Mariners or Majors – or what is it that Becomes?
Deleuze attributes to Spinoza a theory of bodies that divides the body up into two parts. The body is composed of an infinite relations of motion and rest, that (and while still being infinite) vary in size – and have a maxim on minimum limit. But at the same time any body is also composed on a certain number of affects – of things that it can do – with the exact number in constant flux, and again depending of the circumstances that body can find itself within. However for Deleuze’s Spinoza this body will have a range of affects – with a lowest and highest number –of them, and to go beyond this limit is to die. Such an interpretation is then very useful of Deleuze, as it allows him to immediately pin –point what he feels is wrong with Spinoza. Spinoza he suggests fails to realize that not only is the number of affects constantly shifting- but also one needs to commence with this shift – with what Spinoza calls twice – the changing capacity to be affected. It is the constant change in this capacity as it looks out on the world, and is caught by it as it varies in the very moment that it reaches out into others- and changes across and through them – that is in the moment it becomes. Here Deleuze is being faithful to is own Bergsonian reading of Spinoza (rather than strictly speaking Spinoza himself). As Spinoza associates this change in the capacity to be affected with a change in a ‘Bergsonianesk’ awareness that duration involves a change which has no comparison in it – but is rather the affirmation of real differences.
Deleuze thereby pulls Spinoza off into his own pre-occupation with time and fits Spinoza into his own history of philosophy, as the nearest miss of all for a philosophy of difference. Now how much (or indeed whether any) of this actually applies to Spinoza is highly contentious- but in a sense spurilous. Whether or not Spinoza said this or said something less or (as I would argue) more interesting than this theory, it does not stop the theory itself from being interesting. This interest perhaps resolving around the manner in which Deleuze is deriving powers (what Spiniza would probably call Being) from the capacity to act (that is form becomings). All bodies therefore become before – and in order to be at all. All beings are then merely an axis or locus of a set of becomings – a sense that there are in them a certain number of given becomings, which together are giving the sense of this being. Deleuze thereby asserts a clear order. First one is caught in relating – in having a capacity to act shifted, and then one sets up within that change a domain – a space in which one exists to a time . Individuals thereby be come nomads of immanence – constantly moving between different states of being. Deleuze then denies the opposite move is possible. All Beings might have becoming, and yet no becoming can have being, as to be is to assume a separate distinct existence that is clearly alien to the idea of becomings. And yet – even it is an illegitimate question – or a question which has no answer – one is left wondering exactly what a Being of becoming could look like? In what sense would it be monstorous – or idoitic? What would it mean for an individual to claim becoming as their being? This question as actually significant . Take the example again of Spinoza. Spinoza will claim that Good and Evil are the consciousness of joy or pain. He will also claim that conscious is the idea of an idea – and is united to the idea in the same manner as the idea is united to the body. From which it follows that as one attempts to grasp Good and Evil one is attributing a kind of being to what is at flux. Now Of course Spinoza will ultimately reject the value of doing such a thing – as he suggests we only react in this way because we have failed to grasp the reality of the situation. However the question then of course must be asked of what exactly we are doing when we see the world in this way? What monsters are be creating when we attribute good and Evil to the world? What could a being of such a becoming look like if it was?
However for Spinoza at least there is a second problem here. The question is not just why does our mind need to create beings of becomings – but also the linked question of how can we avoid understanding in this manner. That is, for Spinoza, understanding as it is usually given in life (if not absolutely) is firmly placed on the idea of beings. He understand objectively – that is through the actual existence or not of things – and can only reach any other world if we go beyond this objectivity in the third kind of knowledge. Spinoza eventually of course, proposes a solution to this problem – namely the common notion. He agues that being ones body gives one being – then through the body and its relation which other beings one must be able to grasp something of the world beyond the simple physical presents or not on beings – something that realities to the manner in which beings an individual objects has tumbled into existing, and are continuing to re-give their nature across that existence. Deleuze of course then suggests that these common notion in fact relate to the way any two or more individuals come together to form a union- and create another greater individual – with all individuals together giving all of nature. Again this move makes little sense in terms of Spinoza (who explicitly rules out this move as the key point about individuals giving an organism is that they are no idea of such a giving of the exact role of others in it 2/19, while the key fact about common notions is that such knowledge is present 2/38. and 39). However, and again this is beside the point. The reason Deleuze needs to make his move (and collapse Common notions which are parallel into a series) is that it gives him the resources within Spinoza to think becomings, as one thinks a common notion one is understanding that one becomes. And yet there is a potential problem here what if an individual never managed to form common notion – and never grasped becomings? What would such an individual look like? And could one understand that individual in terms of the becoming of being? Or even the being of becoming? Indeed this latter problem is likely to be a very real one. Given (as Spinoza argues) there is a tendency to think the nature of the world in terms of beings and not becomings – then much of the time one will be attempting to think the nature of the being of such becomings – so what does such a though look like from the side of being? What follows from it?
