Our Mutual Friend is a fiction book written by Charles Dickens. It is one of the most known challenging and fictitious works by Charles Dickens. The main character in the book is John Harmon the son of a tycoon who is to marry a certain lady named Bella Wilfer in order to get his inheritance from the father. He refuses his family’s conditions and leaves. When John Harmon comes back, he comes back with a different identity, John Rokesmith and works in a company close to his fathers. When he was away, he drowned and was supposedly reported dead and so no one new him when he changed his identity. He gets married to the same woman Bella but not because of his father’s riches and conditions, but out of love and his own will. After marrying Bella, he assumes his original identity and inherits his father’s fortune. The book centre’s on an inheritance with conditions and marriages out of riches.
The plot of the book centers on inheritance. It focuses on matters concerning the family and how they force their children into doing things their own way. It also focuses on people changing identities which later bring love between two people who were initially being forced to get married under conditions yet the new nothing about each other. Harmon changes his identity in order to get to know about the woman he is to marry to inherit his fathers wealth.
In this fictitious novel, the theme of rebirth and renewal is prevalent. Characters are seen drowning in water and they come out with new identities and as new reborn men. John Harmon drowns in water and when he is pulled out by Gaffer, he comes out with a new identity, John Rokesmith (Dickens 176). He is later reported dead as another body is presented to his family. In addition, Eugene Wrayburn ends up in water and emerges out although near to death but marries Lizzie who saved his life and he had rejected him initially.
In Our Mutual Friend, Dickens explains the family conflict whereby one has to decide to do what their family wants them to do or being one’s true self and do what they want to do. John Harmon is influenced by his family to marry Bella in order to get his inheritance. His family wanted him to suit his father’s conditions first before getting his inheritance but he refused to follow their conditions (Dickens 240). Even though he ends up marrying Bella, he does it out of love and out of his own will but not out of his father’s conditions. He changed his identity and through that, he fell in love with Bella and he was able to marry her as planned by his family. The same happened with Bella, her mother wanted her to marry John Harmon out of wealth so as to save their family from poverty but she went against her mother expectations. Bella ended up falling in love with John Rokesmith and married him without knowing that he was John Harmon but she did it out of love and not out of her mothers will. Moreover, Lizzie refuses to marry Eugene Wrayburn for the reasons that she will be elevated in the society yet that was every woman’s dream. She feels unworthy for him because he has class and Eugene also feels that he is unworthy of a good and strong woman like Lizzie. At the end, they got married despite the fact that they felt unworthy of each other “she leaning on her husband's arm, O 'tis love, 'tis love, 'tis love that makes the world go round! ” (Dickens 308).
The story is a mystery but the good thing about it is that the mystery is resolved at the end of the book. John Harmon changed his identity after his supposed death in order to observe his intended bride to be Bella. His supposed death worked to his advantage as he fell in love with Bella and married her out of love even though it was not in his initial plan. They got married out of love "Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious, John dear, to cry for joy" (Dickens 769). The couples who were to marry each other out of money or for financial motives ended up getting married but for love.
Our Mutual Friend has strong female characters (Thurley 112). Lizzie rescues Eugene from being killed and also takes care of his father. Rogue is cared for by his daughter despite the fact that he continuously abused her. Furthermore there is Jenny who also is a strong woman who takes care of her worthless and alcoholic father. Lizzie and Bella are the heroines of the book.
The book is appealing because it shows the readers that one should act basing on one’s on ideas and not on conditions given to them by the society. The novel Our Mutual Friend is exciting and one cannot miss out reading it. It is a mystery with lots of characters and many scenes that makes the reader not to stop reading the novel.
Eugene Wrayburn is my favorite character in the novel. He is insolent but good hearted and he is among the characters who survived till the end of the novel. The book is excellent, well written and has exciting plots with engaging characters.
Works Cited
Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. New York: Penguin books Ltd, 1998. Print.
Thurley, Geoffrey. The Dickens Myth: Its Genesis and Structure. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976. Print
Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend with Illustrations. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1865. Print.
