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Chapter 28 (1)
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Pickwick Papers, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Male Friendship
Predatory Social Institutions
Social Class and Inequality
Marriage and Courtship
Generosity and Forgiveness
Summary
Analysis
Gabriel Grub, a bitter and solitary sexton, spends his days digging graves in a churchyard. He resents the happiness of others and drinks from a bottle of Hollands hidden in his waistcoat. On Christmas Eve, while the townspeople celebrate joyfully, Gabriel sneers at the warmth and cheer around him. As he walks through the town with his spade and lantern, he scowls at the bustling preparations for the holiday. The sight of children laughing and playing as they run to family gatherings only deepens his resentment. Gabriel tightens his grip on his spade, taking grim satisfaction in thinking about sickness and death.
Gabriel embodies the archetype of the misanthrope who rejects joy out of bitterness, a character trope Dickens often explores. His resentment of others’ happiness on Christmas Eve—a time meant for celebration—sets up the stark contrast between his internal isolation and the external warmth around him. Dickens uses Gabriel’s fixation on sickness and death as a way to explore how bitterness and selfishness warps a person’s perspective, turning what should be a time of reflection into an obsession with decay.
Themes
As Gabriel continues down the street, he encounters a boy singing a cheerful Christmas song. Irritated, Gabriel waits until the child passes close, then he strikes him over the head with his lantern, sending the boy fleeing. Pleased with himself, Gabriel chuckles and heads toward the graveyard. Once Gabriel arrives at the graveyard, he locks the gate behind him, sets down his lantern, and begins digging a grave. The cold, frosty ground makes his work difficult, but Gabriel remains in good spirits after stopping the boy’s singing. He mutters to himself about death, enjoying the thought of the grave filling with cold earth. After working for about an hour, he sits on a tombstone, drinks from his bottle, and laughs to himself about the idea of someone dying on Christmas.
Gabriel’s act of striking the boy demonstrates his deep-seated anger toward happiness itself. The graveyard, where Gabriel locks himself away from the living world, becomes a physical representation of his emotional state: cold, closed off, and devoid of life. Dickens’s description of Gabriel savoring the thought of a grave being filled suggests that Gabriel clings to death because it offers a certainty that life, with all its unpredictability, does not. Unlike the Pickwickians, he drinks not to bring himself more pleasure, but to numb himself to the world around him.
Themes
As Gabriel raises the bottle to his lips, a voice suddenly echoes through the graveyard, mimicking his laughter. Startled, he looks around but sees nothing unusual. Everything appears still and quiet under the moonlight. Gabriel tries to dismiss it as an echo and takes another drink, but the voice interrupts him again. He freezes in fear when a goblin appears on a nearby tombstone, grinning at him. The goblin, dressed in a strange outfit with a pointed hat and curled shoes, stares maliciously at Gabriel.
The appearance of the goblin signals a shift from reality to the fantastical. The goblin’s grin mirrors Gabriel’s earlier sneer at others, suggesting that Gabriel is now confronted with an external manifestation of his own bitterness. By placing the goblin in a graveyard—the space Gabriel thought was his sanctuary—Dickens suggests that even isolation Gabriel cannot hide from himself.
Themes
The goblin confronts Gabriel, asking why a man would spend Christmas Eve digging graves and striking children. Before Gabriel can respond, a chorus of voices fills the air, chanting his name. More goblins emerge, surrounding Gabriel. The goblin king, who leads the group, declares Gabriel their “prize.” The goblins mock Gabriel for his cruelty and bitterness, accusing him of resenting others’ happiness because he cannot experience it himself. Gabriel tries to make excuses, but the goblins drag him down into the earth.
The goblins function as a kind of moral mirror, forcing Gabriel to confront the real source of his resentment: his inability to experience joy. Their mockery emphasizes that those who refuse to embrace happiness actively cultivate their own misery. Dickens presents this confrontation as inevitable: in his view, no amount of isolation or self-justification can shield someone from the consequences of their choices.
Themes
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Gabriel finds himself in a cavern filled with more goblins, all grotesque and menacing. The goblin king, seated on a throne, commands his minions to show Gabriel the consequences of his miserable outlook. A mist rises, revealing scenes of human life. Gabriel first sees a poor but loving family gathered around a fire. The father comes home from a long day’s work and his children greet him with joy. Then, the scene shifts to the family’s youngest child lying on his deathbed. Despite their grief, the family takes solace in the belief that the child has gone to Heaven.
The scenes the goblins show Gabriel highlight the novel’s recurring belief that joy is not dependent on material wealth but on emotional richness. The family’s ability to find peace, even in death, contrasts sharply with Gabriel’s fixation on misery, emphasizing that hardship does not have to lead to bitterness. Dickens suggests that suffering is an unavoidable part of life, but it is how one responds to it that defines their experience. Gabriel’s shame in watching these scenes reflects the beginning of his transformation, as he starts to recognize the hollowness of his cynicism. This scene offers the possibility that although Gabriel has done wrong in the past, he might still be able to change his behavior for the better.
Themes
More scenes unfold, showing people facing hardship with cheerfulness and love. Gabriel watches as an elderly couple, now frail and near the end of their lives, spend their final days surrounded by family. Gabriel feels shame as he realizes these people have found joy in the very things he rejected—family, love, and community. The goblin king taunts Gabriel for his bitterness, giving him a swift kick. The other goblins follow suit, kicking him repeatedly. Gabriel, now fully aware of his mistakes, understands that he has wasted his life in anger and isolation.
The elderly couple’s peaceful acceptance of their mortality serves as a direct challenge to Gabriel’s obsession with death, showing that even the end of life can be meaningful when love is present. Meanwhile, the goblins’ kicks symbolize the painful process of self-realization, as Gabriel’s awareness of his mistakes continues to grow.
Themes
When Gabriel awakens the next morning, he lies on a gravestone in the churchyard. His body aches from the goblins’ kicks. The unfinished grave remains, a reminder of the previous night. Though unsure if anyone will believe his story, Gabriel resolves to leave his old life behind. He cannot face the townspeople, knowing they will mock his change of heart, so he decides to seek a new life elsewhere. Years later, Gabriel returns to the town, now a humble old man and shares his story with the locals. Some scoff, claiming he must have drunk too much and fallen asleep, while others believe his tale of goblins. Regardless of belief, Gabriel’s transformation serves as a lesson: those who scorn the joy of others only deepen their own misery instead of embracing happiness.
Gabriel’s decision to leave town indicates that true change often requires physical as well as emotional separation from old patterns and environments. His transformation from a bitter man to a humble elder shows Dickens’s belief in the possibility of personal redemption, even for those who have strayed far from joy.
Themes
