"A person who can’t pay, gets another person who can’t pay, to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs, to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don't make either of them able to do a walking match."
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Charles Dickens
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Little Dorrit is a tale of how avarice and financial manipulation can ruin a small man and his family. William Dorrit, once a successful businessman, has been rotting in the Marshalsea prison for 25 years for non payment of debt. As its longest serving prisoner, he is pitifully reduced to 
terming himself "The Father of the Marshalsea" as a ruse to encourage handouts. His son too is incarcerated in the debtors' prison until a gentleman by the name of Arthur Clenman takes an interest in the family and pays his debt. Fortunes rise further when Clenman helps the Dorrits to recover an inheritance and secure Wiliam Dorrit's release but fall again after Clenman's bank fails and he falls into debt and into the Marshalsea.
terming himself "The Father of the Marshalsea" as a ruse to encourage handouts. His son too is incarcerated in the debtors' prison until a gentleman by the name of Arthur Clenman takes an interest in the family and pays his debt. Fortunes rise further when Clenman helps the Dorrits to recover an inheritance and secure Wiliam Dorrit's release but fall again after Clenman's bank fails and he falls into debt and into the Marshalsea. The BBC's recent adaptation struck a chord with contemporary society. Thankfully debtors' prisons are a nightmare that belongs to our past but reviewers have been falling over themselves to point out Little Dorrit's continuing relevance. A.S. Byatt said it was a "fable for our times". A.N Wilson said "If some of you had read Little Dorrit a year ago, you might have thought it was a lurid melodrama: but in the light of what has happened in Wall Street,
Iceland, and our own banks, the terrible trail of sadness caused by bad debt seems all too plausible." Dickens biographer, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst goes further to say that all Dickens's "novels offer us glimpses of a world we think we have lost - a period of swirling fog and flickering gaslamps. But the closer we get to this world, the more we start to recognise: the scramble for credit, financial scandal, panic"
Iceland, and our own banks, the terrible trail of sadness caused by bad debt seems all too plausible." Dickens biographer, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst goes further to say that all Dickens's "novels offer us glimpses of a world we think we have lost - a period of swirling fog and flickering gaslamps. But the closer we get to this world, the more we start to recognise: the scramble for credit, financial scandal, panic" Money was always one of Dickens's great themes. In Dombey and Son, the inquisitive Paul Dombey delves deeper into the mystery of money asking "Papa! What’s money?” His father wants to tell him about "circulating-medium, currency, depreciation of currency', paper, bullion, rates of exchange, value of precious metals in the market" but settles for a more prosaic "Gold, and silver, and copper. Guineas, 
shillings, half-pence. You know what they are?” Paul is not satisfied "Oh yes, I know what they are,' don't mean that, Papa. I mean what's money after all?" then adding "I mean, Papa, what can it do?” Dombey Senior, a successful businesman, believes money can do almost anything but it dawns on his son that all their money couldn't save his dying mother. The limitations of money appear more famously in A Christmas Carol, where Scrooge learns that there are still values that cannot be bought and sold. Initially too mean to burn his own coal, he eventually discovers that money means nothing compared to the heart warming sight of the Cratchits enjoying their Christmas 
together. In David Copperfield, Mr Micawber informs us of a blunt reality "if a man had twenty pounds a year, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy; but that a shilling spent the other way would make him wretched". Dickens's father had drummed this lesson into his son as it was never a habit that he could never manage to acquire. Like Micawber and William Dorrit, John Dickens ended up in a Debtors prison for the want of £40 and 10 shillings. When he left for the Marshalsea his parting words warned to not expect him back anytime soon. The son later recalled that "I really believed at the time that they had broken my heart." Luckily through inherited wealth, the Dickens family fortunes soon rose but their ups and downs had given the young Charles his unique view of both sides of London life.
shillings, half-pence. You know what they are?” Paul is not satisfied "Oh yes, I know what they are,' don't mean that, Papa. I mean what's money after all?" then adding "I mean, Papa, what can it do?” Dombey Senior, a successful businesman, believes money can do almost anything but it dawns on his son that all their money couldn't save his dying mother. The limitations of money appear more famously in A Christmas Carol, where Scrooge learns that there are still values that cannot be bought and sold. Initially too mean to burn his own coal, he eventually discovers that money means nothing compared to the heart warming sight of the Cratchits enjoying their Christmas together. In David Copperfield, Mr Micawber informs us of a blunt reality "if a man had twenty pounds a year, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy; but that a shilling spent the other way would make him wretched". Dickens's father had drummed this lesson into his son as it was never a habit that he could never manage to acquire. Like Micawber and William Dorrit, John Dickens ended up in a Debtors prison for the want of £40 and 10 shillings. When he left for the Marshalsea his parting words warned to not expect him back anytime soon. The son later recalled that "I really believed at the time that they had broken my heart." Luckily through inherited wealth, the Dickens family fortunes soon rose but their ups and downs had given the young Charles his unique view of both sides of London life. These turbulent themes run through Little Dorrit, characters are struck by calamity and prosperity, then discover who they can rely to help them bridge the gap between the two. The concept of credit and debt features throughout, those words litter the text along with 'duty', 'honour' and 'obligation'. These apply to friendship as much as business and often the language conflates the two. Clenman senses that his family owe a debt to the Dorrits after he guesses they have wronged them in the past. 
