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Book 1, Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Our Mutual Friend, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Society, Class, and Character
Greed and Corruption
Marriage, Adoption, and Family
Education vs. Real-World Experience
Misfits and Outcasts
Summary
Analysis
A man named Silas Wegg has a wooden leg and always sets up his stall outside a corner house near Cavendish Square in London. He feels a sense of ownership over the mansion, which he calls “Our House,” although at most, the house’s real owners might let Wegg accompany one of their servants on an errand. Wegg doesn’t know the real names of the house’s owners, so he’s made up his own names for them.
Many of Dickens’s characters have humorous names, with Wegg’s last name rhyming with “leg” and his wooden leg being his most distinctive feature. Wegg’s sense of identifying with the upper-class borders on delusional, and his inability to determine even the real names of the people who live in “Our House” shows how little he actually knows about upper-class life.
Themes
At his stall, Wegg sells fruits, nuts, and other goods that all look pitiful. Everything he sells is hard, except the gingerbread, which is soft. One day, a man named Noddy Boffin approaches Wegg at his stall. Boffin greets Wegg as “sir,” which Wegg finds unusual and amusing. Wegg admits he doesn’t like Boffin’s name, but Boffin is undeterred. Boffin noticed Wegg singing a song to a butcher earlier by reading it off a piece of paper. Boffin himself is an old servant who can’t read. He retired as a servant after his lord (the old Mr. Harmon) died.
Fruits aren’t supposed to be hard, but gingerbread is, suggesting that all of Wegg’s goods are low quality. Although the newly wealthy Boffin is oblivious to some customs of the upper class, even he realizes that his inability to read is unusual for someone with money.
Themes
Boffin thinks it’s too late in life to learn how to read for himself. But he got the idea that maybe he could pay someone to read to him from some of his old master’s books. Wegg is flattered by the offer and gives it some consideration. They negotiate terms and reach an agreement, with Wegg promising to start that night. Boffin leaves.
While Boffin’s decision to hire Wegg on the spot is a little eccentric, being paid to read was a profession in Victorian England, with some illiterate people even paying to hear readings of Dickens’s novels. Wegg shows a keen interest in money and negotiating for more from the very beginning. Although Wegg’s actions in this particular passage aren’t that unusual, they set the foundation for later, when his character begins to take more openly greedy actions.
Themes
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That evening, Wegg heads over to Boffin’s place—Boffin’s Bower (near the deceased old Mr. Harmon’s place)—for their appointment. There are piles of dust outside. When he comes inside, he’s surprised to see Mrs. Henerietty Boffin in a satin dress. Boffin explains that she likes to be fashionable, unlike himself (he prefers comfort to fashion).
“Boffin’s Bower” is a humorous name. A bower suggests a shady, wooded place, but the only thing providing shade for Boffin are the mounds of dust around his house. Still, the name is not ironic to Boffin and Henerietty, who genuinely like their home, suggesting their ability to be satisfied with simple things.
Themes
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Before Wegg begins, he asks for some gin to “meller” his voice. He notices a pie that Mrs. Boffin made and asks for some of that too. Finally, he begins to read the first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Boffin is surprised, because he thought the book would be about “Rooshans,” not Romans. Wegg keeps reading, and Boffin is amazed by the lives of all the Romans who lived so long ago.
Both Wegg and the Boffins speak in a dialect that shows their lower-class origins, such as “meller” instead of “mellow” and “Rooshans” instead of “Russians” (which should actually be “Romans”). The fact that Boffin doesn’t know the difference between Romans and Russians (who lived in very different time periods) again shows how little he knows.
Themes
