Putrefaction in Great Expectations
These images of unsanitary England are also seen in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. The conditions of rural England approximate what life must have been like for Pip's family. Pip says that "ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea" (Ch. 1). These marshes and rivers contained raw sewage, as did most rivers of the time, from the local inhabitants who did not know how to dispose of their wastes. These wastes included kitchen refuse and human waste--namely urine and fecal matter. The rural inhabitants also dumped animal carcasses into the river, using the river as a means of disposal. Human bodies were buried in churchyards, but often in shallow graves that were overflowing with bodies. Pip's seemingly imaginative description of Magwitch avoiding body parts in the cemetery takes on a more literal meaning in this context. This occurs in chapter one, where Pip describes Magwitch as looking "in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people, stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in." These "hands" that Pip alludes to are parts of bodies that have become unearthed during the course of time. Because the bodies were buried so shallow, there was a threat of the graveyards being washed away due to overflowing rivers, causing the bodies to be cast downstream. Anyone living close to these shallow grave sites would be at risk to exposure to disease.
Although the reader is not given any information regarding the housing conditions and water conditions of Pip's family prior to the death of his parents and his five younger brothers, nineteenth-century readers would have assumed that the reason behind the death of Pip's parents and five brothers was the poor sanitary conditions of the housing and the waterways. The reader is given a clue as to the state of other buildings in the marsh country. Pip's description of the lime kiln must have approximated the housing conditions of other buildings in the marsh country. When Pip was waiting for a reply at the door to the lime kiln, he says: "I looked about me, noticing how the house--of wood with a tiled roof--would not be proof against the weather much longer, if it were so even now, and how the mud and ooze were coated with lime" (Ch. 53). The house that Pip describes here even has a tiled roof, which should have been better protection against the weather than the thatch roofs that other houses may have had. The ooze that Pip is referring to is probably mud mixed with human waste that has settled on the marshes from the nearby river. These living conditions help the reader understand that Pip's parents and five younger brothers could have died through disease that can thrive in such unsanitary conditions.
These poor living conditions did not only exist in rural areas; they also existed in urban areas, such as London. The contamination of the waterways around London was much worse than what was found in rural areas. The problem was compounded in congested cities, such as London, where there was a higher density of people and still no way to dispose of waste. The reader finds references to the filth of London when Pip goes to there for the first time. With "no experience of a London summer day," Pip is oppressed by the hot exhausted air, and by the dust and grit that lay thick on everything" (Ch. 20). The "hot exhausted air" is probably a combination of industrial air pollution and the gases that emanated from open sewers. This, along with the water pollution, made for very unsanitary living. In this context, Mr. Jaggers' "washing his hands with his scented soap" also has a very literal significance. Although Dickens is making an obvious metaphorical point regarding Jaggers washing the dregs of society off of his hands, his compulsive washing is also a precaution against ingesting anything that his hands may have touched during the day, including other people, who were very dirty (Ch. 26).
London's image is even worse in the context of the unsanitary conditions of its waterways. Pip gives the readers their first account of the conditions of the water when Pip is looking for Mrs. Whimple's house, where Magwitch is hiding out, and which is close to the Mill Pond bank. Pip remarks on the "ooze and slime and other dregs of tide" he finds on the way to Mrs. Whimple's house (Ch. 46). The ooze and slime are probably references to human waste that is floating on the river and lapping onto the bank of Mill Pond, due to the tide. The "other dregs" are the other things that people must have thrown into the river, such as animal carcasses, and whatever other refuse people would have needed to get rid of. The Thames is an estuary; therefore whatever was floating in the river would be floating there for a long time until it simply dissolved into the water. Through the force of the tide, the sewage that was splashing against the banks of Mill Pond would have created a veritable sewage spray consisting of atomized water molecules that contained bacteria. This bacteria, now airborne, could infect those who lived on or near to the Mill Pond. The condition of the waterways could also be the reason for Magwitch's, and later Pip's, sicknesses.
Magwitch falls ill after fighting in the water with Compeyson. The wound that Magwitch receives on the top of his head and the water that Magwitch must have swallowed were contributing factors to his decline in health, along with the internal injuries from Compeyson. The reader knows that there must have been some sort of bacterial infection because Pip falls ill shortly after visiting Magwitch. The communication of some bacterial diseases is such that Magwitch's bacterial infection could have been communicated to Pip just by Pip breathing the same air as Magwitch. Pip's sickness was definitely caused by bacterial infection, as revealed in Pip's statement: "I had a fever and was avoided, that I suffered greatly, that I often lost my reason, that the time seemed interminable, that I confounded impossible existences with my own identity" (Ch. 57). Pip's disease was communicable, as evidenced by the fact that he was "avoided" and left alone so that those who had reason to look in on him would not get sick also. The severity of Pip's fever gives the reader a look at how terrible bacterial infection could be, because Pip says that he "often lost [his] reason." The sicknesses of Magwitch and Pip were not without comforting moments, as shown by Pip staying with Magwitch during his sickness, and Joe taking care of Pip during his.
The references to sicknesses also have a counterpart--the nursing back to health or at least the comforting of the afflicted. Pip comforts Magwitch when he is on his death bed. He goes to visit Magwitch in order to keep him company (Ch. 56). Even though Pip does this out of the kindness of his heart, it is not a good idea because this is probably how Pip gets his own sickness. When Pip gets sick, he has Joe to comfort him during his time of need. Pip asks Joe if he has been watching Pip for the duration of Pip's sickness, and Joe replies, "pretty nigh, old chap" (Ch. 57).
The images contained in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations are more realistic than what the reader may originally believe. The twentieth-century reader should know what the nineteenth-century reader knew--that London and its environs were an unsanitary place to live. This was a place where epidemics were a common occurrence due to unsanitary conditions and overcrowding. This sort of investigation into the condition of life in nineteenth-century England may lead to other truths that may have been evident to nineteenth-century readers, but we as twentieth-century readers are oblivious to.