But these days, there is no such unifying theme. There are the die-hards still plugging away at something called the "postmodern novel"-the John Barth/Thomas Pynchon-style encyclopedic tome. Then there are writers going back to older forms of the novel and rediscovering and reworking them. There's no end of people writing books, but it would be hard to step back from it all and say, "Ah yes, what a very 21st-century set of novels." Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it does lead to certain conclusions. For instance, it's hard now to say what's "in style" or out of it at any given moment. All genres and techniques are simultaneously in vogue and out when there is no unifying theme. But it is fair to say that the old-fashioned "comic novel," is something you don't see too often. This essay is about the comic novel and why it ought to return.

First of all, it's a vague term that has to be defined. A comic novel isn't necessarily satire, although it can be, just as satire isn't necessarily comic. Probably the oldest form of humor in literature would be satire. Even if you look simply at "the novel," even "the English novel," you still see satire as the first and most dominant form of humor. Mocking human foibles, figures of authority, different political parties, and so forth, has always been a part of human literature, dating back even to one or two papyri in Ancient Egypt! But the modern English comic novel isn't strictly satire, even if it contains elements of it. What's more, there's a third category of books which contain comic situations and characters but which aren't meant primarily to be works of humor. So when I say "the comic novel," what I really mean is "a novel which makes us laugh." That's a fairly ambitious subject, so let me say at once that I won't be covering all of them, and that I'll mostly be focusing on the British comic novel.

One of the earliest forms of the English comic novel, and of "the novel" itself, in fact, is the picaresque novel. Imported from Spain, this genre originated in such works as The Swindler and the more obscure Lazarillo de Tormes. The picaresque novel follows a single character, usually of lower-class origin, across and throughout the whole spectrum of society. For obvious reasons, the genre lent itself to both satire and serious social criticism-first because of the role of the protagonist as nomad and outsider, and second because of its ability to paint a panoramic portrait of every level of society. The genre influenced Daniel Defoe in Moll Flanders, as well as later novelists such as Henry Fielding and Tobias Smollett.

Another major influence would be the lost city/utopian satire. In this mode of writing, the author would subtly critique his or her own society by depicting a superior and more just imaginary realm: a trick which allowed the author to pretend that he or she was writing a simple and straightforward fantasy. This dates back, of course, to Sir Thomas More's Utopia, which is an excellent example of a book which is satirical without being particularly comic.

The potential for humor in the lost city genre was realized by Swift in Gulliver's Travels, to be sure. But after that, the utopian satire, and its modern offspring, the dystopian satire (what does that tell you about the state of optimism in today's world?), became tools of serious critical comment, not of comic fiction. It would be hard to argue, for instance, that William Morris' News from Nowhere and Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward are comic novels. So I would say that the most important early influence on English comic fiction was the picaresque novel. In the eighteenth century, the examples abound. I already mentioned Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding, both of whom wrote bawdy, satirical novels which followed single protagonists through adventures and misadventures in every level of English life. Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy is a little harder to classify. It's certainly a comic novel with picaresque elements, but in many ways it's a unique event in literary history. Some have even said it's a sort of eighteenth-century post-modern novel-way ahead of its time, in other words. But leaving it and some other strange works aside, the picaresque comic satire was probably the most popular eighteenth century novel form, at least in England. There were other forms, to be sure. The chief non-comic novelist of the age, Samuel Richardson, was busy writing unspeakably long epistolary novels like Clarissa. There was also the phenomenon of the "sentimental novel." But these have not worn half as well with the passage of time as, say, Fielding's books. Novels which make people laugh have a huge amount of staying power.

For more evidence, just look at the first part of the 19th century, which had two major novelists-Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott. One of the two makes people laugh, and the other does not. And one is still read quite a bit, and the other is not. I'll leave you to guess how it all lines up.

Not that I'm particularly fond of Jane Austen: I certainly don't worship at her alter the way so many people do these days. But she has stayed remarkably readable and funny while Sir Walter Scott has withered on the vine. If it weren't for Ivanhoe, the progenitor of the historical novel probably wouldn't be remembered at all.

It can't be denied than Jane Austen was a clever and funny writer. But I have a strange reaction to her work. I can laugh along as I'm reading it, I can even enjoy myself, but by the time I set down the book, it has left me strangely hollow. Mostly, the problem is that Jane Austen's universe is not our universe. And I don't just mean that she lived and wrote in a different era-even in her own time she was writing about an England which didn't exist. Her people are entirely cut off from the day-to-day struggle for existence. Of course, the typical interpretation of Austen is that she was courageously satirizing the world of the posh and idle upper classes. But I would actually argue that the appeal of Austen, for most of her devotees, is the appeal of fantasy. People don't read her for the satire: they seem to love the idea of living in her unique mythic realm. The same can be said of P.G. Wodehouse, generally taken to be the greatest British comic novelist of the 20th century. But we'll get to him later.

Austen's century wasn't the best time for the "comic novel," although the broader category of "books that make us laugh," was still active. There were several uniquely 19th-century satires, long and plotted as they are. I'm thinking here of Trollope's The Way We Live Now and some of Thackeray's satires. There was also Samuel Butler, although his Erewhon is more satire than comedy and his longer and more famous novel, The Way of All Flesh, was too controversial to see the light of day during the author's lifetime. None of these follow the modern "comic novel" formula, with jokes on every page. Satire is a very different thing, and while the best comic novels are satirical, the best satires aren't always comic.

