Humphry Clinker: Study Questions

1. Like many eighteenth-century novels, Humphry Clinker is written in letters. To what extent does Smollett use this device to show us different subjective views of reality? What, in fact, are the differences? What are the relations of the letter writers to the nature of what they report? Particularly, what is the relationship of letter writing as the self-expression of character to letter writing as the description of other letter writers? How would you compare Smollett's handling of letters to that of Richardson?

2. The characters of Humphry Clinker move from place to place, and as they do so, the novel provides us with quite different evaluations of such quite different places as Bath, London, Yorkshire, and Edinburgh. What are the thematic significance and structural functions of this emphasis on place? In particular, what is the specific nature of Smollett's attack on urban life? Does he give preference to regional over national society?

3. Though Humphry Clinker does have an actual plot (in fact, several of them), it does not seem of much importance for much of the novel. Or does it? What is the significance of plot? Is it merely a mechanical addition to a novel that really works on other principles? In what senses is the resolution of the plot a resolution of the novel itself?

4. The notion of plot implies a sequence of causes and effects that moves towards a conclusion. An alternative view of Humphry Clinker (and other novels) is as a journey. But a journey from what to what? And how do the steps along the way help the journey to move? What is the usefulness of a journey image for the novel? (How would you compare the journey structure of Humphry Clinker to that of Tom Jones?

5. Some of the characters of the novel (Matthew Bramble, Humphry Clinker) are noticeably odd; others (Lismahago, Tabitha Bramble) seem still more than odd. What is the function of eccentric characters in Smollett's novel? De we laugh at these characters so as to dismiss them, or are we sympathetic to them? If we are sympathetic, what is our reaction to their eccentricity? Is there a connection between eccentricity of character and the major themes of the novel?

6. In addition to eccentricity of character, we must also deal with disguise and mistaken identity in several forms and at several levels of plot-as sources of both comedy and pathos. Is the manipulation of disguise and identity a mechanical device of plot, or does it have some thematic depth? Are the disguises and mistakes in any way related to one another? Are they related to other elements of the novel and especially to the variety of pretensions that are satirically examined?

7. The various letter writers seem to have individualized styles, Win Jenkins's being perhaps the most comic and pronounced (or mispronounced). What is the relation of eccentricity in character to eccentricity in language? What do the stylistic eccentricities conceal and reveal? Does Smollett himself have a characteristic style?

8. What, specifically, are the relationships among the Bramble-Melford clan? What are the attitudes of the characters towards one another? To what extent and in what ways do they change in the course of the novel? To what degree does the collection of characters become a family, and how?

9. Much of the treatment of Bramble's character revolves around issues of medicine and health. (His correspondent is, of course, a doctor; for that matter, Smollett was a doctor himself.) What do you make of the issues of sickness, pollution, sanitation, treatment, and health? What is the metaphorical meaning of health in the novel? How physical are Smollett's and Bramble's physical concerns?

10. Smollett seems to touch upon politics in a number of senses, both broad and particular: the organization of power in the state, the behavior of people in power, the grounds and nature of authority, the contrast between official justice and a higher or more personal justice, the problems of colonialism or of Anglo-Scottish relations, the nature of the family itself as a political unit. What are Smollett's politics? Is there a consistent pattern in the various kinds of political behavior he explores?

11. Smollett refers to a number of actual people in his novel (including himself on several occasions). Does the novel somehow override the distinction we tend to make between fiction and facts? In what senses can one speak of Humphry Clinker as a realistic (i.e., historical) novel?

12. Smollett was Scottish; Bramble is Welsh; Humphry Clinker tours through much of England and Scotland. Lismahago reports (if strangely) on colonial experience. In what ways can we think of the novel as about the constitution of British nationalism? Consider particularly the relationship between ethnic differences and national identity.

13. Supposed you were hired as a curriculum consultant by a nursing home, and asked to put together a course on "literature for the elderly." Would you include Humphry Clinker? (It was, after all, written at the end of Smollett's life and has a relatively old man as its central character.) Look at the novel with the eyes of an elderly person: what does it say about age and aging?

14. Some of the most grossly comic characters of the novel are women, and the novel seems to supply an often grotesque survey of female sexualities (from Lydia down to Win Jenkins) and female roles. Humphry Clinker seems to offer a rich test case for the problems of describing and evaluating the issue of gender in a comic and satiric novel. How would you do so?

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