From “Marked”-ness to Mutual Care: Care Communities and the Marriage Plot in Dickens’s <i>The Old Curiosity Shop</i> and <i>Our Mutual Friend</i>

ABSTRACT Minor characters in Charles Dickens’s novels are often, in the words of Audrey Jaffe, “marked.” When this distinction of character is seen in a character with a disabled body, they are preternaturally able to create a group around them that Talia Schaffer has termed a “community of care.” This can be seen by focusing on the communities surrounding the Marchioness in The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) and Jenny Wren in Our Mutual Friend (1865). The Marchioness attempts to find community through a marital dyad with Richard “Dick” Swiveller, while Jenny Wren finds a wider group of people with whom she can form mutually beneficial relationships. This article explores the impact these two forms of care communities have on marked, disabled female characters, and how Dickens realized the typical marriage plot might not be as effective in providing the care these characters required as he originally believed.