But what about Dickens? Surely he added something to the comic novel tradition. Well, to be sure, The Pickwick Papers and a few others would fall squarely into that category. And some of his books, like Nicholas Nickleby, follow fairly closely the old Smollett/Fielding picaresque formula (both authors influenced the young Dickens). But his best works, such as Great Expectations and David Copperfield, could hardly be called comic novels, even if they include the usual Dickens array of outrageous comic characters, as well as the deliciously ironic narration which both Pip and David share.

No, I would say that the comic novel as we know it-short, sweet, with what can be clearly identified as jokes-is a 20th-century invention. And if we're going to talk about modern comedy, there are three all-important names: Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, and P.G. Wodehouse.

Everyone remembers Huxley for the dystopian Brave New World, which has given him a reputation as a writer of fantasies and science fiction. But the books which first established him as a writer were quite realistic-most of them full of intellectual discussion and argument. Point Counter Point would be the perfect example. But his earlier novels, Crome Yellow and Antic Hay, were also written in this vein. Crome Yellow, in typical Huxley fashion, has very little discernible plot. A young poet named Denis Stone arrives at Crome, a fashionable country manor. It's not clear exactly why he's staying there or what his relationship is to the house's other inhabitants. That's not really the point. The novel follows the exploits, seemingly at random, of the ridiculous visitors at Crome. I would say an actual majority of the book is spent following the useless digressions of one Henry Wimbush, who's writing (and sharing with us) a history of Crome, and one Mr. Scogan-a sort of semi-fascist intent on reducing humanity to three categories: leaders, mystics, and a vast mindless herd made up of the rest of us. Nothing happens in the story, apart from Denis' unsuccessful efforts to seduce Anne and the attempts of Mary Wimbush to relieve herself of various "repressions." But that's just the glory of the book. If I had to choose my all-time favorite comic novel, Crome Yellow would definitely be in the running. It doesn't pretend to tell a story, which gives the satire free-reign. Huxley pokes fun at everything and everyone, and it's hard to go on for more than a few pages without setting down the book to laugh. And because it has no plot, per se, it remains consistently funny all the way through. It doesn't fall victim to the typical fate of comic novels, most of which cease to be funny with any consistency long before the end.

Waugh is another writer who, I think, is remembered for the wrong book. Most people hear the name Waugh and immediately think of Brideshead Revisited, but in truth, Waugh was never satisfied with this book. In it, his reactionary views are untempered by satire and humor. Waugh was a terrible snob, as well as a racist, quite genuinely convinced of the natural superiority of the upper classes. But despite this, or even because of it, his cruel, despairing comedies are some of the best there is. Waugh ought to be remembered as a brilliant comic novelist, not as Mr. Brideshead Revisited. His Decline and Fall, for instance, is another one of my favorites. Vile Bodies, Scoop, The Loved One, and so forth, are also well-respected comic novels. If you come to Waugh's books prepared to hate him for his political views, as I did, then go ahead and read Decline and Fall. I suspect that by the end of it, you will have become convinced of his genius as a writer of comedy, even if you continue to disagree with his opinions.

And what about Wodehouse? We have to talk about him. After all, the term "comic novelist" isn't even associated with Waugh and Huxley in the minds of many readers. But Wodehouse-he certainly bears that title. To be sure, he's a very clever and funny writer. But, like Austen, the typical interpretation of his work is all wrong. Wodehouse was, it is true, born in England. But he spent much of his life in America. The view of him as the quintessential Englishman is incorrect. I think what his work really represents is the American impression of England-totally wrong now and mostly wrong at the time he was writing. Wodehouse, like Austen, was working in a fantasy realm populated by a make-believe upper class. Americans tend to think he was being courageous-satirizing the powerful coterie of rich snobs in his country of origin. But what he was really doing was evoking a dead and gone world. What's more, readers enjoy him because they like to step into that world, not because they want to see it criticized.

So Wodehouse wouldn't be my favorite, although he's good, to be sure. His satire isn't fierce enough, his universe isn't real enough, to move me particularly. I think satire is best (and, as I've said, the best comic novels are satirical) when it echoes our own world most accurately. We love to see our own lives in the distorted mirror of satire: to say, "My God-that is so true! That is how it is!" That's why another one of my all-time favorite satires is Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt. Of course, I'm steeping out of the British focus of this essay a bit, but I have to pay tribute to Lewis. Babbitt, although published in 1922, says more about our society today than any other book I've come across. As a satire, it speaks to me more than Wodehouse because I can see so much of our lives today in its pages.

But since this is a look at the British comic novel, I have to move now to Kingsley Amis, and, in particular, to his first novel Lucky Jim: another favorite of mine. Amis was very much immersed in the British comic tradition. He once declared that Fielding was the only old author worth reading. Of modern writers, he was fond of Wodehouse. But Amis doesn't exactly fit into this tradition: his Lucky Jim is a thing apart, and I now think, if it came down to it, it would edge out Crome Yellow for the position of my favorite comic novel. Mostly, Lucky Jim works because of the strength of its main character, Jim Dixon. Most of the humor derives from his reactions and personality, which are always both unapologetic and unforgiving: an interesting combination.

Of course, there have been comic novels and novelists since Amis. But it does alarm me that the comic novel, at least not in the tradition I've been talking about, seems to be dying out. And yet, we are living in a very funny age! The Unite States today is bursting with quack doctors, sham spiritualists, televangelists, Pat Buchanans, and the like. There's an unjust war on. There's sham patriotism galore, a president who lies, cheats, and steals, hypocrisy in every corner, great wealth alongside dire poverty-of course, none of this is funny when we have to live with it. But you have to admit, it's a situation which is crying out to be ridiculed. Satire is more necessary now than ever because it can be the best antidote to corrupt power. No one, as far as I know, has written a great satire about what has been happening to America since 9/11. I think this fact is a dangerous sign that the novel is becoming irrelevant. And once it's irrelevant, it's only a matter of time before it goes the way of, say, fertility symbols, cave paintings, rock sculptures, and other now-defunct art forms.

