On finishing Little Dorrit

After about a month, I’ve finished reading Little Dorrit. 
With the resolution, it’s good that there’s some justice, but it doesn’t feel very satisfying that the villain is gotten rid of so conveniently and Arthur Clennam is saved so easily. I’m not sure how I feel about the situation with the Dorrits either—looking at them and Arthur, I can’t help thinking, what kind of dummy puts all of their money in 1 place? 
Still, Little Dorrit is a great, underrated book. It’s a sombre book. It’s a book of so much anger, disillusionment, and bitterness. 
It’s about injustices in Britain against debtors, and their prison conditions. It’s about the bureaucracy and aristocracy. It’s about deception and betrayal. It’s about frauds and criminals. It’s about failed benevolence—the ineffectual Arthur tries to do good but doesn’t know how.  
Above all, Little Dorrit is about characters who nurse a grievance and destroy themselves because of it. Miss Havisham in Great Expectations is perhaps Dickens’s most famous character who nurses a grievance, but there are several such characters, of varying degrees, in Little Dorrit: Fanny Dorrit, who is willing to sacrifice her own happiness to get back at the woman who insulted her; Miss Wade, who is forever filled with hatred and bitterness; Harriet Beadle (Tattycoram), who has a similar sense of resentment and thus lets herself be manipulated by Miss Wade; William Dorrit, who is unable to move on from his years in prison and keeps imagining that everyone mocks him; Mrs Clennam, who, in her anger and self-righteous punishment of others, condemns herself to a life of unhappiness… I have written about Fanny Dorrit and Miss Wade, but Mrs Clennam becomes more interesting in the final chapters of the book. From afar, she is a hardened woman—terrifying in her coldness. The final chapters reveal her to be full of guilt and suffering, because of her own doing. She comes to have more life.  
Some other characters are also full of resentment, such as Henry Gowan and Arthur Clennam. Henry has no talent as an artist, so he mocks everyone and sees art as pointless, and resents being related to the Barnacles but not having their wealth. Arthur too is bitter, because he fails in everything, and now thinks that he is too old—his time has passed. 
When Little Dorrit is seen in this way, it is no longer an issue that Amy Dorrit is so “perfect”. She is their opposite, and in a way, a model of how one should be. She accepts her situation without shame and without self-delusion, tries to be understanding and kind to everyone, lives honestly and does her duty, and feels grateful for everything she has. She resents nothing, and therefore doesn’t let any anger destroy herself or her life. 



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Little Dorrit is indeed sombre in tone and themes, but hey we’re talking about Dickens!—it is full of vitality. 
Look at this: 

“… Mr F.‘s Aunt, who had eaten a piece of toast down to the crust, here solemnly handed the crust to Flora, who ate it for her as a matter of business. Mr F.‘s Aunt then moistened her ten fingers in slow succession at her lips, and wiped them in exactly the same order on the white handkerchief; then took the other piece of toast, and fell to work upon it. While pursuing this routine, she looked at Clennam with an expression of such intense severity that he felt obliged to look at her in return, against his personal inclinations.” (B.2, ch.9) 

Then: 

“… With those words and a parting glance, Flora bustled out, leaving Clennam under dreadful apprehension of this terrible charge.
The first variation which manifested itself in Mr F.‘s Aunt’s demeanour when she had finished her piece of toast, was a loud and prolonged sniff. Finding it impossible to avoid construing this demonstration into a defiance of himself, its gloomy significance being unmistakable, Clennam looked plaintively at the excellent though prejudiced lady from whom it emanated, in the hope that she might be disarmed by a meek submission.
‘None of your eyes at me,’ said Mr F.‘s Aunt, shivering with hostility. ‘Take that.’
‘That’ was the crust of the piece of toast. Clennam accepted the boon with a look of gratitude, and held it in his hand under the pressure of a little embarrassment, which was not relieved when Mr F.‘s Aunt, elevating her voice into a cry of considerable power, exclaimed, ‘He has a proud stomach, this chap! He’s too proud a chap to eat it!’ and, coming out of her chair, shook her venerable fist so very close to his nose as to tickle the surface.” (ibid.) 

Can there be a comparable scene anywhere? That is fantastic. 
Little Dorrit is such a great and enjoyable book.