The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature has it that Martin Chuzzlewit’s Tom Pinch is one of the novel’s “many pleasant minor characters”. This is right as far as plot goes, but in another sense this is the relegation of a major role. The novel makes much of Pinch’s goodness, and his awakening to knowledge, and in contrast, much too of the above illustrated Pecksniff’s villainy, using the two as poles on its moral map. It is a curious thing that the character illustrated on the cover should not be Martin, and curious once one gets reading that there are two Martin Chuzzlewits, grandfather and grandson, and that though the title refers to the younger, the elder is the greater agent in the plot. It is Pecksniff most likely because books must sell, such books as Martin Chuzzlewit can be sold by aiming after vague memories of earlier readings, and Pecksniff is the most memorable character. Chapter I takes the entire Chuzzlewit clan, humorously traced back to Adam and Eve, as its subject, and Pecksniff, one of their members, who though he does not bear the Chuzzlewit name bears the worst of their selfish tendencies, becomes a classic Dickens character along with Sairey Gamp, floating up into the gallery while leaving Tom, Mary Graham, Tigg Montague et al. stuck between the covers. Tom Pinch, though, is treated to a few exuberant apostrophes, one of which ends the novel as Dickens brings in his sister Ruth to sit beside him as he plays the organ: “As it resounds within thee and without, the noble music, rolling round ye both, shuts out the grosser prospect of an earthly parting, and uplifts ye both to Heaven!” Tom’s part in the story is smaller than one expects after the first few chapters, but Dickens has much to say through him.
In Chapter II, Tom walks into Pecksniff’s parlour, “ungainly, awkward-looking . . . prematurely bald . . . far from handsome”, of uncertain age, wearing a cheap suit. He is assistant to Pecksniff at his dubious business, which is teaching architecture to young apprentices at his home in Wiltshire. Tom stands by the door and glances between Pecksniff and his two daughters, Mercy and Charity, wanting to let in John Westlock, a student who has become disgusted with Pecksniff’s perfidy and will be leaving for London shortly. He tries to make peace between them with a reference to their “little difference the other day”, but Pecksniff will not shake Westlock’s hand. Tom, who was once Pecksniff’s student, believes that the man is good, while any other who has any dealings with him sees that he is self-serving and without scruple. Westlock accuses Pecksniff of cheating him out of at least five hundred pounds, and Pecksniff’s characteristic response is to blather about avarice and forgiveness in tones so obviously false to us that Tom’s continued loyalty to him can only be accepted as definitive of his character, and not realistic. (That is, unless there exist people so good as to be near oblivious to badness, as if the aphorism—“Hypocrisy is the compliment vice plays to virtue”—correctly attributes to virtue an awareness of other tendencies that virtue lacks.)
Tom’s kindness to everyone in the nearby town Salisbury, and his organ playing at the church, endear him, but also redound to Pecksniff’s reputation for those who don’t know him yet. Young Martin Chuzzlewit replaces John Westlock, and like his predecessor quickly befriends Tom, but condescends to him. In this last Dickens picaresque, it appears that Tom will be the Parson Adams or Partridge to Martin’s Joseph Andrews or Tom Jones, another successor to Sancho Panza, but Martin will quite shortly be dispatched to London, then on to America, where his traveling companion will be Mark Tapley, the good natured squire with a quirk whereby to pursue heroism he grins through harsh trials, like stormy Atlantic passages in steerage. Tom remains with Pecksniff, and when he learns of his master’s designs and efforts upon Martin’s beloved, Mary Graham—whom Tom secretly loves—he discovers Pecksniff’s nature, and Pecksniff, knowing this has happened, contrives to dismiss him. The discovery has been terrible, but Tom, never disconsolate, goes to London, saves his sister Ruth from her openly cruel employers, and sets up with her in Islington with John Westlock’s assistance, finding a new bliss:
Ah! It was a goodly sight, when this important point was settle, to behold Tom and his sister trotting round to the baker’s, and the butcher’s, and the grocer’s with a kind of dreadful delight in the unaccustomed cares of housekeeping; taking secret counsel together as they gave their small orders, and distracted by the least suggestion on the part of the shopkeeper!
The exuberant passages on Ruth’s exquisite housekeeping, and Tom’s appreciation of it, are not exactly satirical, but deliberately silly. These are the chapters of Dickens most likely to be viewed with condescension by recent readers, but caricature is a mode in which the artist can depict angels as well as monsters, and only an utterly disenchanted reader does not wonder if some people out there approach such goodness. A charming tableau in which Ruth playfully taps Tom on the head with a rolling pin is not just for our benefit, but also that of the benevolent John Westlock, who found the door open, and who will of course fall in love with Ruth, to Tom’s delight.
Dickens affects to derive the category of “Pecksniffian” from his creature—not the other way around—and, defending what some call exaggeration in his preface, claims that it was members of the “Pecksniff family”, fellow graspers and hypocrites, who found the character unbelievable when the novel was serialized. His moral program is more condemnatory than laudatory, so he does not name a class of Pinches in the real world, but he shows us that Tom can only really be called Pinchian, not just in his good deeds, but in his rewards:
Tom entered as the words were spoken, with a radiant smile upon his face; and rubbing his hands, more from a sense of delight than because he was cold (for he had been running fast), sat down in his warm corner again, and was as happy as only Tom Pinch could be. There is no other simile that will express his state of mind.
This ought to be contrasted with Mark Tapley’s willful jollity, his straining to make his face brave; this other kind of hero is he who is most like himself.