The Story Archive

Martin Chuzzlewit

Charles Dickens · 1844 CE · Novel · English · Victorian

A rich old man feigns senility to watch what his relations will do for the money, chief among them the architect Pecksniff, who talks morality while selling his pupils' work as his own. The grandson he disinherits sails for America and sinks his last capital into a malarial swamp advertised as the thriving city of Eden. Monthly sales disappointed, so Dickens redirected the story across the Atlantic, and its portrait of American speculation and bluster was resented there for a generation.

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Attributes

Genre
SatireComedy
Theme
Wealth & GreedAppearance vs RealityBetrayalClass & Inequality
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Villain / TyrantEverymanTrickster
Plot structure
EpisodicIronic Reversal
Symbol / motif
Gold / TreasureThe MaskThe Journey
Conflict
vs Personvs Society
Mode / tone
SatiricalComicRealist
Culture / tradition
English

Closest analogues