# XLII explained — The Pickwick Papers

> Chapter companion for The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens.

## What happens

Mr. Pickwick awakens in the Fleet Prison to find Sam Weller and the dashing Mr. Smangle engaged in a tense staring contest. After Sam's impertinent remarks provoke Smangle, Mr. Pickwick intervenes. Smangle, seeing the contents of Pickwick's portmanteau, feigns friendship and offers to send linen to the washerwoman, but Sam rebuffs him. Later, Mr. Pickwick reflects on the plight of debtors and visits the poor side of the prison, where he encounters the destitute Alfred Jingle and Job Trotter. He also meets a long-term prisoner who has been worn down by twenty years of confinement. Mr. Pickwick arranges for a room and resolves to help the suffering inmates.

## Themes in this chapter

### Prison and Suffering

The chapter vividly depicts the physical and emotional decay of prisoners like Jingle and the long-term inmate, highlighting the cruelty of the debtors' prison system.

### Charity and Benevolence

Mr. Pickwick's compassion leads him to offer his room to a fellow prisoner and to visit the poor side, reflecting his benevolent nature.

### Deception and Appearance

Smangle's feigned friendship and offers of help are transparent attempts to exploit Mr. Pickwick, contrasting with the genuine misery of Jingle and Trotter.

## Character check-ins

### Samuel Pickwick

Wakes in Fleet Prison, observes the prison's misery, and arranges a room while planning to assist fellow prisoners.

### Sam Weller

Sits on a portmanteau staring at Mr. Smangle, trades barbs with him, and protects Mr. Pickwick from Smangle's schemes.

### Smangle

Attempts to stare down Sam Weller, then feigns friendship with Mr. Pickwick to gain access to his belongings.

### Mivins

Lazily advises Smangle to knock Sam downstairs, then returns to sleep.

### Alfred Jingle

Found in tattered clothes on the poor side of the Fleet, brooding over the fire, reduced to misery and hunger.

### Job Trotter

Enters the poor side room carrying a small piece of mutton, recognized by Mr. Pickwick despite his rags and dirt.

## Key lines

> Pray, remember the poor debtors; pray remember the poor debtors.

Please think of the impoverished debtors and give what you can.

_The cry of the man in the iron cage at the Fleet Prison, begging for charity for the poorest inmates._

> We no longer suffer them to appeal at the prison gates to the charity and compassion of the passersby; but we still leave unblotted the leaves of our statute book, for the reverence and admiration of succeeding ages, the just and wholesome law which declares that the sturdy felon shall be fed and clothed, and that the penniless debtor shall be left to die of starvation and nakedness.

We have stopped allowing debtors to beg at the prison gates, yet our laws still condemn the penniless debtor to starvation while feeding and clothing criminals.

_The narrator's ironic commentary on the hypocrisy of the legal system that punishes debtors more harshly than felons._

> I am a dead man; dead to society, without the pity they bestow on those whose souls have passed to judgment.

I am as good as dead, forgotten by everyone, without even the sympathy given to the actually deceased.

_The long-term prisoner's lament about his utter isolation and neglect after twenty years in the Fleet._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_pickwick_papers_se/chapters/xlii
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_pickwick_papers_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_pickwick_papers_se/chapters