When he comes back home, he comes to know that his sister has been looking for him. She beats him with a tickler, a cane she uses to beat Pip.

After berating Pip, Mrs. Joe gives Pip his bread and butter, which he decides to hide. Pip is accused of "bolting" his food, and Mrs. Joe gives him tar water as a punishment. Pip is told that a convict escaped from prison.

That night, Pip sneaks downstairs and steals some food and brandy. He sneaks out of the house to meet the man in the graveyard.

Pip meets the man and tells him he saw a younger man on the road dressed in the same manner. He had a badly bruised face. The man asked Pip where he can find the younger man. Pip points in the direction of the younger man.

Pip returns home for Christmas dinner. A guest is served from the brandy jug. It is revealed that instead of water, Pip filled the jug with tar water.

Mrs. Joe discovers her pie has been stolen, and Pip runs from the house. He is stopped at the door by a soldier.

The soldiers enter the house and ask for the blacksmith. Joe tells them it will take 2 hours to fix their handcuffs.

Pip goes with Joe to return the handcuffs. The man Pip helped earlier is caught with the younger man Pip saw. The younger man says Pip's convict tried to kill him. Pip's convict denies the charges, but says he stole food from Pip's house.

The convict goes back to the prison ship. Pip returns home and falls asleep. Pip learns to read at the village school, but knows he will be soon apprenticed to Joe when he comes of age. Pip is told that Miss Havisham wants him to visit him.

Pip arrives at Miss Havisham's house, which looks as if it has been abandoned.

Pip enters Miss Havisham's room. She is dressed in an old wedding dress. She says her heart is broken, and all she wants is to see him play.

Miss Havisham calls Estella, a young and rude girl, to play cards with Pip. Pip notices that the room looks like it had been abandoned by a bride years ago.

Pip is told to return in 6 days.

Mrs. Joe is eager to learn what Pip did at Miss Havisham's house. She knocks him around when he does not answer her questions to her liking. He makes up a story when he realizes no one has ever seen Miss Havisham. After some time Pip tells Joe about his visit.

Pip collects Joe from the local bar, where Joe is talking to a strange man who studies Pip.

Pip notices the man stirring his drink with Joe's file. The man gives Pip a shilling. When he gets home, he finds two pound notes wrapped around the shilling.

He is afraid the man will kill him.

Pip returns to Miss Havisham's. He notices all the clocks in the house have been stopped at 8:40.

Estella tries to make Pip cry, but he tells her he will never cry for her.

Instead of playing, Pip is made to wait in a room that had once been prepared for a wedding, but was also abandoned. Miss Havisham tells Pip this is where she will be viewed when she dies.

Pip fights with a young man in the courtyard as Estella watches. She then allows Pip to kiss her on the cheek.

Pip fear he will get in trouble for the fight, but nothing happens to him.

He continues his strange visits with Miss Havisham and Estella. Miss Havisham suggests Joe apprentice Pip at her house.

Joe meets Miss Havisham, who gives him money for Pip. She releases Pip to Joe. Pip is bound as Joe's apprentice in the town hall that day.

Pip is unhappy as an apprentice and misses his time at Miss Havisham's. He is ashamed and worries he is unworthy of Estella.

Pip asks Joe to allow him time off on his birthday to visit Miss Havisham. At his visit, he learns Estella is studying abroad.

On his way home, he learns some fugitives have escaped prison again. When he returns home, he sees his sister has been hit in the head and is lying on the floor.

Pip learns nothing was stolen from the house during his sister's attack. A convict's leg-iron is found next to her body. Pip believes the leg-iron belongs to his convict.

Mrs. Joe's temper is greatly improved after the attack. However, she cannot talk and requires help around the house. Biddy comes to help.

Pip visits Miss Havisham on his next birthday, but Estella is still abroad.

Pip takes Biddy for a walk. He tells her he wants to be a gentleman, not a blacksmith. Biddy tells him that Orlick, Joe's assistant, has a crush on her, and it makes her uncomfortable. He tells Biddy about Estella, and she is clearly disappointed. Pip wished he could love Biddy, but he loves Estel.

Pip is at a pub when a strange man makes a speech about how men should be considered innocent until they are proven guilty. He asks Joe and Pip to go with him to his house for a private conversation.

The man's name is Jaggers, and he is a lawyer acting as a confidential agent of a client. Pip has a benefactor who wants Pip to be released of his apprenticeship and raised as a gentleman.

Pip believes Miss Havisham is his benefactor.

Pip prepares to leave home and is surprised when the people in town treat him differently because he has money.

He visits Miss Havisham before he leaves the next day.

Pip arrives in London 5 hours later and waits for Mr. Jaggers. Pip is overwhelmed by everything he sees in the city.

Pip is delivered to Mr. Pocket's, his new instructor and Miss Havisham's cousin. Mr. Pocket's son Herbert greets Pip, and Pip realizes Herbert is the young man he fought with years ago at Miss Havisham's.

Pip and the young man, Herbert Pocket, laugh off the coincidence and decide to be friends. Herbert tells Pip that Estella was adopted by Miss Havisham and was raised by her with the intention of getting revenge on men.

Herbert tells Pip about Miss Havisham's past, including her engagement to a man who took advantage of her wealth. He sent her a letter as she was dressing for their wedding, saying he would not marry her. She stopped all the clocks at her home and has not left the grounds since.

Pip meets Mr. Pocket, who is a well-respected man and will be Pip's instructor. Mrs. Pocket is a ridiculous woman who only cares about her royal connections.

