Charles Dickens's 'Dombey and Son' Part II

Chapter Five, "Paul's Progress and Christening", continues the imagery begun in Chapter one which places nature in its struggle against what is manufactured. The baptism itself serves as a form of networking for Mr. Dombey with no concern whatsoever for the ceremony itself nor its religious significance and thus provides an opportunity for Dickens to criticise institutional inanity. It is at Paul's christening that the intense jealousy and superiority Mr. Dombey feels towards his on can be seen and continues the tragic father/son relationship established Chapter One. He realises the " indescribable distrust of anybody stepping in" between father and son: all commercial competition is to be reckoned with immediately. At the church we meet the theme of beadle's uselessness which runs through most of Dickens's novels; Mr. Dombey at the church steps stands next to a "portentous Beadle"; and , we quickly are told that Mr. Dombey standing next to him looks the same but is, in fact, a "Beadle less gorgeous but more dreadful the beadle of private life; the beadle of our business and our bosoms" (chpt.5).

Capitalistic and private greed was on the rise with the flourishing of free-trade and the rise of the railway's popularity; the thought of an official infiltrating both our businesses and our bosoms suggests how strong our need for security, both financially and socially, is in actuality. Dicken's description of the church itself is less than flattering; he again likens it as almost a tomb of sorts; he describes the interior as "damp" and "chilling" with a clerk reading from a death register. The fact that Mr. Dombey buried his wife here is of importance second only to his only concern is that he was recognised by the other institutional pillar: the church beadle; Dombey remembers the beadle "had the pleasure of attending on him when he buried his wife, and hoped that he had enjoyed himself since." (chpt.5). The other couple's wedding was "dismal"; the bride party's guests were shivering with the dampness of the church during the ceremony whilst an underpaid and overworked clerk was searching through the register which was "gorged with burials" of which there were "long similar volumes"; this macabre juxtaposition of the social contract of marriage with one of death and burials accentuates further the outcome of social climbing; the bride in the in the church was "too old" with the bridegroom "too young" suggests only too

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