Here then there exists a four way access. There is a question as to what the Becoming of Being look like? What does an individual whose being is immediately given in Becoming do? How are they different from humans a they are usually presented? Secondly what would a being of becoming look like – in its raw form? What is so idiotic about it as an idea? What cold such a monster look like? And crossing this axis is another – which asks. What would an individual whom is being constituted by becoming – and yet knows it not look like? And what would an individuals who was attempting to claim know himself as the being of becoming be like? Dombey and Son here is very useful. In Dombey and son there are four characters that give – in differing ways answer to these questions. Firstly there is Captain Cuttles (the only main character in the book who never goes to sea or on a major journey), who gives the sense in which becoming can and does create an immediate being – a man as a bundle of affects. Secondly there is Bunsby – the idiotic being of becoming. A man whose claim to be a philosopher is that he the was been beaten more than any other man or Cuttles’ acquaintance and survived. Thirdly (and slipping into those individuals who do not know becoming) there is Cousin Feenix- a man whose legs take him where they will – and gives the becoming for Being as it knows itself only in being. Finally there is major Bagstock- the man who like Bunsby as a being in Becoming – and yet who only knows himself in terms of a being. I will then examine each of these seperate individuals in turn.
Captain Cuttle in a man both strangely solid, and yet very hard to pin down. His personality is perhaps best summed up by his description of Walter as ‘ an outw’ard and visible sign of an in’ard and sprited grasp ‘ (406). He therefore appears on the one hand to have the most told of being, and yet is lso as one ‘stands by him’ one of the most perplexing and elusive. Or to put it another way – he is the visible sign or being of becoming itself. He is what that which eludes – creates in an elusiveness for itself – and gives – as apparent there and solid and tangible. He is therefore described as an utter innocent who not child could have surpassed, and one whom “faith hope and Charity’…had’ shaped in entire nature among them. An odd sort of romance, perfectly unimaginative, yet perfectly unreal, and subject to no consideration of worldly prudence or practibility …’ and akin’ to the good monster in a fairy tale‘ (776).
Like any good monster he then – even as he appears to sold and fixed, caught in becoming. In very form, thought it appears very solid and tangible – and yet strangely elusive, and induces of becomings to others.. His nose is therefore covered in nobs (97), hjs face is capable of resembling a bed pan, His very form is indistinct – as the hook he has for a hand can at meal time be removed and replaced by a knife (180), whose form however includes clothes (and is unthinkable without them (179) – and hard ceramic hat induces sympathy from the onlooker for the wearer ( 97) . Likewise to visit him is to be then on a strange and possibly pointless journey. These journeys can be real ( Walter get taken to visit Mr Dombey on behalf of his Uncle, (185), Florence to see Bunsby (406), or merely a journey in sense- where all meaning seems to break down (). His very being then is pitched always in becoming. He is that man which becoming creates – the being it gives within the world. Such a being has several key features.
Firstly, then the captain where ever and whenever he is - he is always pitched against chaotic elements – and always defining a small space of order against the chaos (in this of course he is eminently a captain). His Room therefore in Mac-Stingers is room is zone of order (albeit it one strongly impregnated with tobacco smoke) set within the choatic fog of the MacStinger household (181). The captain then operates in exactly the same manner when he goes to life in Uncle Sols shop. Here he sets up a zone of regulation (for which he keeps a log, noting the movement of the traffic outside) and order set against the chaos of the world ((629). What is more, method of either excluding the outside world (In the form of Macstinger 438) or means of guarding the house (776) merely comprised in the exclusion of the outside - and noting more; He therefore when faced with uncertainity simply locks he doors and windows and assumes that will be enough. Leading on from this he is very careful about the number of affects that he takes into his den (that is the number of opening he has on the world), Initially these are restricted to Rob the Grinder, the News Paper, some Moral tomes, and a ships log (and has problems with the fact that Toots will not be excluded (627-8). But once Rob deserted him, and the will of Uncle Sol has been read the sense he is open on the world shifts – he now sits at waits at the door for the Sols return – standing, to the interest of the neighbours in the street looking up and down, and even going to the extent of ordering extra supper one day in the belief that the return was immanent (647).
Secondly, and arising from this last point it is clear the not only (as Deleuze’s Spinoza suggests) is the caption constituted by at any one time a certain number of affects (all of which lie with a certain range or limit) but also and in response to others exactly what these affects are will shift and change through out the novel. Such that although n a sense there is no character development in Cuttles (if by that one means a linear history of change) it still remains the case that the Cuttles at the end of the novel is not identical to the Cuttles at its start. Here then three points need to be established. Firstly one needs to define exactly what the limits of being Cuttles are. That is what it is that define the range of things that make Cuttles – the affects the that cannot be changed without Cuttles dying. Secondly the differing Cuttles need to be (very briefly) accounted for and defined, and thirdly the sense in which a becoming exists taking one from one Cuttles to another needs to be thought. The Limits of Cuttles are carefully defined. In all of his incarnations Cuttles not only wears the same clothes (179 see also 279), and has the same hat and hook (97). He also keeps throughout the same mannerism (such as kissing his hook as a token of regard – and a manner of misquoting the scripture and catechisms , But more than that – what runs across which through the novel is a certain very innocent impenetrability – of face, of thought of behaviour that looks at the world and is look on by the world askanced. (309).
