Introductory, concerning the pedigree of the Chuzzlewit family explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Hypocrisy and Self-Deception

  The chapter satirizes the family's pride in their ancient lineage while revealing their lack of actual wealth or status, highlighting self-deception about their importance.

• Social Class and Pretension

  The narrative mocks the obsession with aristocratic birth and the pretensions of the Chuzzlewits, who claim noble connections despite evidence to the contrary.

Characters to notice

• Diggory Chuzzlewit

  Mentioned as a family member who dined frequently with Duke Humphrey, showing the family's supposed high connections.

• Tigg Montague

  Not directly present but referenced indirectly through the family's later connections; not a focus in this chapter.

Key passages

• “As no lady or gentleman, with any claims to polite breeding, can possibly sympathize with the Chuzzlewit Family without being first assured of the extreme antiquity of the race, it is a great satisfaction to know that it undoubtedly descended in a direct line from Adam and Eve; and was, in the very earliest times, closely connected with the agricultural interest.”

  To gain the sympathy of polite society, one must first accept the Chuzzlewits' ancient lineage, which supposedly traces back to Adam and Eve and early farming.

  Opens the chapter with ironic praise of the family's origins, setting a satirical tone.

• “It is remarkable that as there was, in the oldest family of which we have any record, a murderer and a vagabond, so we never fail to meet, in the records of all old families, with innumerable repetitions of the same phase of character.”

  Just as the earliest recorded family included a murderer and a wanderer, so too do all ancient families show repeated instances of such behavior.

  Highlights the ironic connection between noble ancestry and criminality.

• “There can be no doubt that at least one Chuzzlewit came over with William the Conqueror. It does not appear that this illustrious ancestor 'came over' that monarch, to employ the vulgar phrase, at any subsequent period; inasmuch as the Family do not seem to have been ever greatly distinguished by the possession of landed estate.”

  A Chuzzlewit certainly arrived with William the Conqueror, but he never actually conquered the king, as the family never owned much land.

  Puns on 'came over' to mock the family's lack of real wealth despite their claims.

• “There was unquestionably a Chuzzlewit in the Gunpowder Plot, if indeed the arch-traitor, Fawkes himself, were not a scion of this remarkable stock; as he might easily have been, supposing another Chuzzlewit to have emigrated to Spain in the previous generation, and there intermarried with a Spanish lady, by whom he had issue, one olive-complexioned son.”

  A Chuzzlewit was definitely part of the Gunpowder Plot, unless Guy Fawkes himself was a Chuzzlewit, which is plausible if a Chuzzlewit had moved to Spain and married a Spanish woman.

  Satirizes genealogical speculation by inventing a far-fetched connection to Guy Fawkes.

• “It is a notable circumstance that in these later times, many Chuzzlewits, being unsuccessful in other pursuits, have, without the smallest rational hope of enriching themselves, or any conceivable reason, set up as coal-merchants; and have, month after month, continued gloomily to watch a small stock of coals, without in any one instance negotiating with a purchaser.”

  Many modern Chuzzlewits, failing in other careers, become coal merchants but never sell any coal, just gloomily watch their stock.

  Draws a parallel to the Gunpowder Plot ancestor, mocking the family's pointless persistence.

• “There was, within a few years, in the possession of a highly respectable and in every way credible and unimpeachable member of the Chuzzlewit Family ... a dark lantern of undoubted antiquity; rendered still more interesting by being, in shape and pattern, extremely like such as are in use at the present day.”

  A respectable Chuzzlewit recently owned an ancient dark lantern that looks just like modern ones.

  Introduces a 'relic' to further the family's supposed historical importance.