Pickwick Papers

Before becoming a novelist, Dickens was a legal clerk and court reporter, and as a child he visited his father in debtors’ prison. His firsthand experience with England’s courts and prisons of that era informs many of his novels, particularly Bleak House, and the inequity of the justice system is a central focus throughout The Pickwick Papers, especially during the court proceedings of Bardell v. Pickwick and Pickwick’s experience in prison. The novel depicts Bardell v. Pickwick as an entirely farcical trial in which no evidence except a misunderstanding shows Pickwick’s guilt. In Chapter 34, Mrs. Bardell’s lawyers present evidence against Pickwick that they’ve completely contrived and then try to convince the jury that Pickwick’s simple messages to Bardell were “covert, sly, underhanded communications” (605) by interpreting ordinary objects as codewords. The whole trial is based on Bardell’s misinterpretation of Pickwick’s intentions, not unlike the other sham trial the Pickwickians face at Nupkins’ house. Pickwick is again assumed to have intentions he doesn’t when Miss Witherfield believes that Pickwick wants to duel Mr. Magnus.

The arrests of Sam and the other Pickwickians are similarly based on misunderstandings during the public procession made of Pickwick’s arrest, and no actual evidence is ever brought against Pickwick when Nupkins considers his guilt.