Pip gets money from Mr. Jaggers to buy furniture for his rooms in London. He will divide his time between the city and Mr. Pocket's school in the country.

Pip has dinner with Wemmick, a man who works for Mr. Jaggers. Pip becomes very comfortable with his new life of privilege.

Pip and a few friends have dinner with Mr. Jaggers, who is solely interested in talking with Drummle. Drummle is one of the students at Mr. Pocket's school, but he is not well-liked by the other students.

After dinner, Mr. Jaggers tells Pip to steer clear of Drummle because he is trouble.

Pip receives a letter from Biddy telling him Joe will be in London and would like to visit.

Joe tells Pip he spoke to Miss Havisham. She asks Joe to tell Pip that Estella wishes to see him. Joe also tells Pip that Pip is now above Joe, and he really should not visit Pip in London again. Pip is hurt. Joe asks Pip if he would dine with him at his home, at his level.

Pip travels home the next day to see Estella. Two convicts are being transported on Pip's stage coach, and one of the men is a convict Pip met years ago. He is very uncomfortable, but the convict does not appear to recognize Pip.

Pip visits Miss Havisham and meets Estella again. Pip walks with Estella and she tells him she has no heart or capacity to love anyone because of the way she was raised.

Miss Havisham encourages Pip to love Estella.

While he is home, Pip does not visit Joe because he knows that Estella would not approve. This makes pip sad.

Pip returns to London and tells Herbert he loves Estella. He warns Pip that a relationship with Estella would be miserable because of the way she was raised. He reminds Pip that opposites tend not to make a happy marriage.

Pip and Herbert attend a play, but all Pip can think about is Estella.

Estella sends a note to Pip telling him she will be arriving in London in two days. Pip plans to meet her.

Pip meets Wemmick and walks with him to New gate prison, where Wemmick is meeting a client.

Pip meets Estella's coach.

Estella tells Pip she is going to Richmond to live with a widow and make connections. She tells Pip that the Pockets write letters to Miss Havisham telling her how much they hate Pip. She says they resent his relationship with Miss Havisham. This surprises Pip.

Pip escorts Estella to Richmond.

Pip continues to be distracted by thoughts of Estella.

Pip and Herbert join a social club called the Finches of the Grove to improve their social standing in London.

He continues to spend lavishly and accrues more debt. Herbert is spending too much money as well and is now in a bad financial situation.

Pip receives a letter informing him that Mrs. Joe has died.

Pip returns home for the funeral. After the services, Pip talks to Biddy, who is somewhat hostile towards Pip. She is angry because Pip never visited after becoming a gentleman. Pip promises to visit Joe regularly, but Biddy doubts him. Pip is hurt and feels guilty

Pip meets with Mr. Jaggers on his 21st birthday. He confronts Pip about his debts. Mr. Jaggers tells him that he will be given 500 pounds per year until further notice.

Pip tries to get information about his benefactor from Mr. Jaggers, but he cannot give Pip that information he wants.

Pip visits Wemmick at home and talks to him about Herbert. Pip wants to help establish Herbert in business anonymously.

Wemmick pledges his help. He introduces Pip to a young merchant who agrees to do business with Herbert.

Herbert does not know Pip secured this connection for him and is delighted to start his new life.

Pip continues to visit Estella, who torments him every time he visits. He is jealous of the suitors Estella flaunts before him. He recognizes that he has never been happy in her presence, but knows he is miserable and consumed without her.

Estella warns Pip to be careful around her because she cannot love him. Miss Havisham continues to push Pip and Estella together.

Pip realizes Estella will be used by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on men, including him.

Miss Havisham calls Estella cold, and Estella states that she is cold because of the way she was raised. Estella is not capable of love.

Pip realizes Drummle, a fellow Finch, is also involved with Estella. Estella tells Pip she manipulates many men, but she never manipulates Pip.

A stranger visits Pip one night and enters his room. Pip realizes the stranger is the convict.

The stranger tells Pip that he changed his life. He reveals to Pip that he is his benefactor. Pip is shocked and concerned that he will be found with the convict.

Pip is upset to realize that Estella was never intended to be his and Miss Havisham is not his benefactor.

Pip questions the watchman, who says Pip's "uncle" and another man were there last night.

The stranger's name is Provis, but he tells Pip to call him uncle. Provis tells Pip he first met Mr. Jaggers when Jaggers was his lawyer. Provis gives Pip more money to spend and tells Pip he intends to stay.

If Provis is found, he could be hanged. Pip finds a lodging house for Provis and new clothes to change his appearance.

Herbert returns and finds Pip with Provis.

Herbert learns about Provis. After Provis leaves, Pip and Herbert discuss what should be done. Pip says he cannot accept any more money from Provis and break off the relationship, but Herbert convinces him this could be a deadly mistake.

The two men devise a plan to get Provis out of England.

The next day, Pip asks to hear Provis' story.

Provis tells them he has been in and out of jail his entire life. His real name is Abel Magwitch.

He tells them of his criminal partnership with Compeyson. Eventually both men are on the prison ship, and Provis vows to kill Compeyson. Herbert tells Pip that Compeyson was the man who left Miss Havisham at the altar.

Pip worries about what would happen if Compeyson learns Provis is alive and in London.

Pip visits Miss Havisham and sees Drummle in the village. Drummle has been spending more time with Estella.

Pip confronts Miss Havisham for misleading him when he thought she was his benefactor. He tells her that she is being unfair to the Pockets, and also asks her to help Herbert in business because he no longer has the money to help.

Pip tells Estella that he loves her but knows that she will never be his. She repeats that she is not capable of love, but is marrying Drummle. He begs her to reconsider.

