Throughout both book one and book two the audience gets to
know Mrs. Sparsit and her unrelenting nature to make her hierarchy known. It is
ironic in itself that Mrs. Sparsit comes from a wealthy aristocratic family but
finds herself working as a housekeeper for somebody else because of the hard
times. However, as book two continues we see her grow to have feelings for Mr.
Bounderby and resent Louisa because of her relationship with Hearthouse. In
book two, chapter ten, Mrs. Sparsit’s
staircase, we see Dickens satirizing greed and snobbery through Mrs.
Sparsit’s detestation towards Louisa described through a metaphorical staircase
in which she sees Louisa traveling downwards on and eventually falling off.
“Much watching of Louisa, and much consequent observation of her impenetrable demeanor,
which keenly wetted and sharpened Mrs. Sparsit’s edge”(195) This wetting and
sharpening of Mrs. Sparsit’s edge only further proves her distain and envy
towards Louisa and her “impenetrable demeanor” Mrs. Sparsit goes on, “She
erected in her mind a mighty staircase, with a dark pit of shame and ruin at
the bottom, and down those stairs, from day to day, hour to hour, she saw
Louisa coming. It became the business of Mrs. Sparsit’s life, to look up at her
staircase, and to watch Louisa coming down.” (196) Dickens uses Mrs. Sparsit’s
jealousy of Louisa, a girl who is technically socially below the significant
family Mrs. Sparsit comes from, to comment on the greed developed by her
throughout book two. “to look up at her staircase, and to watch Louisa coming
down.” The fact that the metaphorical staircase was referred to as “hers”,
belonging to Mrs. Sparsit, this only proves that she wants the life Louisa is
living for herself so she is consequently watching, you could even say enjoying,
Louisa’s downfall from her societal place. Chapter ten concludes with this
passage, “Hushed in expectancy, she kept her wary gaze upon the stairs; and
seldom so much as darkly shook her right mitten (with her fist in it), at the
figure coming down.”(199) To solidify the satirical commentary Dickens is
making he ends the passage with a final moment of Mrs. Sparsit, a supposedly
high class woman, waiting for Louisa to fall from her social rankings only to
act with greed and out of envy so she can take Louisa’s place.
I also noticed this odd behavior Mrs.Sparsit had. I have further evidence to support this idea. When Harthouse is telling Louisa his true feeling about her, Mrs. Sparsit is near by listening in on the conversation. It seems as though she will do anything to attempt and find out what Louisa is up to in order to get dirt on her. She longs to be in Louisa's position and if she can tell Bounderby what Louisa is up to she has high hopes he will then take her to be his wife as opposed to Louisa. "Mrs. Sparsit saw her out of the wood, and saw her enter the house. What to do next" (Dickens 205). After easdropping on Mr. Harthouse and Louisa's conversation Sparsit is left in awe and confusiong and attempts to figure out what she will do next with the information she has. Going out of her way to follow the two into the woods shows how truley desperate Mrs. Sparsit is to get Louisa in some sort of trouble. It is apparent she truley envys Louisa!
ReplyDeleteThis part in the novel was interesting to me. I understand your viewpoint and quite honestly its very accurate, however i had seen in this in a sense that dickens portray's this as the failure of a factual based society? Bounderby who is the epidemy of excelence in a factual based society- whom Mrs. Sparsit feels for- I feel as though she wants to follow or be in his footsteps, thus while being Bounderby's house keeper this whole time she is influenced by his factual behavior and adopts his ways- dieing slowly, because all things that follow factual lifestyle die in a sorta way- until she sees louisa, this being kind of like Mrs. Sparsits "fire" in comparision to Louisa's fire. In order to prevent the suppression of her fire, Mrs. Sparsit seeks the lustrious and secretive second life Louisa is living and enjoys her descent down Mrs. Sparsits metaphorical staircase and just how it rekindles her fire by bringing her to a "sharpened edge". - Just a thought, Matthew E
ReplyDelete