Chapter Thirteen: Rachael
There is a candle burning in the window of Stephen's room. While Stephen sits he thinks to himself about the larger philosophical questions and mysteries of life and death‹not in an academic way, but in terms of application to his own life. He thinks of all of the people who die despite the fact that they loved others dearly and are dearly missed. In contrast to them all, his drunk wife is loved by no one and loves no one‹yet she lives and survives her own undoing to cause pain to others.
Stephen and his wife are not alone for Rachael is also in the room, tending to the drunken woman. The woman is not in a very good state and Rachael is glad that Stephen has finally come home. A doctor had been by earlier and Rachael reminds Stephen that they all have an obligation not to judge the woman because they are all sinners. Stephen repeats that he is grateful that Rachael is there because he cannot guarantee that he would be able to overcome his desire to do harm to himself and/or his wife. Both Rachael and Stephen are half asleep and Rachael agrees that she will stay with Stephen until three in the morning. Then she will return home.
Stephen sees a bottle on the table; it is mostly empty but it causes him to tremble. Rachael sees that he is in a fit of trembling and she moves to see that he is not feeling too ill. Stephen assures her that he is simply having a fright and that he will soon be better. As he falls asleep, Stephen enters into a "long, troubled dream" that continually blurs with the sad reality surrounding him. He sees himself at his own wedding, happily preparing to marry, except the woman is not Rachael and there is a protest started by one of the witnesses of the wedding. In his half-asleep state, Stephen sees his wife make a move for the bottle on the table but Rachael wakes up in the nick of time. There is a struggle and the drunk woman grabs Rachael by the hair, but Rachael overpowers her and destroys the bottle. Stephen is convinced that Rachael is an angel but she insists that she is not. Still, she is definitely a benevolent force in Stephen's life.
Analysis:
The most important symbol in the chapter is the candle that represents Rachel's presence in Stephen's room and in his life. As a candle, Rachel brings light (clarity and understanding), warmth (love) and constancy (permanent devotion). Along with Sissy Jupe, she is part of the motif of young women who have maternal, caring qualities because they are poor and live hard lives. This is part of Dickens' trademark sentimentality but it is serious enough to establish the contrast between Rachel's candle and the black ladder that is an image of death.
Death is one of the focuses of the chapter, with Stephen's wife only barely recovering from what was almost her deathbed. In a metaphor, death is reduced to the operations of chance and fate in a card game: it "dealt out an unequal hand." Stephen's unequal hand is in the fact of his living-death. He is trapped in between sleep and being awake. Even worse, he can find "now way out" of his present situation in either of these conditions. Alcohol and dreams are both symbolic escapes, but in this case, the alcoholism of the wife has dried out the dreams of the husband.