When Pip returns to London, a messenger hands him a note from Wemmick telling him not to go home.

Pip finds a room at an inn, and he wonders what the note means all night.

The next morning, Pip visits Wemmick. He informs Pip that he and Provis are being watched. Pip asks if Compeyson is in London, and Wemmick tells Pip he is. Herbert is hiding Provis at his girlfriend's house until things die down and they can sneak Provis out of the country.

Pip meets Clara, Herbert's girlfriend, when he visits Provis. He tells Provis that Wemmick recommends he leave the country. Herbert offers to help.

Several weeks pass and Pip is running out of money because he will not take any more money from Provis. He realizes Estella is probably married to Drummle now.

Pip goes to dinner and learns that Compeyson followed him from an old friend. Pip is alarmed and worries about his own safety.

Pip has dinner with Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick. They inform Pip that Miss Havisham has requested to see him again to discuss Herbert. Pip decides to visit her tomorrow.

Pip notices that Mr. Jaggers housekeeper looks like Estella. He learns that the housekeeper did have a daughter years ago that she gave up. He also learns that Mr. Jaggers successfully defended her in a murder trial.

Miss Havisham promises to help Herbert confidentially. She asks Pip if he is unhappy, and offers to help him. Pip tells Miss Havisham that he forgives her, and she becomes very distraught and emotional about what she has done. Pip learns Mr. Jaggers brought Estella to Miss Havisham when she was a toddler, but Miss Havisham knows nothing about the first few years of Estella's life.

Pip goes for a short walk, and when he returns, Miss Havisham's room is on fire. She set her wedding dress on fire and could not control the flames. She is badly burned, but Pip manages to save her.

Pip's hands are burned as a result of saving Miss Havisham, but his hands will heal. Pip returns to London.

Herbert tells Pip that Provis had a relationship and a daughter with a woman Mr. Jaggers defended for murder. Pip realizes that Provis is Estella's father.

Pip confronts Mr. Jaggers with Estella's parentage, but Mr. Jaggers is unflappable. He says he protected Estella by removing her from a violent mother, and as a result, she has had a life of privilege. He tells Pip no one will benefit from learning his secret.

Several weeks later, Pip receives a message from Wemmick, instructing him to help Provis escape soon.

Pip plans to go with Provis to ensure everything goes smoothly. He plans to escape to Hamburg.

Pip finds a note instructing him to come alone to a sluice-house to learn more about Provis.

Pip goes to the sluice-house and is restrained by a man. His neck is put in a noose and his arms are tied behind his back. The man tells him if he screams for help, he will be killed.

The man who restrained Pip is Orlick, who is angry because he believes that Pip came between him and Biddy. Orlick plans to kill Pip and confesses to attacking Mrs. Joe years ago.

Pip is saved by Herbert and some men from the village. They return to London so that they can smuggle Provis to Hamburg.

Pip and Herbert meet Provis and begin rowing up the river. They stop at a customs house to rest. While they are eating breakfast, they learn a four-oared galley has been patrolling the area, arousing concern.

They start off for the steamer to Hamburg again. Just as Pip and Provis prepare to get on the steamer, the galley pulls up alongside, Compeyson is on board. Pip and Herbert are taken on board the galley. Compeyson and Provis are missing. Provis is found and shackled aboard. Compeyson is presumed dead.

Before he is returned to prison, Provis tells Pip he should not visit him unless he is with Wemmick.

Mr. Jaggers tells Pip that Provis will be found guilty and sentenced. He also tells Pip that Provis' money will be seized by the government, cutting Pip off financially.

Herbert tells Pip he will be traveling to Cairo for business. He offers Pip a job as a clerk in his business. Pip asks for time to consider this option.

Wemmick asks Pip to take a walk with him the following morning. They walk to a church where Wemmick marries his girlfriend.

Magwitch is ill while waiting for his trial, and he is moved to the infirmary. At the trial, Magwitch is found guilty and sentenced to death.

Then he is executed

As Magwitch is dying, Pip tells Magwitch his daughter, Estella, survived.

The police come for Pip with the intention of arresting him because of his debts. Pip passes out, and when he wakes up, Joe is by his side.

Pip asks Joe to write a note to Biddy for him, expressing his love. Joe tells Pip that Miss Havisham has died.

Pip grows stronger under Joe's care. One morning, Pip wakes up and Joe is gone. He left a note and a receipt showing that he paid off Pip's debts.

Pip plans to return to the village so that he can propose to Biddy.

Pip returns to the village and finds Miss Havisham's house is for sale. Pip learns that Biddy has married Joe.

Pip sells his belongings and joins Herbert's business in Cairo. He eventually becomes a partner.

Eleven years later. Pip returns to the village to visit Joe and Biddy. They have a son named Pip.

Biddy asks if Pip has forgotten Estella. He says he has moved on. He learned Estella was miserable and left Drummle. He later died in an accident by his ill treatment of a horse, and Estella remarried.

Miss Havisham's house has been torn down, but the old garden remains. He finds Estella there. Estella looks sad and she confesses that she regrets that she had refused Pip's love. They, ultimately, go their ways as friends.

This dissertation will examine literature and how novelists in their writing, have been influenced by their social environment from the early nineteenth until the late twentieth centuries with regard to the representation of people with disabilities. It will demonstrate that the writing of Thomas Robert Malthus have been reflected in the work of prominent novelists such as Charles Dickens and Aldous Huxley. The influence of Charles Darwin and Sir Francis Galton on later writers, Aldous Huxley and Angela Carter for example, will be discussed.