However the way these motives are realized clearly changes throughout the book. The changes are then both across time – with different Cuttles emerging at different times within the Novel – but also is response to particular circumstances – both of which I will consider. The Cuttles of the start of the book is a man who inhabits two worlds within a gulf between. One the one hand then he is in hi room in macstinger. A room of order set in the chaos of the Macstinger Household – in which he cooks and smokes (180). On the other there is outside world which for him consists mainly of visiting Sol and Walter- where he is very much at home. In the former sphere he is then all caution and watchfulness – always aware of the possibility of MacSitingers invasion(180) and forever thinking of strategies for leaving (without any hope of ever fully escaping – 1ibid, and see 437). This then contrasts with the public Cuttles of Sol’s shop where he is anything other than cautious – but is rather a mine of adventures ideas, and an inspiration for visits all designed to aid others (and carried out irrespective of sense or reason). However A different Cutlte emerges when both Walter and Sol have gone abroad, and he have left the Mac-stinger Household. Now one finds a Cuttles in who, the isolation of his existence in the Macstinger household has been enhanced to now include the entire world. In all of it – he fear MacStinger (or her equaivalent) lurks (438). His response is then to withdraw from the world – and to set himself up as a ship wrecked mariner (even as Walter is) who is set against the world. His affects are restricted to polishing the goods of the shop (439),, reading, and keeping a log of the passes by (628); while his previous life and all th memories associated with it shifted into the past- and where remember by him merely as things that ha been (439). Yet another Cuttle emerges when Florence comes to him. Her the old isolationist Cuttle is replaced by the wreckless cook and sponsor. He therefore cooks her (with very great skill) huge meals which she is then utterly unable to eat (773), and tries to buy her new clothes, and claims he should have thrown all his money away long ago, and it was only useful to Florence not hoi, (777). With each of these Cuttles it is not just that the circumstance has changed – but also and just as much that what he is doing alters – each revealing new things he can do – and new ways he is deploying, and developing his nature. There are however and running parallel to these specific ’zones’ of Cuttle are other affects/ways of being that form regularly and are repeated across the entire book. Most noticeably is Cuttle’s response to doubt or worry is always to go on a journey (of some sort). Whether that journey is to get help, advice or merely to reveal his feelings. This response is as true at the end of the book (when his sadness to the fate of Dombey and his happiness in Florence child create confusion in his mind- 949)), as at the start when his worry about Sol lead to a journey to Brighton. Such journies are a topic in themselves. It is clear that throughout the book – and always to Cuttles at least they are productive in some way. He is sure a consequence follows from them – even if, like the advice of Bunsby, he need look for it. But other affects run across all of Cuttles’ incarnations. He clearly associates food with caring, and cooks for those who are at different times close to him (Walter – 180, Rob - 621 and Florence - 773) , as caution with locked blinds. Cuttles is therefore very clearly no a things so much as a set of affects – which develop across time; affect that see his pitches permanently think becoming – and defining in it a certain number of affects of his own.
Finally then in the section it is very clear that what the Captain is, and how he exists changes. What is more these changes are associated with some external interference– which forces him from on set up to another. He never journeys on his own account but always as a response to others. Likewise he does not change any of his states because of something that arises in him. He moves into Sol’s shop then when told of his disappearance by Rob – and changes again when Walter and Florence come to him. His major change arise from his ongoing encounters with the external world. What is more it is clear these encounters involve two elements. Firstly there is an initial shock. This shock is characterized by a frequent repetition of a broken and incomprehensible phrase: For example, he repeats over and over again to Florence, when Walter has returned, (but Florence does not know it), ‘ Walter was Drown aint’ he’ (774),. His alternative response is to fly off into violent and slightly inappropriate response. For example, when he is told of Sol’s disappearance, by Rob the Grinder, he assumes the Grinder responsible (431), and threatens Rob with arrest.. He will then take time to realize what has happened – but when he does he thinks of the state before the change very much in terms of things that has been (439), and can only then be communicated as a story (783-784). In doing all of this then, the good captain understands that one does not just have a being which is comprised of a certain number of ways to do things but also these way emerge in time, and need, to be allowed to come and go, as times change.
Thirdly, there is clearly a profound assymetery in the nature of such a being ability to grasp good and evil. Becoming itself is only positive – and therefore the being that it immediately produces is utterly unable to understand he negative – or respond to the world in terms of being negative. In Captain Cuttle this profound innocence is extreme and his ability to grasp a negative almost non existent – he has for example no idea that Dombey disapproves of Walter and him (197) – or his very slow realization that Walter cannot simply marry Florence without the fear that he has taken advantage of his position (802 – but even here his sadness is one of the inspiration that makes Florence then talk to Walter) or his failuire to grasp the problematic character of Rob the Grinder (628). And yet he clearly has no such lack in grasping the positive, and can intuit perfectly adequately the needs of Florence when she flees to him from her father (762); and is quick enough to intuit when Walter and Florence have become engaged (806). This ability to grasp at the positive shines through even what appears to be his most senseless advice. When Florence asks him therefore whether he is worried when Walter as disappeared – he answer is that Walter would surely have returned long before he thinks it is worth beginning to worry (406). Or to put it another way – rather simply despairing at the apparent disapperance of Walter, one ought to remember what it was that was so competent within him( and made one regard him so highly) and realize thereby that ones very valuing of Walter is itself a source for hope for his return. Or as Spinoza would have it – one needs to sin of the side of hope. Such is the ability of the captain to grasp at the positive, that even when he is told Walter is dead and is morning – he ,manages not just to be sad – but also to remember what he loved most about Walter- and all the Walers than have been ( 545).
