# Patriarchal explained — Little Dorrit

> Chapter companion for Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens.

## What happens

Arthur Clennam visits the home of Christopher Casby, the 'last of the Patriarchs,' partly out of lingering curiosity about his former love Flora Casby and partly under the self-deceived notion that it might serve Little Dorrit. He finds Flora greatly changed—broad, diffuse, and silly—and his idealized memory of her shatters. At dinner he meets the terrifying Mr. F.'s Aunt and the bustling rent-collector Mr. Pancks. Clennam reflects on Casby's true nature, concluding that the Patriarch is a drifting booby kept afloat only by Pancks's energy.

## Themes in this chapter

### Social Class and Hypocrisy

Mr. Casby's benign appearance masks a passive, self-serving nature; Clennam reflects on how society accepts external accessories in lieu of internal character.

### Identity and Social Mobility

Flora's transformation from a lily to a peony symbolizes the erosion of youthful ideals, while Casby's reliance on Pancks illustrates the gap between appearance and reality in social standing.

## Character check-ins

### Arthur Clennam

Visits Mr. Casby's house, confronts the shattering of his old idealized image of Flora, and reflects on Casby's true character.

### Flora Casby

Now broad, short of breath, diffuse, and silly; she combines sentiment with a hearty appetite and tries to maintain a girlish manner.

### Mr. Casby

The 'last of the Patriarchs,' unchanged in appearance, benign-looking but suspected by Clennam to be a drifting booby kept afloat by Pancks.

### Mr. Pancks

The snorting, busy rent-collector who dines with the family and is seen by Clennam as the tugboat towing the cumbrous Patriarch.

### Mr. F.

Deceased; mentioned as having left his Aunt as a legacy to Flora.

### Mrs. Finching

Flora's married name; she is the widow of Mr. F. and now hosts Clennam.

## Key lines

> It is hardly necessary to add that beyond all doubt he would have presented himself at Mr. Casby’s door, if there had been no Little Dorrit in existence; for we all know how we all deceive ourselves—that is to say, how people in general, our profounder selves excepted, deceive themselves—as to motives of action.

Clennam would have visited Casby even without any thought of Little Dorrit, but he convinces himself otherwise—a common self-deception.

_Highlights Clennam's self-awareness of his own rationalization._

> Flora, whom he had left a lily, had become a peony; but that was not much. Flora, who had seemed enchanting in all she said and thought, was diffuse and silly. That was much.

Flora's physical change from slender to stout was minor, but her transformation from enchanting to silly was devastating to Clennam.

_Captures the shattering of Clennam's idealized memory._

> The last of the Patriarchs had always been a mighty eater, and he disposed of an immense quantity of solid food with the benignity of a good soul who was feeding someone else.

Casby ate a great deal but with an air of benevolence, as if he were doing a favor to others.

_Irony underscoring Casby's hypocritical benignity._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/little_dorrit_se/chapters/xiii-patriarchal
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/little_dorrit_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/little_dorrit_se/chapters