Colin Barnes informs us, "twelve percent of Britain"s population are disabled people….Disablism in the media is no longer simply morally and socially reprehensible it is economically inept.' (Barnes, 1992, 39). Since such a large percentage of our population has impairments, Barnes is stating that they have the potential to become a powerful lobby, politically and economically. However, as Barnes says, "Disabling stereotypes which medicalise, patronise, criminalise and dehumanise disabled people abound in books." (Barnes, 1992, 38). According to Dr David Bolt in a paper delivered at Keele University "Literature informs and is informed by society" (Bolt, 2004:1).

Of particular importance are the eugenics movement and the Nazi "euthanasia" murders of thousands of disabled people. Both affected their social environments and the Nazi murders effected a radical change in the view of eugenical ideals. The role of Tiny Tim and Ebenezer Scrooge will be examined as symbols of the social ills of Dickens' time and his attack on proposals by the social economist, Thomas Malthus.

The birth of eugenics will be discussed and the interest shown by writers of the day; H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Benjamin Kidd for example. The popularity of eugenics and its political ramifications will be explored as the attitudes of modernist writers are demonstrated in the various extracts from diaries and letters written by Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World will be examined next with regard to the influences of Malthus and Galton. The Nazis' keen interest in the theory of eugenics as practiced in the USA and other European countries culminating in Hitler's attempt to establish a "master-race" is to be examined. The Holocaust's beginnings with the so-called "euthanasia" killings of thousands of mentally and physically disabled people are especially important as it marks a turning point in global attitudes towards eugenical ideals.

Angela Carter's post modern novel The Passion Of New Eve will be the final novel to be studied since it also warns of the dangers of genetic manipulation. It also contains satirical overtones and it would appear, at first glance, that Carter has been particularly harsh in her portrayal of the disabled character, Zero. I will demonstrate that Carter uses Zero in juxtaposition to Eve to design the story to be read at different levels.

In other words the representation of the characters as metaphors or symbols can be interpreted in more than one way.

I believe this discussion of disabled people's representation in literature is important because, although many novels have been re-read to critique their sexist or racist aspects, comparatively little research has been carried out by disablist critics.

It is difficult to interpret every writer's portrayal of a disabled character. This dissertation will demonstrate there is the possibility that some writers use the disability of their characters as a criticism of society's attitudes towards disabled people.

Discrimination against disabled people takes many forms and is not always easy to detect but may be comparable to racism. In "A Thousand Plateaus" we read,

From the viewpoint of racism there is no exterior, there are no people on the outside. There are only people who should be like us and whose only crime it is not to be' (DeLeuze and Guattari, 2003: 178)

This interpretation of racism could be applied to "disablism" a term explained by Colin Barnes, "”Disablism” ... refers to prejudice, stereotyping or “institutional discrimination” against disabled people."(Barnes, 1992, 42). People with disabilities are the "people who should be like us" as DeLeuze and Guattari comment and as they also assert, "Racism operates by the determination of degrees of deviance in relation to the White-Man face." (DeLeuze and Guattari, 2003: 178). In other words, the "White-Man" face is perceived to be the norm and people from other ethnic groups are discriminated against according to the extent to which they differ from the norm.

Disablism operates in a similar way to racism as perceived by DeLeuze and Guattari. That is to say, a non-disabled person is the "White-Man face" or the norm and the severity of a person's disability decides how far from the norm that person is and the extent of discrimination against that person.

Chapter One: Malthus and Dickens

This chapter will begin by examining one of Malthus's proposals in his essay "The Principle Of Population" (1803) which will be studied in relation to Charles Dickens's work A Christmas Carol. The proposal in question is the attitude of Malthus towards "surplus population". The way in which Dickens expresses his disapproval of Malthus' idea is to be explored. There will also be an examination, in some of his other novels, of how Dickens uses disabled characters to symbolise opposing concepts.

Thomas Robert Malthus, an economist, published, in 1798, "Essay on Population" in which he posited, "that the power of population to grow was "indefinitely greater' than the power of the earth to produce subsistence' (Winch 1987, 19). In 1803 Malthus published another essay and as Glancy states,

In his "Essay on the Principle of Population" (1803), Malthus had argued that anyone who could not be supported by his parents and could not provide labor that society requires “has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where he is.” (Glancy 1999, 60)

A Christmas Carol is used by Dickens to challenge this theory. When Scrooge is asked for a contribution to help poor people who preferred death to a workhouse existence, Dickens writes, "”If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it and decrease the surplus population.”"(CC, 13) So one method of population control has already been suggested by Thomas Malthus in 1803 and "Dickens was responding to the political economists of the time whose systems were partially based on the writings of Thomas Malthus." (Glancy 1999, 60). Dickens' response was to portray anybody who agreed with Malthus' idea as a miserly and miserable old man.

Charles Dickens tends to use disabled people in his novels as symbols of criminality and evil or, at the other extreme, as objects of pity. In Bleak House (1852-53) for example, a disabled but parasitic character "the subhuman Smallweed who fastens on his victims like some noxious insect"(Crompton 1958, 295). Set up in opposition to Smallweed is the sympathetic character of Phil Squod whose "Vulcanic deformity results from a warping occupational environment" (Arac 1977, 67).

Dickens had an obsession with deformities and Carey tells us,

When traveling in Switzerland he noticed that the women who sat by the roadside suckling their children had "such enormous goitres (or glandular swellings in the throat) that it became a science to know where the nurse ended and the child began." Dickens' obsession with deformity combines here with his habit of separating the body into inanimate bits. The two are closely related. Tiny Tim's crutch is a variant of the wooden leg fixation. (Carey 1973: 97)

Dickens writes many of his novels as social commentary and is demonstrating through particular characters his disapproval of the lack of political will to help those most in need. A Christmas Carol however is interesting because it is a ghost story as well as a criticism of the social ills of the time. As Lyn Pykett remarks, "A Christmas Carol is used to solicit the readers" sympathy for the causes (and Cause) of "Ignorance and Want" and the unreformed.' (Pykett 2002, 92).

