The Juvenalian Satire of Our Mutual Friend

Abstract:This essay argues that Dickens rejected the Victorian literary consensus that satire, especially in its extravagant Juvenalian form, was unsuited to the novel. In several prefaces, he positions satire’s magnifying aesthetic of “extreme exposition” as an ideal mode for disrupting readers’ preconceptions. In Our Mutual Friend, Dickens forcefully revives Juvenal’s rhetorical overabundance and open scorn for avarice to showcase the voracious inhumanity of capitalism. Drawing upon prevalent ideas about the power of habit, he floods the novel with examples of the near inescapability of individual and institutional bad habit in a materialistic world. A variety of addictions are shown to dominate human character and deaden empathy and will. With satirical excess, Dickens blatantly displays the apocalyptic pull of solipsism and greed in a series of ostentatious Society dinners that echo Juvenal. In opposition to his critics, Dickens felt his audience urgently needed bold truths delivered with Juvenalian force.