Dombey and Son

The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion—Death!

Son's death, Florence's neglect, Edith's flight, and Dombey's ruin reverse into daughter reconciliation — pride broken into domestic redemption with classical clarity, so plot scores 91.

Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and though a handsome well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance, to be prepossessing.

Dombey, Florence, Paul, Edith, Cuttle, and Gills are typed yet warmly individuated — proud merchant against Midshipman loyalty — without flattening into allegory only, so cast scores 90.

Honest Captain Cuttle, as the weeks flew over him in his fortified retreat, by no means abated any of his prudent provisions against surprise, because of the non-appearance of the enemy. The Captain argued that his present security was too profound and wonderful to endure much longer.

Sixty-two serial chapters; Paul's death and Edith accelerate, while Cuttle/MacStinger comic fortifications dilate the middle rather than thriller tempo, so pace scores 85.

When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, and quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew that evening was coming on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. As the reflection died away, and a gloom went creeping up the wall, he watched it deepen, deepen, deepen, into night.

Lyric Dickens at full stretch — muffin newborn, golden-water sunbeams, 'old, old fashion—Death!' — mercantile satire fused with elegy, so prose scores 93.

The barrier between Mr Dombey and his wife was not weakened by time. Ill-assorted couple, unhappy in themselves and in each other, bound together by no tie but the manacle that joined their fettered hands, and straining that so harshly, in their shrinking asunder, that it wore and chafed to the bone.

Dombey House, Blimber, Midshipman, railway — commerce mapped as household theology where pride becomes a manacle between spouses, so world scores 90.

Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new.

The muffin toasting simile beside the darkened room instantly names firm pride as moral disease before plot widens — comic and ominous at once, so hook scores 92.

CHAPTER I. Dombey and Son Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead…

The house-name as tragic irony — succession theology cracked by the heir's death and redeemed through the neglected daughter — anticipates Dickens's later firm-and-family designs, so innov scores 88.

A bottle that has been long excluded from the light of day, and is hoary with dust and cobwebs, has been brought into the sunshine; and the golden wine within it sheds a lustre on the table. It is the last bottle of the old Madiera. “You are quite right, Mr Gills,” says Mr Dombey. “This is a very rare and most delicious wine.”

Last Madeira with Gills and Cuttle — reconciliatory sunshine after pride's crash, schematic but earned among Midshipman friends, so ending scores 89.