Abstract
This essay suggests a way in which Dickens’s novels might be made more immediately accessible to students by drawing parallels between the sociopolitical situations they describe and our own. It is based mainly on Our Mutual Friend and Little Dorrit, but calls on to Great Expectations and The Old Curiosity Shop too. The manifestations of the unchallenged rule of money are examined like, among others, the collusion between the political and the financial worlds, nepotism, the get-rich-quick syndrome or the ostentatious exhibition of wealth. The consequences of such a state of affairs are then drawn: on the general level with, mainly, the growing gap and distrust between the haves and the have-nots and on the individual level with the temptation ordinary people are led into, either of utter selfishness or of withdrawal into private life. It also looks at the alternatives, such as the dream of a return to a golden age, or the relief given by satirical laughter, both signs of helplessness against the power of money, even if Dickens’s novels always end with the righteous being rewarded.
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