Fourthly it is clear that Captain Cuttles’ being is not easily reconcilable with the temporalities of many of the other characters in the book. They will – even when they value him, misunderstand him- and perceive only his all around benevolence, and not exactly what h is doing (so Walter is glad that Bunsby is abroad, and Sol ignores his advice (281,and 451). It is possible here to identify several main types of reaction to Cuttle.. Here the question is very much one of what others might want from becoming – and the being it gives; The question being then coming down to the use they might have or not have for a present, that is always in the act of being something else, Sol, who is the man who thought the future had abandon him in the past – but discovers that in fact the opposite is the case - has two ways of relating to Cuttles. Before the change in Sol’s fortune – Cutttles is clearly a Man who he goes to for comfort, but not real advice. Sure as he is that he is in the past- he sees in Cuttles positiveness, in the face of all futures through which he becomes – a source of comfort. Sol is here no obtaining comfort from Cuttle’s positive being – but rather from the postivity of his becoming..The situation is however clearly different after Sol has made his fortune. He then takes Cuttles on as is business partner – and in spite of the fact that the shop still never makes much money. Here the role of Cuttles is not to comfort a past that has been deprived of a future –but rather to express in the present the joy and contentment – that Sol (who is still caught in the past – he still keeps the shop) cannot (lacking a present) so readily give (he merely then is does not worry about his shop not doing well, but is as misty as before – 973_). It is the Cuttle’s who is able to revel the present (having his name upon the door) – and express in it joy for both of them (972) . This Joy is then expressed in terms of Cuttles final little journey; Across the street to look at the sign in front of the shop. (which has Sol and his name on it). The joy is then being expressed for both the Captain and Sol in terms not of being, but an endless becoming – and an ability to revel in a future turned good.
Toots likewise derives comfort from the Captain. And yet with Toots the problem is a little different Toots is of course the man who is stalked by the future – which leaves him only the smallest of spaces in which he can exist (and be present). Cuttles then offers a solution to this problem – and being in his company – and being caught up in his becoming a way to think about the future (so no winder be consider Cuttle’s parlour an eligible place to come and chuckle (631). However of course here Cuttle and he hit a difficulty. Cuttles does not want to give being to the becoming Toots thinks the is caught in (one that sees Toots and Florence united, not Toots and Walter), he therefore forbids her name being mentioned ; He thereby restricts Toots to a shared becoming ( as ‘ a man’s thoughts is like the wind’ –633), and forbids Toot from demanding that this becoming itself should be given a being.
However there are other darker responses possible to Cuttle.. Take for example Mac Stinger . She clearly embodies a ‘dark Toots’. She is the sense in which the future is forever harrying the present – and driving it elsewhere (she is therefore described as a termengent who indulges in elaborate and pointless rituals -404). For such an individual Cuttles presents a clear problem. As he has being – is something to be harried and hassled – driven this way and that - he is thus far an individual h she has caught, and who has no hope of escape (180). And yet as he becomes he endlessly eludes here- both through repeated escapes (by which he leaves the house), and (in fleeing to Sol’s) escaping her clutches (in a way Bunsby could not). She controls then his being – even though as he becomes – he is capable of being elsewhere (643. Carker has an even more problematic response to the Captain and his becoming. He is of course not interested in the becoming its self (and will dismiss it as mere Jargon ( 549), and yet it is clear that Cuttle’s being – that is his ability to give being to becomings is useful to Carker, in that it gives him access to information (that is presents) he could not otherwise know of. He therefore incites the captain to tell him of Florence and her Walter – information which of course he then turns to his own account (306).
Cuttles is then a man at odds with the other temporalities in the book. This however is most clearly seen in the final coming together of Walter and Florence. Firstly one needs to stress the potential problems associated wit this coming together. Walter has carried into his future not Florence herself – but the memories that she gave him – and his feeling for those memories. The question then of course is whether such memory can be reconciled to the present reality- and what the present reality means. Dickens (and Walter) are very clearly aware of the deep and real problems here (794). Captain Cuttles’ role – superficially in these proceedings will appear tangential – or even ludicrous. But again this is only because the book is at this point being written from the perspective of Walter’s and Florence’s temporality and not his. The captains’ role in the proceedings was then restricted to the ‘making over of property jintly’ (786). The property Cuttles appears to means consists of Cuttles’ big watch, teaspoons, sugar tongs and money (all of which he has already tried to give away twice before – to Walter, and his Uncle) . It is then this giving over of the property ‘Jintly’ that Cuttle’s singles out as the determining factor in Water’s and Florences ability to finally become engaged (807). Here then the good Captain could simply be deluded. And yet it is clear (form the perspective of becoming) something for more interesting is happening, The Captain’s advice – that property – must exist Jinty, and his giving over of property which already has a history – is clearly an incitement to becoming. The captain’s alchemy is working on memories, and the giving over/reconciling of time (hence the giving of the watch). Florecnce and Walter can only become engaged if there memories of given over Jointly – that is become – and the captain – indirectly is attempting to incite this becoming. His action in giving over property Jintly is the initial move (or perhaps setting of the Becoming net) that inspires Florence and Walter to act, and become together. It is then no wonder that he subsequently claims that this move is the best thing he has ever done.