Little Dorrit truly appreciates Clenman's gesture and repays with love by not abandoning him in his hour of need but her father wants him paid off in cold hard cash. Money is even used as metaphor for the fidelity of friendship when Little Dorrit declares her best friend Maggy as "as trustworthy as the Bank of England". Maggy is one of the poor of Bleeding Heart Yard, who are permanently in arrears to their landlord. Pancks, the rent collector, a man who quite readily admits that he lives for his work of getting blood out of a stone, has no patience for bleeding hearts. He is always the voice of harsh common sense, but there is an irony in many of his words that suggests Dickens understood the conundrum that is credit. When the residents of bleeding heart yard offer to vouch for each others' debts he dismisses it as "A person, who can’t pay, gets another person who can’t pay, to guarantee that he can pay."
Little Dorrit truly appreciates Clenman's gesture and repays with love by not abandoning him in his hour of need but her father wants him paid off in cold hard cash. Money is even used as metaphor for the fidelity of friendship when Little Dorrit declares her best friend Maggy as "as trustworthy as the Bank of England". Maggy is one of the poor of Bleeding Heart Yard, who are permanently in arrears to their landlord. Pancks, the rent collector, a man who quite readily admits that he lives for his work of getting blood out of a stone, has no patience for bleeding hearts. He is always the voice of harsh common sense, but there is an irony in many of his words that suggests Dickens understood the conundrum that is credit. When the residents of bleeding heart yard offer to vouch for each others' debts he dismisses it as "A person, who can’t pay, gets another person who can’t pay, to guarantee that he can pay." Pancks constantly ridicules the idea of relying upon other peoples word but later he is swept up by an investment mania for the Merdle Bank. He sincerely believes that he has researched the
matter carefully but actually has only accumulated hearsay that has circulated until it had appeared to be solid. The truth is that Mr Merdle, the man of the age, cannot pay his debts any more than the tenants Pancks collects from but his bank prospers as long as an illusion can be maintained that he can. His reputation grows by recommendation and reference even though "nobody knew with the least precision what Mr Merdle's business was, except that it was to coin money". Everyone wants his association and is willing to forward him credit in both their admiration and their money. A newly wealthy William Dorrit is more than happy to not only invest his fortune but also marry his daughter into the Merdle family, Pancks places his meagre savings and fatefully Arthur Clenman follows suit with not only his money but his business partner's too. 
The votes of confidence merely encourages Mr Merdle to take more risks until disaster hits his bank and it is revealed that he "was simply the greatest Forger and the greatest Thief that ever cheated the gallows".
matter carefully but actually has only accumulated hearsay that has circulated until it had appeared to be solid. The truth is that Mr Merdle, the man of the age, cannot pay his debts any more than the tenants Pancks collects from but his bank prospers as long as an illusion can be maintained that he can. His reputation grows by recommendation and reference even though "nobody knew with the least precision what Mr Merdle's business was, except that it was to coin money". Everyone wants his association and is willing to forward him credit in both their admiration and their money. A newly wealthy William Dorrit is more than happy to not only invest his fortune but also marry his daughter into the Merdle family, Pancks places his meagre savings and fatefully Arthur Clenman follows suit with not only his money but his business partner's too. The votes of confidence merely encourages Mr Merdle to take more risks until disaster hits his bank and it is revealed that he "was simply the greatest Forger and the greatest Thief that ever cheated the gallows". In the early 19th century banks often crashed as they issued credit with no real guarantee they could pay beyond the faith of their customers that this would be the case. Dickens later featured on a ten pound note that bore the same legend as its predecessors: "I promise to pay the bearer the sum of ten pounds". In his time that was exactly what bank notes did, they acted as promise for gold coin kept safe in the bank. Yet as many more notes were issued than there was gold in the bank to redeem them, they were vaults of hope as much as vaults of gold. After the run on Northern Rock, it is becoming clear that banks still function by offering promises that depend entirely upon customers goodwill. As Matthew MacFadyen who plays Clenman in the BBC production explained “Little Dorrit is all about money. It's got banks at the brink of a world recession lending money that they don't have to people who can't afford to pay it back."
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