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Peer Reviewed

Charles Dickens and Authentic Happiness: Theorizing the Good Life in a Materialistic World

Julia McCord Chavez, Saint Martin's University

Endnotes

1  According to the online catalog, Psychology 1504: Positive Psychology “focuses on the psychological aspects of a fulfilling and flourishing life. Topics include happiness, self-esteem, empathy, friendship, goalsetting, love, achievement, creativity, mindfulness, spirituality, and humor.” It could be argued that these are the very same topics that Dickens tackles in his mature novels.

2  Happiness is indeed a hot topic these days. Numerous books have been written on the art and science of happiness in the last decade, including The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt (2006), Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (2006), The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama XIV (1998), Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill by Matthieu Ricard (2006), Authentic Happiness by positive psychologist Martin Seligman (2004), and The Happiness Project by Gretchen Craft Rubin (2009). As of June 2000, there is an international Journal of Happiness Studies, dedicated to “subjective well-being” and an “appreciation of life” (Veenhoven, Diener, and Michalos v).

3  Potkay writes of the Stoic philosophers, “virtue was sufficient for the happy life, and…a person was no less happy for being sick or poor, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes” (3).

4  Eitan Bar-Yosef identifies this shift in cartographic terms. The novel embodies competing systems or “maps,” he argues. The first is an “imperial/mercantile” map labeled the “empire without” and associated with Mr. Dombey himself (226, 227). The second is a feeling-oriented moral map labeled the “empire within” and associated with Florence Dombey (225). In Bar-Yosef’s schema, the first values material wealth and power, whereas the second values love and human relationships.

5  While the life of this young working-class needlewoman is unmistakably difficult, a point emphasized by her lameness and the fact that she is “poorly paid” (223), her labor—dolls’ dressmaking—is not mindless and alienating. Instead, the work of transforming scraps of fabric into doll clothing includes an element of positive self-development (albeit within extreme material constraints). Jenny’s type of labor, as opposed to factory work, allows for this development. As Jenny tells Sloppy near the end of the novel, she was “never taught a stitch…just gobbled and gobbled, till I found out how to do it. Badly enough at first, but better now” (809). Indeed, her skill as an accomplished seamstress is highlighted when she is first introduced:…the little figure went on with its work of gumming or gluing together with a camel’s-hair brush certain pieces of cardboard and thin wood, previously cut into various shapes. The scissors and knives upon the bench showed that the child herself had cut them; and the bright scraps of velvet and silk and ribbon also strewn upon the bench showed that when duly stuffed (and stuffing too was there), she was to cover them smartly. The dexterity of her nimble fingers was remarkable, and, as she brought two thin edges accurately together by giving them a little bite, she would glance at the visitors out of the corners of her grey eyes with a look that out-sharpened all her other sharpness. (222)Jenny’s life is a struggle, but it is a forward moving struggle, allowing this needlewoman to create her own unexpected “happy” ending.

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