The Battle of Life (1846)

I picked the 51-page story, The Battle of Life as my first novella to read and had it delivered free of charge on my Kindle. This is my second post about the novel, and I’ll post one more post because it is a three-part story.

Feel free to read along with the posts or speed ahead. It doesn’t take long to finish. If you create a post about the novella, I will list the links to my next post. For this post, I created links to each person who commented along with a portion of their comment.

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The Characters

In Part One we meet the main characters, and there are only a few:

List of all of Dickens characters

• two sisters, Grace – simple elegance, refinement, courteous, goodwill & Marion – wished for child, beloved, star of the sea
• their father, Dr. Anthony Jeddler – priceless one
• their two servants, Clemency Newcome – mild merciful, and Ben Britain – son of the right hand, son of the south, son of my days
• their father’s ward, Alfred Heathfield – elf counsel, the only English king known as “The Great,” Heathfield is a name of ancient Anglo-Saxon origin and comes from the family once having lived on a heath, which is an area of level, uncultivated land with poor, coarse, undrained soil and rich deposits of peat or peaty humus.
• two attorneys, Snitchey – Irritable; ill-tempered, and Craggs – a steep or rugged cliff or rock face
• another client of the attorneys, Michael – Who is like God? Warden – custodian, defender, or guardian. 
• Dr. Jeddler’s sister Martha – lady

The Problem

In Part Two we discovered that the problem was that Grace loved Alfred Heathfield, Marion’s betrothed. She did not try to persuade Marion not to marry him, but was willing to sacrifice her love for him and probably remain single. Alfred loved both women with whom he’d grown up, but loved Marion more at the time she left. Michael Warden, the broke gentleman, also loved Marion. However, Marion was not ready to marry anyone.

Part Three: The Climax

Six years passed. Marion returned as though from the dead. She had seen her father in the interim and had corresponded with her sister but most people thought she had either run away with Michael Warden or had died.

We learn the answer as to whether or not she had loved Alfred when she left. If she had truly loved him, then she truly battled and her sacrifice was admirable. If she did not, then it was no sacrifice to leave.

“I loved him from my soul. I loved him most devotedly. I would have died for him, though I was so young. I never slighted his affection in my secret breast, for one brief instant. It was far beyond all price to me. Although it is so long ago, and past and gone, and everything is wholly changed, I could not bear to think that you, who love so well, should think I did not truly love him once. I never loved him better, Grace, than when he left this very scene upon this very day. I never loved him better, dear one, than I did that night when I left here.”

She fooled Michael Warden who thought she was not in love with Alfred.

“I believe he thought my heart had no part in that contract; perhaps thought I might have loved him once, and did not then; perhaps thought that when I tried to seem indifferent, I tried to hide indifference—I cannot tell. … the battle is long past, the victory long won.” 

Michael, the man who had taken Marion away to live with her aunt for six years, returned to find Marion, the one he still loved, was unwed and unbetrothed. In the intervening six years, he had become a kind gentleman who gave a portion of his property to the former servants of Dr. Jeddler. The last paragraph tells the reader, that he won the woman for whom he waited and all well that ends well.

Comments on Part Two Post

• Deb’s World: We’re still working our way through Great Expectations in our on-line bookclub and in our first discussion we noted the names and how descriptive they were.”
• Keep It Alive: “I’ve read the battle of life. Should I write a review?”
• Loving Life: “This sounds so interesting. What a neat challenge.”
• No Facilities: “I am just about ready to make my first post. The Cricket on the Hearth is the first book I’m reading (I joined when there were three to read and I decided to stick with that)/ I didn’t read/choose The Battle of Life so this was a nice post to read. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
• Retirement Reflections: “I love these details that you found out about the name Marion. They make great sense. I believe that the name ‘Marion’ as derived from the New Testament can also mean “Wished For Child”, which also fits here. Dickens was incredibly clever! I love how Dickens creatively invented names to reflect the characters assigned to them and to add greater depth and humour to his stories. In Battle of Life, the sister Grace is actually full of grace, kindness and goodwill. The lawyers, Snitchey and Craggs, are exactly that: snitching/conniving and rough/rugged. You can count on Dickens to never provide his characters with boring/meaningless names! 😀 I love discussions like this! As soon as Dickens mentions a lawyer (he included at least one lawyer in 11 of his novels), I automatically expect bloodless Mr. Vohles (Bleakhouse) or cold and forbidding Jaggers (GE)., so I may be jaded in my reading. Early in the Battle of Life, Dickens plays off contrasting views of the world from Jeddler viewing it as a ‘practical joke…too absurd to be taken seriously’ to Cragg and Snitchey’s view of life as a ‘battle for survival won by the craftiest’ to Clemency’s ‘Do as you would be done by”. At least, that was the way that I read it. ❤”
• Robbie Writes: “This has been my least favourite novella to date. My opinion is based on the fact that I think the behaviours of the two sisters and Alfred was unlikely and even unnatural. That being said, Dickens description of the battlefield in the beginning is sterling, the best depiction of a battle I’ve ever read. It is well worth reading just for that. I’ve re-read it a few times already and am working up to drawing it. I thought Snitchey was actually rather a nice character by the end. He was bound by the non-disclosure rules of his profession, but he did his best to behave appropriately with his knowledge. He was very fond of his friend Craggs which was a positive about his character. His wife didn’t seem to be particularly nice. She was well named as Mrs Snitchey.
• Trent’s World: “I just finished this Sunday night. Interesting.”

The Challenge

The hosts are Trent, Yvette, and me.

• Year One: 2021 –  Little Dorrit
• Year Two: 2022 –  Bleak House
• Year Three: 2023 – One of the Five Novellas of Your Choice 

Get to Know Charles Dickens

Learn more about Charles Dickens from the Charles Dicken’s Museum

This Year’s Invitation:

• For the 2023 #DickensChallenge we invite you to read ANY ONE of Dickens’ five novellas between February 7th and June 9th, 2023 (the dates for the challenge align with Dickens’ date of birth and date of death). Then share about your reading in a post or via comments on one or all of the host blogs. 
• Use this hashtag: #Dickenschallenge if you link a post so we don’t miss you.
• We will be making a master page with info – coming soon 
• Readers can find a nice list of Dickens’s works here: 
• Readers can access some of Dickens’s works on Project Gutenberg here

Don’t forget!

You can also link to What’s on your Bookshelf for even more interactions. Remember that there are four places to link for that challenge.

• Retirement Reflections
• And Anyways
• Women Living Well After 50
• Deb’s World

I also like to list what I’m reading each week to Natalie’s Weekend Coffee Share and read about what others are doing as well.

See you tomorrow for WQ (Wednesday Quotes). There’s still time to post your link for Bridges, or get your new post ready for spring. There are lots of challenges for you to double dip.

• WQ Page
• WQ #13: March 29: CHANGE/WRITER’S CHOICE/DOUBLE DIP CHALLENGES
• #DICKENSCHALLENGE started February 7th. Join Yvette Prior, Trent McDonald, and me in reading ONE – not THREE Dickens’ novellas by June 9th. Donna from Retirement Reflections posted an excellent review on her challenge, What’s On Your Bookshelf this month.

Happy Reading!