Captain Cuttles then is in himself an enigma in Dombey and Son. He is a character deeply at odds with many of the other characters in the book. A man, who as he is following his own temporality, cannot be easily reconciled with the other temporalities in the book. However he is not alone in this mismatch- It is clear that his friend Bunsby is similarly at odds with the world. If Captain Cuttles is expressing the becoming of being, his Friend Bunsby is in a sense making exactly the opposite move. So that, through him Dickens is wondering what it would look like if Becoming had a being. That is what a being for Becoming would be. His answer is of course that such an individual would be an idiot – but a strangely powerful idiot – one able to achieve what others might not – even at the cost of risking his being. In order to give then an adequately account of Bunsby, three points need therefore to be consider., Firstly the question must be raised – in what sense is he the being for becoming? What after all can such a becoming actively mean? Secondly what then are the effect of his becoming on others? And why does Cuttle’value them so highly. And thirdly why (and how) is it that Bunsby be caught by Macstinger, when Cuttles can escape.
Firstly then what does it mean to be the being for becoming? Bunsby’ main claim be wisdom is that he has survived more knocks and beatings than any man in the Captains aquaintaince (283, and 411). Or to put it another way – his existence has always be given across others – and the attempt others have made to destroy that being. He is the man who can not only survive but also thrive in what would have killed any other man. His appearance then inhuman He is has one eye stationary, and one roving – a mahogany face, and hair like oakum (410) . Such that his very attention in always going elsewhere – and becoming something else – being caught in being something else. His voice and action appear miraculous- his voice therefore ‘seems to have no connection with him, and his hands appeared as if by magic (410) – while he himself alternates between a profound and introspective silence, and inappropriate comments ( 411). That is, every part of his being – is as it is given as his – seems to defy humanity itself. He cannot be – without being given in something other than human. And yet – at the same time, it is the giving of this other that clearly is his being itself. Unlike Cuttles he does not become in a way that other can be caught up in – but rather his monstrousness is all his own – and gives his being. His actions then all reveal a strange mix of being and becoming. He is therefore quite unaware of the correct behaviour to others (he offer Florence and Susan Nipper alcohol, and spontaneously hugs Susan ( 411-412). But also he is said only to act from conviction (that is as a being), however only after he has been able to thoroughly get into his mind any bit of formation relevant to that conviction (that is as his mind has grasped the information in all its becomings – 637). However, once this has occurred – he immediately expresses himself (his being) in a becoming. He doe not then simply write to say he is coming over- but sends a boy with the mysterious message ‘ He is coming tonight’ (ibid). Bunbsy then has is being arranged across becoming that would destroy any other individual, In that of course Cuttles is right to revere him. And yet, in giving all these becoming as his being, in having them as his being, Bunsby of course do not in himself experience these becoming as anything other than what he is. As such he lives then not as creative change- but rather as simple idiocy.
Bunsby’s power over others then rests on this fact ha everything about him (his being) is given in becoming. If one asks Bunsby’s advice (and Cuttles to Dickens amusement treats Bunsby as an Oracle), he answers with apparently near meaninglessly and almost totally unrelated series of statements; and then claims those statements are only aposit to the case as they are actively applied to it (which is not part of the Oracles job – 415). His reply then always comes down to a bald statement (but not an incite for) of becoming.. Cuttles of course the man, whose being follows becomings, cannot do anything by admire such remarks., Bunsby as far as he is concerned appears to inhabit pure becoming (and therefore the realm that posits Cuttle’s own being), and is therefore justly an oracle and a philosopher ( he therefore estimates the value of Bunsby’s remarks according to how he cannot understand them – 640). What is more Bunby has power over Macstinger (where Cuttles has none). Macstinger gives a sense in which a future can be thought to harries a present. She is therefore initially is pacified by Bunsby, a man who appears all becoming, and so lacks a present to harry., MacStinger cannot easily get her teeth into Bunsby, and rather it is he who pulls her elsewhere, and reducing her to near tears (645). Bunsby’s (short-term) power is the founded upon his very contagious elusvity, which whisks up others into it. And yet here is also his tragedy as this very ability to apparent elude the present that comprises Bunsby’s very being (that is ironically the sense he has a presence at all). So that unlike Cuttles, who has no being that cannot be re-given (and so no present that is defintive), Bunsby can be caught by the odious MacStinger, once she has worked out exactly what this presence is. Moreover once he is caught, Bunbsy is aware he cannot esacpe (he has no being beyond the capture) and that therefore he can only then acquiesce to what amount to forced marriage ( 954).
Cuttles and Bunsby form then a pair – one is the becoming for being, the other the being of becoming, And yet I as discussed above – there I another more problematic possibility. What if, given understanding is on the side of being, one had individuals who where the becoming for being or the being o becoming, and yet only understood the being side of the formula? What could such individuals look like- how would they talk and behave? Dickens again answer this question – by setting up another pair of individuals as the poles to Cuttles and Bunby – namely Cousin Feenix and Major Bagistock (who together constitute to Dombey the ‘world’), and of whom the first is the Cuttls equivalent, and the second the far darker Bunsby equivalent. I will examine each then in turn.
