61
Britain as Savior in The Wreck of the Golden Mary Richard Hall, Brigham Young University Good stories come from good storytellers. Charles Dickens attempted to assert himself above all other storytellers in his 1856 Christmas edition for Household Words. As Anthea Trodd notes, this story would be “an example of well-led and disciplined writing” amongst his collaborators to create what he thought would be his best collaborative story yet (203). Dickens constructed this Christmas special to impress readers with his ability to gather various writings under his command. To maintain a vision of “clear hierarchy,” Dickens launches his collaborative story into the sea, with his main character being the “captain,” and longtime friend and co-writer Wilkie Collins “the first mate,” and binding together contributing writers (202, 207). This built-in frame was the foundation for the shared tales that create The Wreck of the Golden Mary.
Dickens strategically depicts himself as a Tar, or British seaman, in this Christmas story to achieve
immediate British approval. Trodd recognizes that Dickens most likely chose a “nautical fiction” to frame his hierarchical story because Victorian Britain had such a “strong national dependence on the seaman” (203). Envisioning himself as a Tar emphasized the fact that Dickens was writing a ship filled with interesting stories. The Wreck’s plot follows an idealistic captain (Dickens), leading emigrants (other writers) in the beautiful Golden Mary , only to crash into an iceberg. While the captain and first mate coddle the survivors, the survivors exchange stories until they are finally rescued. This unfortunate ending to the Golden Mary reflects what Jude Piesse sees as “a deep sense of uneasiness in many mid-Victorian minds about the consequences of mass migration in Great Britain” (38). Indeed, as harsh an ending as a shipwreck in the South Atlantic sounds, a crashing emigrant ship would reflect Dickens’s inherent nationalism, appealing to skeptics of emigration.
While the shipwreck survivors are sharing stories to pass time and maintain optimism, each survi-
vor also expresses their Christian beliefs. Each storyteller embodies a different variation of Christianity. The magnanimous, charitable Captain William Ravender and his first mate John Steadiman, whom Collins claims achieve “courage under Providence”, largely contrast the Scottish apprentice who familiarizes himself with Christian teaching, but also prides himself on what James White says are “of the supernatural kind” (27, 58). There is a clear distinction between the Christianity displayed by British seamen and emigrants. The storytellers
