Charles Dickens's 'Dombey and Son' Part III
As he dies, Paul is surrounded by a shining light echoing the 'golden waters' then the 'old, old fashion-Death!' Paul, like his mother, has been rushed out to the sea of immortality; in life both were within contact, and the grips of Mr. Dombey and his firm. All whom come in contact with it suffers: Dombey's inane greed and thirst for commercial immortality through the unknowing sacrifice of his son and rejection of Florence, poisons those around him; especially those such as Edith and Florence who are capable of loving him.
Paul's death , however, would not have been seen as uncommon as child mortality was extraordinarily high: in the Manchester of 1840, 57 children out of every 100 died before the age of five. The sentimentality and romantic melodrama surrounding Paul's fairly elaborate death may have served as an outlet for a readership well-acquainted with the frailty of life. Science had brought the Victorians face to face with the possibility that there may not be an after life or even a God which allowed for other elaborations surrounding the actuality of death to flourish such as spiritualism including table-turning, hypnotism, and séances all of which had their origins rooted in the nineteenth century and offered an alternative diversion to the pressures associated with material progress; the ceremony surrounding the death of a child could easily become a perfect subject for romantic sentiment.
The Dickensian melodramatic death would later become an easily recognisable symbol of Victorianism: Oscar Wilde would eventually say: "one must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing". In Chapter XLI entitled, "New Voices in the Waves", towards the end of the novel, Dickens again uses nature to illustrate man's struggle against life within its contrived boundaries; the waves are now 'hoarse with repetition'; the repetition suggesting the inanity of life: man is given the choice to search out their own happiness and if that choice is ignored one is destined to meet the eternal sea dissatisfied. Florence not only heard but listened to the waves imitation of time and was able to grasp her future and control it to the degree that humans are capable of. Life's dust has been scattered upon its shore during the course of the novel and this chapter again revisits Dr. Blimber whose clock in the study has continued counting the minutes of time; knowledge and education has
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