Dickens makes effective use of Scrooge "to expose the horror of Utilitarian thought, laissez-faire economics and Malthusian population theory" (Pykett 2002, 92). Wilson states that crime, misery, inequality and violence came from lack of education and "by incorporating it into Scrooge"s terrible vision of the two children, Ignorance and Want, he involves it with his deepest personal apprehensions.' (Wilson 1972, 182)

At the Cratchit's house, Scrooge asks the Ghost of Christmas Present whether Tiny Tim would live. The spirit replies by reminding Scrooge of his statement concerning the decreasing of "surplus population". Again we are shown clear proof that Dickens believes some elements of society consider a disabled child to have no right to live.

This is commented on by Holmes,

A Christmas Carol exemplifies Dickens's vigorous opposition to those Victorian social reformers and businessmen who believed, like Scrooge, that charity

encouraged idleness and that the poor should be left to die and "decrease the surplus population" (Holmes 1999, 1)

In the novels which represent many of the harsh realities and social injustices of Victorian London, Dickens tends to use characters with disabilities as symbols of evil or pathos. This, it could be argued, was untrue of tales such as A Christmas Carol. However, "In A Christmas Carol ... Dickens adapts fairy-tale effects and fairy-tale techniques with marvelous skill" (Stone 1979, 120) and in doing so we are

immediately given the impression that all of the characters, not just the spirits, in A Christmas Carol are unreal. At the same time, they do represent the attitudes of their time. Christmas evoked a more spiritual feeling and was not regarded as an excuse for the kind of commercialization we witness of late. Waters remarks,

The presence of the crippled Tiny Tim adds an element of sentimentality to the description which helps to evoke the shared emotional response in the audience that would unite them in a community of feeling. The depiction of Tiny Tim elicits the empathy amongst his readers that Dickens saw as essential to the Christmas spirit. (Waters 1997, 76)

Dickens writes, "Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch and had his limbs supported by an iron frame" (CC, 61)

Pope-Hennessey tells us of, "The Christmas scene at the Cratchits", the good cheer, the affectionate family atmosphere and above all the courage of Tiny Tim, the cripple' (Pope-Hennessey 1968, 197)

The pitiable Tiny Tim and Ebenezer Scrooge who was "hard and sharp as flint" (CC, 6) portray two extremes of human nature. As Irving remarks, "Also common is Dickens"s penchant for the juxtaposition of extremes. (In his own words: “It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things) "(Irving 1995, xiv)

Scrooge"s physical appearance is also abnormal as Dickens states "The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek ... made his eyes red, his thin lips blue;" (CC, 6). In Carey we are told, "Dickens" obsession with deformity combines here with his habit of separating the body into inanimate bits ... Tiny Tim's crutch is a variant of the wooden leg fixation.' (Carey 1973, 97). The ghost of Christmas past is similarly depicted as having a disjointed appearance, "it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him" (CC, 49).

In his novels, Charles Dickens reflects the attitudes of his day towards women, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities. Campbell remarks of the patriarchal view in Dombey and Son (1846),

Dickens intends Dombey time to be at once a parody and a perversion of what can be called patriarchal time, the temporality sanctioned by both Victorian capitalism and nineteenth century British Christianity, which advocated obedience to the Victorian paterfamilias as the earthly, temporal representative of a heavenly father. (Campbell 2003, 89)

In Oliver Twist (1837), the Jew is represented as evil in the form of Fagin and mirrors a strong anti-Semitic feeling in Britain. During a meeting with the criminal Sikes, Dickens writes, "These words, in plain English, conveyed an injunction to ring the bell. It was answered by another Jew, younger than Fagin, but nearly as vile and repulsive in appearance." (Dickens 1837, 153). In Barnaby Rudge (1841), Collins writes "Barnaby is twenty three years old ... he is an idiot with the mind of a child ... his father is an absconded criminal, who is responsible for Barnaby"s idiocy' (Collins 1965, 194).

This chapter has examined how Dickens's and his contemporary writers' use disabled people to represent the sinister or pitiful, indicating that society already had very fixed ideas about disabled people. Their status as "surplus population" is expressed by Malthus in his "Essay On The Principles Of Population" and I have discussed the way that Dickens attacks this proposal in A Christmas Carol. Dickens' obsession with deformities has also been examined and how Dickens fragments some of his characters into inanimate parts.

Novelists, biographers and Historians share the same related skills of imagination and empathy, They also need, if they are to write successfully, the skills of communication and the need to consider the audience for whom they are writing. A tedious, factual account, with lengthy quotations from the sources he uses may only serve to bore, even the most dedicated student. Communication is about capturing your audience and inviting them to share you enthusiasm and your illustration of the events.

Certainly Bernard Cornwell paints characters from his imagination and though some of them are larger than life yet he manages to give the reader some of the feelings that stirred the participants of the battles he describes. On the other hand just having your audience, or your readers entranced, unable to put down your work does not make it an accurate record and assessment of the events it purports to describe.

Walter Scott glorified the free and savage defender of Scottish freedom and rights when in fact many of the Jacobite soldiers only joined because their landlords told them to and their crofts would have been burned had they not followed the clan leader. Many, of course deserted as soon as they conveniently could, deeming the cause of the (not so bonny) Prince Charles Edward Stuart a lost one and wishing just to be left alone.

