Matthew Hammond (Exeter)
Expecting the Event: Dickens and Deleuze.
The aim of this paper is to trace a relationship that in a sense never was. Deleuze - although he
certainly mentions Dickens at various points, never seriously engages with him, in the way that he
engages with other English novelists such as the Brontes or Woolf. – Dickens appears to remain
peripheral for Deleuze. And yet I will argue this is a pity, and that potentially Dickens is as useful in
thinking about the nature of the Event, - as Moby Dick is for Becoming, or Mrs Dalloway is for
Haeccity. My aim in this paper will firstly be to outline the geography of the Event according to
Dickens in his novel Great Expectations, and secondly to then compare Dickens’ account with
Deleuze’s, and illustrate how the two accounts inform and illuminate one another.
To this end I will attempt to show that what makes Great Expectations so interesting and different
(both to the normal Dickens oeuvre, and in the context of Deleuze), is the very limited number of
events that occur within it. I will show that in fact that the three key events of the novel are Miss
Havisham’s marriage day, Magwitch’s meeting Compeyson, and Estella’s mother’s crime. All these
three events are remarkable not only in the fact that they occur in the generation before that on which
the main action of the novel is set, but in more importantly they maintain some real presence within the
futures they create (so Miss Havisham keeps her Bridal chamber, Magwitch remembers meeting
Compeyson as if he was there, and Estella’s mother bares the marks of the brambles that scratch her).
The entire action of the novel is then caught between these three events, each event endlessly
resonating across the other two, and thereby creating new possibilities for itself, and with that, new
possible ramifications – until in the famously ambiguous final lines, Pip understands them for what
they are – and becomes content to let them exist as events for him. I will therefore trace some of the
ramifications, and the further ramifications that follow on from them, and attempt to evaluate the nature
of Pip’s final resolution.
The second element of my analysis will then attempt to identify the exact nature of the event for
Dickens, and how it informs one’s understanding of Deleuze. I will pick out three key elements of the
Dickensian event. Firstly the Dickensian event clearly catches up individuals within its own time in
which they are caught. The central tragedy of Great Expectations lies in Pip’s failure to realise this.
Secondly no event repeats as it is expected to. One might attempt to engineer a repetition in another
series (as Miss Havisham does with Estella) but insofar as one is creating a repetition in another, what
repeats is different from what was. However Dickens adds a very interesting extra twist to this thesis,
namely that events can repeat as the same – but only where they are unlooked for, and so are free to
come again in their full shock and horror (hence it is Pip who repeats Miss Havisham’s desolation, and
not Estella). Finally it is clear that Events are open for Dickens, and it is never clear where they might
lead. No event therefore leads to a simple fatalism in which individuals are simply caught according to
a predestined path. It is rather, that each event is genuinely constituting itself anew in each repetition,
and thereby creating new options for itself in subsequent repetitions. For example, Dickens makes clear
that if Pip had reacted to his good fortune differently, if he had been less proud, then the final
resolution of the novel would have been very different. Being caught within events beyond one’s
control does not therefore, for Dickens, remove the necessity for acting ethically (this is the mistake
Pip makes), rather it necessitates such action.
Dickens therefore, I will conclude should indeed be seen as an important forerunner of Deleuze.
Dickens in the novel Great Expectations identifies many of the key features of the event, and
investigates in novel form, many of the implications that follow on from these features.