Grotesque caricature: black comedy

Dickens habitually used grotesque caricatures in his novels: sometimes for sheer comedy (Mrs. Gamp), sometimes as melodramatic villains (Quilp), sometimes for satirical purposes (Bumble, Mrs. Sparsit). But a sign of his increasing concern with the darker side of life is the grimmer material from which he fashioned the still very funny grotesques of his last novels. In early days, stage misers, conventional money-lenders, obvious hypocrites, and comically malevolent tooth-gnashers were his staple grotesque types. In his later books a less sociable association with death and corruption than that represented by undertakers (Mr. Sowerberry, Mr. Mould) was likely to inhere in the sources to which he turned for comic material.