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Allusions
Book 4, Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis—Young Lambs of Yourn:
Our Mutual Friend cuts across England’s social classes: lawyers wander the street with lowlifes, new millionaires employ street vendors, and schoolteachers bump into hunchbacked doll dressmakers. For a work with such expansive scope, Dickens’s use of dialect does justice to the diversity of his characters. How a character speaks is just as revealing as what they say, as when Rogue Riderhood stands outside Headstone’s classroom in Book 4, Chapter 15:
‘And a lovely thing it must be,’ said Riderhood, ‘fur to learn young folks wot’s right, and fur to know wot they know wot you do it. Beg your pardon, learned governor! By your leave!—That here black board; wot’s it for?’
Dialect functions as a sign of class. In a scene of jarring contrasts, Riderhood’s jagged speech calls attention to the socioeconomic differences that underly the exchange. The tattered scavenger approaches the stately schoolteacher, just one of many instances in which the novel’s lower class crosses paths with the English elite. Like the Boffins’ idiomatic expressions or Silas Wegg’s leer, Riderhood’s speech signals his lowly social station.
Our Mutual Friend’s use of dialect also shows the written word’s limitations. Dickens made a living off his own edited literary magazine, publishing weekly for his readers. But through characters such as Riderhood or Sloppy, he questions writing itself. At times, understanding Riderhood’s speech almost requires reading certain sentences aloud. Words like “wot’s” or “fur” preserve a faithfulness to the way speech sounds rather than its appearance on paper. Riderhood defies the printed word. Dickens’s ear for the vernacular reveals the ways in which writing privileges some voices at the expense of others. He explores some of the biases and inequalities built into language’s written form.
Words make, but do not define, people. In his confrontation with Bradley Headstone, Riderhood’s dialect turns this scene into a parable of social inequality. He exposes the moral hypocrisy of the upper class, holding his head above the educated schoolmaster in spite of his roughhewn speech. Riderhood is mercenary and brutish, but Headstone—for all his mechanical refinement—is no better. It is an equalizing moment; Dickens suggests that morality can exist apart from pronunciation or education.
Related Themes:
