 Chapter Eleven: No Way Out
The next day, Stephen Blackpool is back at work, bent over his loom. He is depressed about the woman who has appeared in his room but he does not let this get in the way of his work. His work began early in the morning when it was still dark outside but as it grows later, the lights are shut off and it begins to rain outside. When Blackpool has his lunch break he takes his piece of bread and walks towards Mr. Bounderby's house to seek some advice. Bounderby is the owner of the factory. Stephen finds Bounderby at lunch eating a lavish meal and Mrs. Sparsit was sitting in the room as well, but she did not eat lunch by habit.
Bounderby asks Stephen what his problem is, noting that as an employer he is glad to say that he has never had any problem with Stephen. Unlike many of the other workers, Stephen isn't looking for luxuries like "turtle soup and venison." Bounderby is pleasantly surprised when Stephen confirms that he has not arrived to make a complaint. He only wants advice. With permission, Stephen begins his story.
The woman who apprehended Stephen the night before was the same woman that he married nineteen years previous. He was very good to her, but she became a drunkard and sold the furniture and refused to work. After some time, she disappeared and no one heard anything from her. As a decent gesture, Stephen looked for a way to provide for her without being attached to her lifestyle. For the previous five years, he paid her money to stay away from him and it worked until now. Bounderby does not have very much advice though he does agree that Blackpool is in a very bad situation. Stephen wants to know how he might be rid of the woman and Bounderby and Mrs. Sparsit are both offended.
Stephen would much rather be with Rachael but what he learns from Bounderby is that any sort of annulment or divorce or separation from the drunk woman is going to cost a good deal of money‹far more than Stephen will ever have. Bounderby goes further to express his disappointment in Stephen's "unhallowed opinions" and the fact that he would air them in front of a decent lady like Mrs. Sparsit. Stephen does not linger at the scene; he thanks Bounderby for his time and exits.
Analysis
The narrative structure of the novel often uses various chapters as parallels or as cause-and-effect sequences. In this case, "No Way Out" might be compared to "A Loophole" in the same way that we can contrast the lack of freedom suffered by the poor (Stephen) and by children (Tom and Louisa Gradgrind). It is also worth noting that for all of Mrs. Sparsit's hypocrisy, she parallels Stephen Blackpool as the spouse of a drunk (her husband died of alcoholism in France). Finally, on the subject of marriage, Stephen's fate foreshadows Bounderby's marriage (presented at the end of Book One) and by the end of the novel, Bounderby will find himself in a similarly awkward situation.
The tone of this chapter is incredibly negative in regards to Sparsit and Bounderby. While they weren't the favorite characters before this point, Dickens' characterization is really a social commentary on class conflict and the difference between the lives of the rich and the poor. While Sparsit is described as a "fallen lady," there are more intense images of verticality in the lives of the poor: the serpent, the rising smoke, Lucifer the fallen angel and the grim, black ladders attached to each house. Each of these images becomes an explicit symbol of how easy it is for the poor to fall farther into the dumps. On the one hand we have Blackpool whose steady fall throughout the novel is simply on account of his already being down and having no other direction in which to travel. On the other hand, characters like Bounderby and Sparsit will also suffer their own social "falls" but it will be on account of their hubris, excessive pride.
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