commentaire composé Little Dorrit anglais

« “La voix de l’honneur est bien faible lorsque les boyaux crient” writes Diderot in Le Neveu de Rameau, in other words, we should think that poverty leads to leave moral values, that is the reason why we used to have preconceptions about poor people, as if they were dangerous.

In the text under studied, which is an extract of Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens (XIX), the extradiegetic narrator describes the Bleeding Heart Yard, it means places and people who live there (especially Mrs plornish), now it is a place characterized by misery.

The excerpt can be divided in three main parts : from line 1 to 32, the narrator reports how place and mentality of inhabitants are, then from line 33 to 43, some characters (three men) appear and walk in direction of the Yard, finally, reader witnesses to the meet and to the discussion between Clennam and Mrs Plornish.

The omniscient narrator is omnipresent, he gives informations to readers about the thoughts and the feelings of characters and he often speaks to give his opinion : he is not neutral so the reader is encouraged to share his eye on the Yard.

So, to what extent can it be said that the text under study is committed by denouncing poverty ? First, I will look at the preeminence of poverty all over the text, then I will focus on the way in which this poverty is denounced. As a starting point we shall examine the impression of misery which is conveyed through description of places, ways of life, and through the fact that everything lays stress on the idea of destiny (as if people couldn’t get out of poverty). First, descriptions of places foreshadow the misery of the Bleeding Heart Yard, and this misery is associated with a gloomy atmosphere.

Indeed, it’s interesting to note that rooms are “dark” (line 5), as the parlour which is “dark and close” (line 55). In addition to that, fire is “low” (line 70) so everything points out the fact that people here have bad life conditions.

This impression is reinforced in lines 10 to 13 which underline the gloomy atmosphere because it also concerns the outside as suggest the “shabby streets” (line 12).

Besides, what underlines the poverty of places is the difference between its currently bad aspect and its glorious and rich original aspect : a positive term is often cancelled by an antithetic one, for instance “ancient greatness” (line 4), “faded glories” (line 7).

More generally, the beginning of the excerpt insists on the idea that Bleeding Heart Yard was different (better actually) before : lines 1 and 2 recall the original function of place (namely “Royal hunting-seats) and lines 11 and 12 mention “a flight of steps which formed no part of the original approach”.

The idea that places are the first way to realize poverty of Bleeding Heart Yard is lastly noticeable through the simile between “poor people who set up their rest among its faded glories” and the “Arabs of the desert [ who ] pitch their tents among the fallen stone of the Pyramids” (from lines 6 to 8).

This simile underlines the three points we have talked about : “desert” echoes the idea of a forsaken place, “tents” echoes the houses without comfort and “fallen stone” echoes the idea of a gone greatness. These miserable material life conditions have necessarily an impact on inhabitants, and indeed, another striking feature of this excerpt is the fact that people have difficult, somber and sad lifes.

Firstly, the explanations about the derivation of the name of the Yard reinforce the gloomy atmosphere because in either case, history of this place is linked with death, even more with murder : according to “the gentler and more imaginative inhabitants” (line 17), source of the name of the Yard is a “legend [who] [...] related how [a] young [imprisoned] lady used to be seen up at her window behind the bars, murmuring a love-lorn song of which the burden was, ‘Bleeding Heart, Bleeding Heart, bleeding away,’ until she died” (lines 18 to 22), and, according to “the more practical” (line 16) inhabitants, derivation of its name refers to “tradition of a murder” (line17).

Be that as it may, these two hypotheses lay stress on the preeminence of macabre atmosphere which prevents inhabitants to have a light mindset, starting with the name itself : “Bleeding Heart”.

It is more generally as though death was stronger than love as suggest, on the one hand, the legend of the imprisoned young girl which presents a duel between love and death (and death wins) ; on the other hand, syntax which gives the impression that what could be positive is always countered by a negative term, for instance, the collocation of “love” and “lorn” line 21.

Even if narrator concludes by saying “many more people fall in love than commit murder” (lines 24-25), the fact remains that there is a sort of battle between love and murder and even if the love legend “carried the day by a great majority” (line 27), is not really a win of love because the legend itself embodies the win of the death.

In addition to that, narrator insists on the fact that this legend is quite the only source of entertainment for these people and the only way to make their existence more poetic (“the Bleeding Heart Yarders had reason enough for objecting to be despoiled of the one little golden grain of poetry that sparkled in [ the hour-glass filled with the earthiest and corsets sand ]” lines 30 to 32), which underlines the sadness of their life.

And indeed, Mr.

Plornish only exists through his job (the first and only word which describes him is “plasterer” line 36 and reader only knows that “he is gone to look for a job” lines 49-50), Mrs.

Plornish is reduced to her mother’s role (first vision Clennam and so readers have is “a woman with a child in her arms” lines 45-46, and “this maternal action was the action of Mrs Plornsih during a large part of her waking existence” lines 47-48), and what is important concerning children is their health, or in a sense, their capacity to survive and then to work (“But this one is rather sickly” line 66).

All things considered, we understand why “there was a family sentimental feeling prevalent in the Yard” (line 8) : it is all that remains, in any case, since neither the environment nor the way of life can be a source of happiness. These two aspects of poverty are increased by the fact that the extract is crowded with allusions to destiny, which fuels the idea that people are prisoners of their life conditions, as if they are condemned to be poor for their entire life.

The “family sentimental feeling prevalent in the Yard” mentioned before suggests the idea of a community, as though all inhabitants form one single group which knows the same lot (by the way, to some degree people are dehumanized because they only exist as a part of a whole, not as individuals) .

This impression is conveyed through the metonymy “the Yard” in line 16 insofar as the Yard normally refers to place whereas in this case, it refers to people who live here (who give their opinion concerning the derivation of its name, to be precise), so they are still not seen like individuals, even worse, they are seen through the place where they lived (and yet this place doesn’t have a good image because of.... »