Gathering and Scattering: Figuring Interest in Martin Chuzzlewit

Abstract

Abstract:Disinterestedness is a mystery in Martin Chuzzlewit. Dickens's novel about selfishness almost completely lacks the means for representing the process by which people may, by reflection, achieve a measure of detachment from a self-interested perspective. Characters such as Pecksniff and Jonas Chuzzlewit, who doggedly pursue their interests without hesitation, are counterbalanced by others—chiefly Tom Pinch—for whom disinterestedness is less an accomplishment than a kind of grace that places them almost completely outside the field of relentless competition that the novel depicts. The former characters aggressively "lean in" to attain their goals; the latter exhibit a similar posture, but they do so in pursuit of solidarity rather than gain. Interestedness so rules the world of Martin Chuzzlewit as to become the fundamental organizing principle of perception and action, with the result that disinterested characters almost cease to be characters at all. Like Tom and the "sketchy gentleman," they hover between being there and not, between one and zero.