Dickens' Use Of His American Experiences In Martin Chuzzlewit

On 31 January 1842, shortly after Dickens arrived on his first visit to the United States, he wrote to his friend Thomas Mitton, “There is a great deal afloat here in the way of subjects for description. I keep my eyes open pretty wide, and hope to have done so to some purpose by the time I come home.” And certainly Dickens' observations were to “some purpose.” The American visit produced a fine series of letters, a travel book, American Notes for General Circulation (1842), and the famous American chapters of Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–44). These three basic sources—the letters on America, which were never intended for publication as such; the Notes, which represented Dickens' public statement of what he saw in America; and Chuzzlewit, the fictional recreation of the America he found—form an extraordinary trilogy of materials made to order for the study of the relationship between fact and fiction. But strangely enough, despite the immensity of the Dickens bibliography, one hunts vainly for such a study. And yet, by analyzing the American chapters in Martin Chuzzlewit in the light of Dickens' letters from America and his American Notes, it is possible to achieve a better understanding of his artistic methods and limitations. One can see, for example, how Dickens the observer, the selector, worked, how he broke up some experiences and fused others together. One can watch impressions and images recur and reappear as the associations with which they are connected also recur and reappear. Finally, one can better understand the fictional difficulties and shortcomings in the American interlude of Martin Chuzzlewit; one can better explain a good many artistic lapses and seemingly wild exaggerations.