Note 2 to the author's "Great Expectations in "The Tuggses at Ramsgate," or, The Importance of Being Cymon"
The husband's overly-defensive nature is unconsciously signalled by his first name — "Walter" or (by no great extension) 'Walled Tower', and underscoring his waterish nature. Although his name has no obvious biblical or literary associations, it nevertheless serves to underscore his dominating, bellicose temperament, for it is constituted "of the elements meaning 'rule + army'" (Cresswell 238). In Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838), later collected in Sketches of Young Couples and Young Gentlemen by "Boz." And of Young Ladies By "Quiz." Il. "Phiz" (London: Chapman and Hall, 1884), Dickens with a note of bitterness described such captains and colonels and other gentlemen in red coats on the stage, where they are invariably represented as fine swaggering fellows, . . . rowing over the inferior classes of the community, whom they occasionally treat with a little gentlemanly swindling . . . . (182)
Last modified October 28 2000