Note 6 to Chapter 8 of the author's Dickens and the Rhetoric of Laughter which Clarendon Press published in 1972. It has been included in the Victorian Web with the kind permission of the author and of the Clarendon Press, which retains copyright.
It is true, of course, that Mrs. Clennam's version of bitter retaliation is not approved of, primarily because it is unbalanced and not properly directed. It is also true that the answer suggested by Amy Dorrit is not that of the landlady, but this only indicates, I think, that the landlady's response is not fully adequate. There is no real sense in which it is wrong.
Last modified: 3 May 2001