Barnaby Rudge is the most mature out of all Dickens' novels. In 1836, he promised the novel to his first publisher. The tremendous success of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club distracted him from what he had planned, but Dickens did not give up the idea of this great historical novel. It was supposed to consist of three volumes, but circumstances forced the author to print his by weekly editions in the magazine Clock of Humphrey's Master right after the end of the publication of The Old Curiosity Shop.
Since the note that the novel was promised to be written is invariably present both in the reports of quarrels with his publishers, and in correspondence and conversations with Forster, it was easily criticized that the novel was exhausted even before the author started working on it. The first chapters written two years earlier are partly overloaded with a colorless and indispensable romantic images, but the image of the inn is an extremely ambiguous embodiment of the Dickens ideal - a cheerful hearth.
One can almost physically feel how the walls of an old English inn are warmed by the coziness and comfort of the hearth, even despite the bad weather outside. This feeling is considered to be an emblem of Dickens's work. Thus this image is contrasted by the image of John Willlet, the owner of the inn, who is a petty tyrant chasing an adult son like a boy, and uttering his homegrown vulgarities in a circle of friends with a peremptory tone.
The novel Barnaby Rudge falls into two parts. The first is a picture of England in 1775.
When Dickens first began the novel in 1836, he was fascinated by the daring idea of competing with the great Scott himself, but ultimately all the rivalry came down to the scene of the assault by the rebels of the Newgate Prison in the second part of the novel, and, whatever the critics say, this scene is only a pale parallel to a similar scene in the novel by Scott The Heart of Midlothian. With the deduction of the archaized language of the opening pages, which are obscure in the meaning of the initial pages, the first section of Barnaby Rudge is decisively lacking in the historical color that we find in Scott, although in some places explanatory ones are interspersed "in those days" or "at that time"; however, the characters of the novel remarkably express the whole complex of contradictions that marked the end of the 18th century, in any case, as it seemed to Dickens himself. At the end of chapter 32, it is reported that "the globe continues to spin, as before, and has been spinning for the next five years, of which our story is silent."
Chapter 33 is carried over already in 1780, when the crowd, inflamed by the teachings of the Union of Protestants and its half-mad mastermind Lord George Gordon, paralyzed the London authorities for several days and, starting from the Catholic churches and Catholic dwellings, spread robberies and fires to the property of many wealthy citizens. During these actions, the Newguet Prison, a symbol of the Law, was destroyed, and prisoners were released. Suppressing the rebellion, the city authorities inflicted brutal reprisals on its participants. A tense, dynamic tale of this public explosion and its consequences is the content of the second part of the novel. Having affirmed the authority of power in the first part, Dickens crushes it in the second, and then restores it again with the help of the happy ending of the novel.
Depicting exclusively private lives, the first part of the book immediately reveals the duality of Dickens' position. There are wo tyrant fathers who deny their sons the right to an independent life. John Willet is just a dumb home despot, but John Chester is a much more sinister figure: an elegant, soulless example of an aristocrat of the 18th century. “The house was probably built under George II. Stiff, cold, impregnable and inexpressive, he would satisfy the tastes of the most zealous admirers of all four Georges ”- a pompous, soulless, unperturbed and completely dead house. Both representatives of the ruling forces in the 18th century equally compromise the mind.
John Willet has common sense is subject to prejudice; John Chester's rationalism cynically covers up insensitive egoism. As for their victims, who at one moment rebelled and emigrated to America, these rather spineless, good-natured, open, and gentle sons were developed very schematically.
The images of Ned Chester and John Willet seem to condemn excessive paternal authority; a completely opposite morality is revealed by the situation in the house of locksmith Gabriel Warden, the noble soul of a man. This glorious old man, who almost gave the name to the novel and courageously behaved during the rebellion, truly deserves the name of a hero, with incredible difficulty trying to maintain order in his own house - and the house is a real rebellion.
Partly, Mr. Warden's family difficulties are predetermined by Dickens's favorite situation: a grumpy, power-hungry wife acts as a united front with the absolutely impossible old maid, her maid, a quick-tempered and stupid creature. In the images of Mrs. Warden and Miggs, Dickens once again led the fair sex to be a laughing stock, although humor is disguised this time as a venomous mockery. It is important to note that Mrs. Warden and her maid, Miggs, are ardent Protestants and their desire to plant turmoil in the house is largely due to the influence of the “Union of Protestants”, which ultimately unleashes the terrifying anarchy with its secret inflammatory propaganda. Thus, in the dominance of women in the house, Dickens sees one of the manifestations of social ill-being.
This is more frankly expressed in the servant's speech against the master. Mr. Warden's young apprentice, Sim Tappertit, belongs to a secret alliance of apprentices who set out to wrest power from the craftsmen. The images of these apprentices, their secret rites and bloodthirsty oaths evoke in Dickens an openly hostile feeling. They are permeated by a ruthless satire. Dickens shows how serious and dangerous power a helpless stupid game of conspiracy grows at first: apprentices have a decisive role in rebellion, and Sim Tappertit, this victim of an exaggerated opinion of her appearance, multiplied by an extremely ardent imagination - Sim Tappertit, of course, is a blockhead, but he is also the instigator of the unrest that has begun. The apprentices' night trials are described explicitly adjusted for the French Revolution coming in a decade.