Cousin Feenix represents a being that is caught by becoming – which he cannot know. As such he has three distinctive features of his own. Firstly he is a man who is caught up by chance. He never therefore simply chooses to go anywhere- but is rather deposited by his legs which always talk where they will (and much to his surprise). He is therefore cauhgt in journeys – or staying put – but either way with little idea of why he is doing so (596). What is more he is a man who is introduced as being able to go to the place (Warwick castle) time and time again – but to enjoy it equally every time (464). But he is also a man who is quite capable of finding himself within the middle telling an ‘inapprioate yet accurate story – about a friend who went to a wedding of a beautiful pride a rich man who did not care for one another (597). Nor are all these thoughtless acts silly or tactless. It is Feenix’s eventual bringing together of Florence and Edith after the latters flight, which is vital to Ediths eventual redemption. He is then a man caught up in a becoming – and witnessing a becoming – and yet utterly unaware of the fact. He is given only after the event – as he is journeying or truth speaking – and has no ability (in the name of tact) to step beyond this catching.
His opinions are then constantly shifting as the exact becoming he is caught up in – changes. He is therefore – when standing before the outraged Dombey perfectly content to say to Dombey that if Edith was guilty – he would not hinder him is any lawful proceeding he took concerning his wife (812); and yet when Edith comes to him for protection – it is clear he is an equally willing to give here sanctuary. His opinion are then never constant – even thought they will no doubt appear to him absolute throughout. Or to put it another way – as the becoming he is caught is shifts – he changes the nature he has. And yet (as if Cuttle) there is a clear individuality existing throughout these shifts, albeit a strange one. This individuality is not (as with Cuttle) comprised of a number of things Feenix always does and an number of objects he has, but rather a certain pride. Here Feenix is operating very much according to Hume’s principle of identity. Hume suggested that what underpinned human identity was always pride. A Human as they thought of things – usually possessions which were useful in their own right and which belonged (in someway) to them, they produced not an idea of themselves as the thing that owned the object, but a feeling or pride which formed the corollary of the feeling of pleasure these objects produced. Identity the came firmly after event- and the world, and was defined exclusively in terms of how one managed to locate an idea of oneself within the world. In Feenix case his pride is given in his pride over his family and his friendship (531) – and perhaps in particular his ‘accomplished and beautiful relative’ (Edith). Cousin Feenix then – is a man who has met the challenge of being a captain Cuttles who fails to grasp becoming – by using his pride to create an innocent account for himself – and a space in which he can be., As such (and running country to the more destructive prides in the book) his is relatively benign and helpful – allowing as it does the creation of an endlessly fluid, and strangely forgiving personality.
If Cousin Feenix is the Cuttle equivalent – then Major Bagistock is surely the Bunsby equivalent. Major Bagstock will be formed as a being that exists in Becomings. But here this being is paradoxical, as it will not of itself grasp the becoming as such. It will not know them for becomings (and the philosopher Bunsby, did) but rather attempts to assert its idenity – its being, across all these diverse becoming. Such an individual does not then create these becomings, nor does not it actually become in itself (in shape or form). The move is rather that Being annexes to itself a certain set becomings. In doing this, it is not, of course, annexing the becoming as such (and indeed remains unaware of becoming), it is rather the case that it is claiming to be the sole owner of that which will become – and have exclusive rights over the product any becoming produces. This move is far from uncommon in philosophy. Any philosophy that attributes becomings to an individual – and some how ties them therefore a specific being will move in the orbit of the Major. For example a conventional reading of Spinoza’s concept of Conatus – as the striving of an individual to be, could easily be turned (if applied to Deleuze’s reading of Spinoza) into an annexing of becoming. Such a conatus would have rights over the becoming in which it found itself – and yet would, as it strives to survive, wish to assert its identity over the becomings. It could only achieve such a paradoxical move by striving to maintain an exclusivity these becomings – and by furiously ‘defending’ itself against the inroads of others. Such an individual then., like the Major would be highly vulnerable to others annexing what it was- and would need to send much time in defending what it was . The Character would be selfish – and yet arranged across complex becomings , injected across becoming that they cannot actually control but which it will desperately belong to its nature. On a deep level then such an individual could only echo the Major who boasts that if he wishes to achieve anything he need not (and in spite of his self-alledged Cunning) do anything to achieve his goal. As fate itself will always be on his side, and come to his aid (187)
. Or to put it another way – there will be a becoming – across which he can injet his identity if only he waits long enough. . It is clear that the Major’s (the Conatus’s) attempt to own a set of becomings as its very occurs involves many different aspects/ moves. Firstly such a move is essentially problematic, and is always in peril (as the Major is) from the external world. Secondly it is clear that such a being will have a problematic nature with being one and many – and indeed in the Major one sees various strategies for explaining to himself and others this sense of identity. Thirdly is equally clear that running through his personality will be a strand of utterly selfishness – and self importance- that no occasion can occlude. Finally (like Cuttle) is also clear that a man who is always giving a being in becoming is living in a very different time to other characters – and as such will useful to them. Each point I will then consider in turn. Running across all these moves is the theme of the complexity of Selfishness as a phenomena. Selfishness combines two quite separate moves within it. Firstly the assertion of an ownership over what is already there – an ownership which one has not rights to. And secondly, an assumption that selfish ownership is somehow the natural cause of all events in the world. That is, it is a key feature of the very definition of selfishness , that, (and even as it exists in being alien to what it annexes), it will (ironically) remain abstract- and universal. From which it in turn follows that once one thing is considered selfish, then immediately – all things are by definition selfish – and selfish without limit. Or to put it another way the very definition of selfishness is a cause of itself. Once one has defined it, the selfish will then naturally become explanatory pancea capable of infolding an and every complex becoming in its assassinating embrace.
