Dombey and Son

For Paul Dombey, the birth of a son promises continuity for both his name and the prosperous shipping firm of Dombey and Son. His six-year-old daughter Florence receives almost none of that hope or attention. Charles Dickens builds the novel's family conflict from this unequal affection, setting commercial pride against the forms of care that cannot be entered in an account book.

After Mrs. Dombey dies, Susan Nipper and the nurse Polly Toodle try to protect both children. An outing ends with Florence separated from them. Mrs. Brown takes her clothes and abandons her, but Walter Gay, a young clerk at the Dombey firm, finds Florence and brings her to the nautical-instrument shop run by his uncle Sol Gills. Their meeting begins a connection between the Dombey household and a modest maritime world already threatened by economic change.

Paul Junior remains the center of his father's plans, though the boy is frail, serious, and unusually thoughtful. Time at Brighton and the severe routines of Doctor Blimber's school reveal how little the ambitions placed upon him match his needs. Around the children, Captain Cuttle, Miss Tox, and Major Bagstock widen the social field. Dickens links domestic neglect, education, trade, and status through characters whose emotional value repeatedly exceeds the roles assigned to them.