as previously described, was a "sponge" for guilt. He was inundated in it from beginning to end and it is only when he realized who he had become, that he began to change, reconciling that with the person whom he thought he was, and only then can he begin to heal. But because he also, cannot escape the justice of symbolic death and rebirth, he suffers the guilt-wrought comatose state of the brain fever. In Pip, Dickens crafts the most complex depiction of this cycle.

     Without doubt, Dickens intended all of these effects in a repeating stream of theme and symbolism, linking the separate works through a similar technique, in effect, using each one to perfect this symbolic transition. In so doing, Dickens has proved once more that he was not merely a popular writer, but a master craftsman who knew how to work his trade like few before or after. The linking of brain fevers and guilt is a complex tapestry that he weaves briliantly, creating rich and detailed symbolisms, which become paramount as underlying themes that take each of these novels to new depths of literature, securing Dickens' place in literary history.

Bibliography 

1. Strange, Robert G. "Expectations Well Lost: Dickens' Fable For His Time." Discussions of Charles Dickens. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1961. Pg. 81.

2. Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. London: Penguin, 1966. Pg. 117.

3. Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. London: Penguin, 1966. Pg. 124.

4. Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. London: Penguin, 1966. Pg. 125.

5. Thurley, Geoffrey, "Oliver Twist." The Dickens Myth: Its Genesis and Structure. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976. Pg. 36-37.

6. Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. London: Penguin, 1966. Pg. 284.

7. Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. London: Penguin, 1966. Pg. 268.

8. Thurley, Geoffrey. "Oliver Twist." The Dickens Myth: Its Genesis and Structure. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976. Pg 35-36.

9. Thurley, Geoffrey. "Oliver Twist." The Dickens Myth: Its Genesis and Structure. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976. Pg 35-36.

10. Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. London: Penguin, 1966. Pg. 289.

11. Zwerdling, Alex. "Esther Summerson Rehabilitated." Charles Dickens: New Perspectives. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982. Pg. 95.

12. Dickens, Charles. Bleak House,. Boston: Mifflin, 1956. Pg. 11.

13. Zwerdling, Alex. "Esther Summerson Rehabilitated." Charles Dickens: New Perspectives. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982. Pg. 100.

14. Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Boston: Mifflin, 1956. Pg. 13.

15. Yong Hall, Jasmine. "What's Troubling About Esther?" Dickens Studies Annual: Essays on Victorian Fiction: Volume II. New York: AMS Press, 1993. Pg. 171-172.

16. Zwerdling, Alex. "Esther Summerson Rehabilitated." Charles Dickens: New Perspectives. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982. Pg. 108.

17. Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Boston: Mifflin, 1956. Pg. 370-371.

18. Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Boston: Mifflin, 1956. Pg. 382.

19. Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Boston: Mifflin, 1956. Pg. 389.

20. Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Boston: Mifflin, 1956. Pg. 389.

21. Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Boston: Mifflin, 1956. Pg. 665 (emphasis added).

22. Barnard, Robert. "Imagery and Theme in Great Expectations."Dickens Studies Annual: Volume I. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970. Pg. 238 (caps in original).

23. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1996.  Pg. 17.

24. Barnard, Robert. "Imagery and Theme in Great Expectations."Dickens Studies Annual: Volume I. Carbondale and Edwardsville:  Southern Illinois University Press, 1970. Pg. 239.

25. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1996.  Pg. 26.

26. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1996.  Pg. 93.

27. Barnard, Robert. "Imagery and Theme in Great Expectations."  Dickens Studies Annual: Volume I. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970. Pg. 238.

28. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1996.  Pg. 79.

29. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1996. Pg. 353.

30. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1996. Pg. 109.

31. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1996.  Pg. 379.

32. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1996. Pg. 398.

33. Moynahan, Julian. "The Hero's Guilt: A Case of Great Expectations." Discussions of Charles Dickens. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1961. Pg. 82.

34. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1996. Pg. 447.

35. Strange, Robert G. "Expectations Well Lost: Dickens' Fable For His Time." Discussions of Charles Dickens. Boston: D.C. Heath  and Company, 1961. Pg. 80.

36. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1996. Pg. 461.

37. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1996. Pg. 462.

38. Strange, Robert G. "Expectations Well Lost: Dickens' Fable For His Time." Discussions of Charles Dickens. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1961. Pg. 74.

39. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1996. Pg. 463.

40. Moynahan, Julian. "The Hero's Guilt: A Case of Great Expectations." Discussions of Charles Dickens. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1961. Pg. 92.

All Rights Reserved © 05/01/1999