Firstly is very clear that the Major has some difficult in holding himself together. He might be the being of becoming – and yet the becoming he is – the moves he is caught in being always (to a degree) at least risk his identity. This is seen particularly at meal times – which are described in terms of peril for him. This is of course because – he gains a strong feeling of his own identity in devouring – and in all the blind and selfish becomings of eating. He therefore ensures that all the good things on a table are his end (and endlessly augments them with extra potions of his own – 453). The effect then of this over indulgence was that his voice was rendered hoarse (358) , while he himself is blue and seems in danger of exploding (). The danger here of course quite real; As he gives his being in becoming – there is always a risk that one of those becoming might suddenly hook up with another – and choke him (quite literally) out of his being , as it is pulled out of his orbit. In another (and figurative) sense this did indeed happen with Miss. Tox. Miss Tox had been very much part of his life and private set of becoming – which is then much to his changrin jolted from him – when she becomes interested in the Dombeys (145-146) – or again when Dombey goes bankrupt. The contrast then is with Bunsby (and it is noticeable that they both have a face made of wooden, but where Bunsby in Mahogany, while the major is merely wooden) . Both then have an issue with the danger of being for becoming. However here the dangers are very much the opposite of each other. Bunsby faced no danger from his becoming – as his being was very much constitutes across the ability he has to avoid such danger. The Major in contrast (ignorant as he is of becoming themselves), can have no such certainty. All he can do is take elaborate precautions to avoid it ( he buttons up his coast and recommends others to do so – 675). However when it comes to their respective beings themselves it is clearly the situation is reversed. Bunsby’s being is in danger – from the like of Macstinger- who can capture it., and when this does occur he cannot effect any escape (as all his becomings would merely give the being he already was). The Major of course faces no such difficulty. He is on the contrary very proud of his ability to elude marriage (albeit a fictous one -145). This is, of course because (unlike Bunsby), he is very aware of what his being is – and how to use his becoming (which he knows by the powers they give him) as his own.
The second point identified above concerned the sense that being for becoming can retain is identity (its being) across the becomings that should undermine it. Dickens creates in Major Bagistock, an elegant solution to this apparent paradox. His case is that a Being (the Major) can arrange itself across becoming, as long as it experiences that Being as something multiple. Bagistock does this in three main ways. Firstly he ceaselessly talks of himself as the Bagistock breed, He is then not a single thing – so much as a race in himself or a breed a part. Secondly and even more interestingly he never refers to himself as a singular thing – but rather constantly on third person terms with his name. But this name is then of itself not constant. He refers to himself therefore as a shifting kaleidoscope nick names he has for himself ( Joey B, old Joe, Joe Bagistock etc), as he chart the shifting becoming that still include him within them. One can then have an idea of the being of a set of becomings, Being as a set of becomings, then if one becomes utterly plural, and multiple, and content to inject as it were that being, that still being you across all these becomings. Finally (and in opposite to Bunsby_) it is clear that the majors becomings need not be singular. Bunsby simply owned all his becomings (and had them for his identity). In the Major’s case it is a little more complex- as there is no reason why he cannot extend his becomings to include others. Just so long as this inclusion will also posit (in someway) the Being of Joey B. he therefore takes pain to know, and boast of his knowledge of,Dombey.. He will then forever quote to others his name and Dombey’s together – as a pair of linked individuals, who cannot be given singular- but must always be caught together. The world would then be better if it had ‘ a few more men among you like Old Joe Bagistock and my friend Dombey’ (200). There is therefore nothing in selfishness that ties it down to one individual person. I can just as easily be selfish over other people’s actions as my own – as it is selfishness itself that defines the identity (and not the other way around). Indeed (and following the course that set up this dark Deleuzian Spinoza) one might say that the greatest selfishness and the greatest power, occurred when a large number of individuals annex each others becomings to themselves – and inserted themselves- and their own selfishness across them,
The third critical point about Bagistock is of course his utter selifisheness. Not only does he restless pursue his own interest– but he is also utterly mercenary in that pursuit: He will therefore as quickly abandon Dombey when he is ruined – as he ruthlessly made his aquaintence. Such Selfishness is of course not accidental. It is rather the case that both what he is, and how he is, can only be given in a selfish annexing of elements within the world. That is, The Major is only able to give his Being by reflecting every becoming back to himself, and giving himself as adequate to the lot (and by implication the world and everything in it). One could say then that for the Major it is being that is internal to selfishness (rather than the other ways around). . And yet (as I will discuss below) this selfishness is also is curiously universal. The Major’s selfishness will then not just convey being upon the Major, but will also, and even as it does give this being, insist that the rest of the world is merely comprised of similar selfish beings.
