A Pause to the Roar: Silence in Dickens’s Little Dorrit

Abstract:This essay takes Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit (1855–57) as a test case for examining the place and purpose of silence in the Victorian city. In the London traversed by Amy Dorrit and Arthur Clennam, silent spaces serve a counterintuitively social function, offering a chance at unmediated connection that technologies such as the telegraph failed to provide. The Iron Bridge in particular fosters the interconnected processes of sonic insulation and social connection at play. Dickens’s use of silence for social connection posits the moderation of sound—the carving out of silence—as a way of prioritizing and protecting intimate exchanges. Ultimately, silence becomes a space for the intimate understanding of oneself, others, and the surrounding world.