Our Mutual Friend: Allusions 4 key examples

The novel’s allusions to the Roman Empire serve a facetious function. Dickens presents a scenario—a wooden-legged man reading aloud weighty dramas about emperors and coups—that creates comedy through lighthearted anachronism. The sight of Mr. Boffin earnestly preoccupied by long-gone tales of gore and intrigue cannot help but provoke a smile.

Dickens allows for a more serious reading at the same time. The intended parallels between 19th-century England and the late Roman Empire are hard to miss, and the novel’s references come across as an implicit critique of the country’s current state. Rome may be remembered for its greatness, but it also made a name for corruption and degeneration. Nero fiddled away while the capital burned. Mr. Veneering hosts parties. Caligula tortured senators, and Fledgeby abuses Riah. Dickens’s association between the dominant ancient civilization and a country over which “the sun does not set” is comic relief that sets forth words of warning.

Mortimer’s “spurious Mephistopheles” is a reference to Goethe’s Faust, a play in which its titular protagonist sells his soul to Mephistopheles (the devil) in hopes of rekindling his interest in the world. Aided by his infernal partner, he wins over his lover but must pay the price in the end. While Goethe’s two-part work manages to redeem its fallen protagonist, it highlights the dangers of temptation and disillusionment.

Comparing Mr. Lammle to Mephistopheles makes for telling prophecy. Under the spell of this allusion, the Mrs. Lammle-to-be walks straight into a “Devil’s bargain.” At the end of Book 1, Chapter 10, she strikes a deal with her fraudulent husband to keep up appearances and “to work together in furtherance of our own schemes.” The couple cooks up nefarious plots.

The crucial difference between Mrs. Lammle and Faust is that Dickens’s bride is far less successful. Faust at least seduces his lover under Mephistopheles’s wing, but the novel’s “spurious” devil fails miserably. The Lammles win neither the Podsnaps nor the Boffins. Rather, they get ensnared by yet another Mephistopheles, Fledgeby, who fleeces them of even their furniture and forces them to leave the country. Our Mutual Friend pulls back the curtain on an entire food chain of devils and demons.

Riderhood’s idiom traces its origins to Genesis, in which God condemns Adam to grow his own food by the “sweat of your brow” after he eats from the Tree of Knowledge. As the human couple gets banished from Eden, the saying suggests labor and self-reliance. It is an appeal to honest work and a consequence of disobedience.

The expression becomes Riderhood’s calling card through the remainder of the novel. In classic Dickensian caricature, the self-declared “honest fellow” professes that he lives off “the sweat of my brow” at almost every opportunity. And yet, for his nagging lip service to hard, honest labor, Riderhood ironically does very little of it himself. In all likelihood, he speaks more than he actually sweats. The fabulist concocts lies to incriminate Gaffer Hexam and leeches off Bradley Headstone. Riderhood’s work—if any—consists mostly of devising strategies for blackmail.

Riderhood’s ironic twist on the biblical allusion suggestively attacks England, corrupted and “fallen” itself. The waterside scavenger joins an entire class of other characters—Silas Wegg, Fledgeby, and Mr. Lammle, for instance—who would rather dream of wealth rather than commit themselves to any genuine, meaningful labor.

The famed story of the maid-turned-princess is a hallmark of the fairytale genre. Cinderella, scullery servant to her cruel stepmother’s family, finds herself transformed one night through the generosity of her fairy godmother. She dances with the prince that night, wins his heart but loses her slipper, and marries him after he finds her again.

In Riah’s case, the shoe fits. Jenny’s metaphor captures the gentle benevolence of a character who goes great lengths to protect her and Lizzie. Correcting for his anti-Semitic portrayal of Oliver Twist’s Fagin, Dickens casts Riah as a model of dignity and grace. Our Mutual Friend’s Jewish character is a fount of wisdom and Boffin-like in his loyalty.

Fairy tales were a central feature of Dickens’s fiction. His works frequently referred to Hans Christian Andersen, and the novel elsewhere alludes to the likes of Jack and the Beanstalk, Beauty and the Beast, and Goldilocks. Our Mutual Friend itself arrives at a “happy ending” with fairy tale-esque efficiency: John Rokesmith marries his “princess,” Headstone and Silas Wegg head towards doom, and almost everyone else lives happily ever after.

For Jenny, dependence on fairytales is an indication of her youth. When Fledgeby maligns his own servant, Jenny promptly takes back her words and likens Riah to Little Red Riding Hood’s “wolf." Jenny's fairytales underscore the childish character that lies beneath her motherly self-reliance. For a character who chides her own father as a “child” and makes a living on her own, fantastic stories offer her lifelines to make sense of her world.