Fourthly and perhaps most interestingly there is a clear abstraction in the Major’s becomings. He might be utterly selfish – and his ability to abstract being from a nest of becomings which he has not directly participate in – might always be turned to his own service – and yet there is not need for it to be so. I mean here that the same ability of twisiting becomings to give being could be attributed to other individuals – such that the Major can always abstract his behaviour into the behaviour of others. This abstraction then comes into it own in the period of Dombey’s career immediately following Paul’s death. At this period the Major is clearly useful to Dombey in two ways, This use centres then of the fact that the Major’s ability to take up a becoming and claim it as a testimony of a being has a certain resonance within Dombey’ own manner of being temporal. Dombey does not of course operate like this himself (as he is arrange in time differently). However, it is the case that the Major’s fundamental move, in that it takes up a set of indeterminacies (which relates to a future), and injects across then a being, will reflect Dombey’s own move, which involves always inhabiting a future in the name of a past.. In a sense the Major’s manner of operating is almost the abstraction of Dombey’s own process. Although perhaps it is truer to say it an abstraction of his process as it exists in the future – rather than as relates to the past. That is, it gives in abstract, the sense whereby a multiple diverse futures, can caught up within a single testimony of being. The Very abstract nature of the Major’s selfishness allows to others to be included within it. It will therefore lend to Dombey something he (Dombey) would otherwise have lacked, namely a flexibility in setting the future that is to be inhabited in the name of the past. At such a time Selfishness’ mode of operation is to set up a zone of indiscernibility between its methodology and the methodology of others, whereby these others are caught by it –and come to be understood as somehow selfish. This understanding could equally relate to someone else (who is seen them as selfish) or to oneself. In the period after Paul’s death, the Major creates both such ‘selfishness’ for Domeby.. The first one is the means by which he destroys Miss Tox’s association with Dombey. The Major here simply takes her behaviour – and attributes to it – his own motives, thereby treating it as if it was in the service of being. –and not the more innocent dual tense relation in which it was located (347-348). The second selfishness is certainly the and more importantly one, and comes into operation when Dombey (and the Major) meets Edith/. The Major responds to this occasion by giving Dombey an account of her life, which he ends with the remark that he (the Major) would richer marry her , if only he were richer (365). He therereby creates –a being, which is created in selfishness, and yet is suspended between the himself and Dombey. He then presents this being to Dombey (almost as if it where a suite of clothes), and as something which might well suite his purposes – that is his pride, to be ( 366).
The Major’s being and the selfishness that gives that being is far from a simple phenomena. Not only is that selfishness itself only possible in that it is arranged across muliple different elements (many different J.B’s) that together make a breed – but it can enfold its cloak over others that it (so long as they are thereby caught up in the Bagistock purpose). In this being many – Bagistock show how Being can grasp at becoming it cannot understand – or explain – and creates a complex affect of multiple and strangely impersonal selfishness – in which it is easy to become ensnared. It is then this very abstraction of selfishness that is for Dickens so dangerous. Once one has asserted ones own identity across what becomes, and done so irrespective to what is happening within these becomings – then two things follows. Firstly (and to a degree positively) one is caught at a nexus point of temporality. In its very abstraction – selfishness encloses a range of possibility – or ways a self can be given. To be selfish then – pure and simple is to be able to suspend ones action. And yet at the same time as it conveys upon one this suspension – it removes are possible criteria for making a judgement as to what ones actual advantage might be. Ones advantage and the selfishness become absolutely confused with one another- and anything one does- any chance that fits in the pattern of selfishness – will become equally good. So that in making all things possible it equally erodes any way of valuing them save itself. The resul, to men of action such as Dombey is of course disastrous. He can make not effective choice between selfish acts – and will be, guided by the Major, unable to realize when the choice he is making is likely to be disastrous for him. This suspension being then particular problematic for Dombey as a dual tense character – as the selfishness that has caught him up itself is operating exclusively within his defined tense – that is within the future that he wishes others to participate in. In this tense it works to cast around – and find new ways for this future to be giving a past. Dombey of course who only exists once this giving is given – as no ability to make a sensible within this domain – and will then jump at the first opportunity – irrespective of whether it really suites him or not.
The richness of Dombey and Son lies, in part, in the shere multiplicity of types of time within the book. In the previous essay I identified dual tense relationships that are embodied in characters and their affects across the book. Different people are then caught in being different time – and struggle in this problematic situation across the course of the book. In this section I have then outlined a totally different sought of time that also is presenting the book – a time of becoming and being – both imply the other – and insinuating itself into the other. This relation then is given in four characters who thereby exists is quite a different time to the other characters in the book. Their role then being forn an alternative locus of time – and alternative way of transforming – into which and at certain times the dual tense relations fall – and across which they can be transformed. These four character are always out of synch with the other elements of the book – and always caught in a time of their own. Thus time has running across it a fissure of knowledge. If character a character is aware of its becoming – then whether it if the becoming for being or the being for becoming, there will be a certain innocence of creativity running across everything it . It can do nothing more that create– and is thereby located firmly within the innocence of Deleuze’s Spinoza, who assumes that the jump to creative immanence, is enough to escape suffering in the world. However if such a character fails to jump into becoming – but remains an acolyte of thought and firmly located within Being then the result is selfishness. If that selfishness is given after the becoming – and as its result – it still can be innocent. However the same cannot be said if that selfishness somehow claims becomings as its being. This is the selfishness of the Major – who by annexing the world of becoming for himself – creates a persuasive and contagious selfishness – that is capable of dragging everything in its wake . It thereby confuses actions – or rather captures all actions in its own indifference . It is then from this abstract point that it will manage to re-negiociate the manner of being of an action – giving it the possibility of other manners – other ways to exist – and yet at the same time undermining any possibility it has to judge between such manners. Dickens thereby reveals to power of innocence, and the power of selfishness as pitched in the world of action – and as set against actions, (and knowledge) – a world which it endlessly confuses and complexifes.