The value of jollity

 

The pandemic has brought adversity to many of us, but novelist Charles Dickens created a character who searched it out. Here's jolly Mark Tapley leaving his village to test himself against hard times. 

With Covid variants rising, vaccinations falling, and house-bound people getting grumpier by the day, I’ve been thinking lately about a Charles Dickens character with a peculiar relationship to adversity.

He’s Mark Tapley, a tavern worker in Dickens’ novel Martin Chuzzlewit, and he has a little problem. He’s so popular, competent, and so greatly appreciated by his boss (a jolly widow) that he thinks his life is too easy. He yearns to prove himself under adverse conditions, the worse the better. His dream is to “come out strong” by maintaining his cheerfulness – he calls it “jollity” – under terrible circumstances.

And so, he quits his job – the whole town turns out to say goodbye – and looks for something worse. He ponders grave-digging, which seems like a “good, damp, wormy sort of business.” The job of undertaking sounds hopefully gloomy. Or, “A jailor sees a deal of misery. A doctor’s man is in the very midst of murder.”

But these unpleasant professions don’t hold a candle to serving the selfish, greedy, dysfunctional Chuzzlewit clan, and soon enough, he finagles his way into it. He takes a job as unpaid servant to the family’s disinherited scion, Martin Chuzzlewit, knowing that the young man’s selfishness and monumental ego guarantee disaster ahead. Chuzzlewit does not disappoint. Convinced that he needs only to land in America to make his fortune, he launches the two of them on a terrible journey. Near penniless, they sail in crowded steerage to New York, where Chuzzlewit ignores all sensible precautions and buys a miasmic piece of swampland, sight unseen, where he and Tapley both nearly die of fever.

Throughout, Tapley “comes out strong” over and over again. While Chuzzlewit spends the entire sea voyage groaning with seasickness and hiding (he doesn’t want the rich passengers to see him in steerage), the cheerful and practical Tapley does the opposite. Making light of his own seasickness, he tends the sick and the children of the poor, hauls people up to the deck for fresh air, and entertains and cooks for the steerage crowd. “He attains at last to such a pitch of universal admiration that he began to have grave doubts within himself whether a man might reasonably claim any credit for being jolly under such exciting circumstances.”

Once settled on their miserable piece of swampland, Chuzzlewit sinks into despair and lethargy while Tapley keeps busy clearing the land and helping struggling neighbours. When Chuzzlewit comes down with the fever that has killed almost everybody in the settlement, Tapley nurses him through it before succumbing himself.  It’s his stoic cheerfulness even on what may be his deathbed that finally shoots a ray of self-knowledge into Chuzzlewit and begins his transformation. “How was it that this man, who had had so few advantages, was so much better than he, who had had so many?”

This is a comic novel, so all ends well. Tapley’s good deeds have earned enough goodwill that the two travelers are able to return to England. There, a repentant and reformed Chuzzlewit is re-inherited and able to marry his sweetheart. Tapley, having finally proved himself to himself, is content to return to the tavern and marry the jolly plump widow.

 In our pandemic times, Mark Tapley’s search for misery raises a host of questions.  By creating such a character, was Dickens suggesting there may be positive aspects to adversity? It does serve the purpose of testing us – will we collapse like Chuzzlewit or “come out strong?” Since this was a novel about selfishness (Chuzzlewit) and selflessness (Tapley), what role do these attributes play in our reaction to hard times? And what does it mean to “come out strong?” For some, it might simply mean personal survival; for others, it might be winning glory. For Tapley, it means helping others, whether it’s easing the suffering of his fellow passengers or serving as an example that prompts Chuzzlewit to discover his own failings. An added fillip is Tapley’s mantra about “jollity” – it’s not enough just to help; that help must be rendered with a cheerful smile and an upbeat quip.

 Tapley’s response to adversity nearly gets him killed, but it also spreads joy, wins him many friends and transforms his selfish companion. Chuzzlewit gets conned, humiliated (those rich fellow passengers knew about his trip in steerage), and nearly killed. While Dickens’ happy ending rewards them both, it’s worth thinking about who had the better time throughout. Was it selfish Chuzzlewit, groaning in steerage and loafing miserably on land, or cheery Tapley, making jokes and lending a hand?

 Something to think about in our own season of adversity.

 

Mark Tapley with an axe, being useful; Martin Chuzzlewit with his head in his hands, being gloomy. Who seems to be having more fun?