A further testimony of the hardness and artificiality of Mr Dombey's personality is introduced as his previous congeniality and elation turns to testiness and annoyance as his wife's health declines immediately following the birth; having born Paul, her purpose in life has been fulfilled. Mr Dombey was a man who could not be startled or shocked; if Mrs Dombey was to die it would be the equivalent of losing his favourite plate or armchair. She had had many good years of use. Perhaps Mr. Dombey was rather disappointed with his wife as it was deemed by the in-laws her duty to survive and rear the son; when Mrs. Dombey fails in her responsibilities and dies, Mr. Dombey was given permission by his sister to forgive Fanny her inefficiency: "Well! said Mrs. Chick, with a sweet smile, 'After this, I forgive Fanny everything' which was said of course with a Christian spirit". She is able to forgive her as she wasn't a Dombey and is therefore excused from her inefficiency in this case. Her marriage to Mr. Dombey was in only the "nature of things" and she had entered an artificial social contract called marriage and her death ends a chapter in Mr. Dombey's life. It is fitting that Mrs. Dombey should die: her contribution and offering has been given and it must be remembered that she is not a Dombey after all.
The sea imagery is also introduced in this chapter through Mrs. Dombey's death and realises the complex symbolism found in the sea; it had been created to float the ships of the firm of Dombey and Son with the ships referring to the individuals involved in the counting house, but it also begins the idea of water being a rebirthing process as found in baptism. Chapter one is concluded by Fanny's death which ends the first chapter on a note as concrete as a business transaction and allowing Mr. Dombey to begin another with Pau : "Thus clinging fast to that slight spar within her arms, the mother drifted out upon the dark and unknown sea that rolls around the World." (Chpt. 1). It is tragically ironic, however, that Dickens should named the ill-fated Mrs. Dombey after his older sister ; Dickens was quite fond and attached to her and she would die of consumption at the age of thirty-eight towards the novel's completion and her son was the model for Paul Dombey. Dickens says poignantly in a letter to his lifetime friend Thomas Beard dated 6 September 1848, 'Poor Fanny is to be buried on Friday. I begin to think like the monk who spoke to Wilkie (Collins) that we are the shadows and the pictures the more robust realities.