Another case in point is that of the Arthurian legends. These cast the leader of a Celtic war-band in the Romantic light of the Myth of the Chivalry of the High Middle Ages. So he becomes "King" Arthur complete with round table and a gentleness which had little place in the culture of the descendants of that same war band of the dark ages.

Historians may be guilty of myth making or of genuflecting to a myth. Not so very long ago, every student dissertation had to recognize the Marxist view of history and make some sort of nod towards the class struggle. If he did not then he was unlikely to get a good degree. Now we are all Post modernists and have to note the uniqueness of cultures, of time and of place, now Communism and the Berlin wall have collapsed and, with it, academic radicalism.

So we have the Scylla of too rigid and wooden factualism which makes for tedious reading and the Charybdis of imagination run riot into a rippingly good yarn, epic or heroic song which may tickle the imagination of the hearers but do no service to the truth.

All of the above may be well or poorly researched. All may or may not use their imagination and their skill of empathy to present an interesting picture, or a thrilling but scarcely credible view of the past. Hollywood history being another case in point, and in many cases the horrible example. No novelist has poor communication skills since that would mean books remaining for ever in manuscript form. On the other hand prominent academics can get away with poor writing to a certain extent but may still do a disservice to their students.

Even fantasy writing may be not as far from the truth as may be imagined. Terry Pratchett's Discworld series has tales which one soon understands as having several levels of belief. First there is the "good yarn" type of story told with skill and lots of humour by the author. That is the superficial, the surface reading. That may be all the reader wants and so be it. However, it does not take the discerning reader long to find that the situations in which the characters are cast take us to another level of understanding. Here are "people", in the form of were wolves, golems, trolls, dwarves gargoyles and witches. We find ourselves identifying ourselves with them and we realise that they are, sometimes a clever send up of our society and its follies, and sometimes we see our own follies and foibles, grotesquely displayed. Next time you pick up a Discworld book remember you are picking up a story that operates on several levels of understanding. So understand and learn.

People say to me, “I don't read fiction, I prefer factual stuff”. Fine, I like factual "stuff" as well, but then what do we mean by "factual". It is possible to argue that fiction may be more true than fact since good fiction deals with the human condition. Can we say that Dickens was not "factual". The workhouse where Mr. Bumble was the beadle was real, it was a fact, there were many of them as any local historian will tell you. There must be more workhouse scandals in English history than local historians can record. Perhaps Oliver himself is rather overdrawn as unbelievably goody-goody, but then that was what the reading public of the day required. So was Fagin overdrawn but Sykes, Nancy, and the vast array of cockney characters good and bad, were all real.

Then there were certainly schools like the one run by Mr. and Mrs. Squeers. Dotheboys Hall, was real and Dickens, in Nicholas Nickleby took the lid of corruption and abuse. Dickens had a strong social conscience and he wrote accordingly and has left the world a richer place.

If his characters lack the many facets of personality which appear in Shakespeare and one may criticise him for having one-dimensional characters, the goodies being all good and the baddies all bad, that again was what his public wanted and how they understood. Dickens and Shakespeare had that special gift of understanding their public and providing what they wanted. In so doing they also educated that public.

In conclusion I suggest that we ought to take a fresh look at fiction, at all sorts of fiction. Try Conrad for instance and see how Lord Jim was driven by his past. See the sordidness of the petty little life of the Secret Agent and try to think what was the darkness that Conrad explored in Heart of Darkness. Fiction, at its best, and sometimes at its worst, explores the human condition. Would you say that One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is fiction or fact? Try them for yourselves, enjoy then, ponder them, and, maybe weep with them.

I’ve also discovered that I’m an honorary member of the I-don’t-seem-to-be-able-to-finish-a-book-by-Thackeray Club. Neither Becky Sharp or Barry Lyndon have managed to entice me beyond the half way mark. Something more interesting has always turned up, and these two languish unacknowledged in their peculiar long-winded story-telling.

Did I mention that I’m also a member of the I’m-practically-the-only-person-you’ll-meet-who’s-actually-read-Les Miserables Club? I began this book in the summer holidays one year and couldn’t put it down. I have to admit that I skimmed one of the ‘essays’ that Victor Hugo scatters throughout the book, but apart from this I read it thoroughly, and found it almost unputdownable. The story is full of coincidences, the pursuit of the hero by the detective is interminable, the characters manage to be involved in revolutions and the Battle of Waterloo, and yet you take all this in your stride because the author grabs you by the hand and whisks you along. Grace and forgiveness permeate the story, and the last couple of hundred pages are so gripping that at the time I read them everything else in life went on hold: wife, children, sunshine, picnics.

Last year I read The Count of Monte Cristo. It’s as if, as I get older, I need to take an annual journey into some huge novel, in order to say I’ve done it, or just to prove I can stick with it. This book, like many of Alexandre Dumas, was hastily written, with some sections thrown together months apart. There’s no doubt it’s badly plotted (a colleague wrote the outline, apparently) and it has a long digression in the centre. The hero is a strangely uneven character, some of the characters behave very oddly, and yet it’s extraordinarily enjoyable.

When these 19th century serial writers are at the top of their form, they plunge your imagination into what is best about storytelling. At their worst you have to keep reminding yourself that they wrote to horrific deadlines and had to get something out to their readers, even if that something was mostly padding. (Dickens seems to be one of the few serial writers who was able to overcome this problem by his sheer genius – and humour.)

I’d love to sit down and read some of them again: the Anthony Trollope Barchester series, many of Dickens’ best novels (I’ve read Bleak House twice – which has one of Dickens’ more sympathetically portrayed Christian characters in it), and Middlemarch, that wondrous achievement of George Eliot’s, which wasn’t produced in serial format, and which she abandoned after writing some hundreds of pages, and began again.

But will I live long enough?