This essay will focus on the collapse of William Dorrit (Bk 2, ch 19) and examine William's imprisonment into self-deception in this passage because of his moral debts to society and Amy. , what effects this has on his character in the novel as a whole, and whether his collapse and death can be seen as an escape from or submission to the "crippling stagnation" (Daleski, 1970) of his imprisonment. to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Self-deception is not unique to William, and Showalter (1979, pp. 23) suggests that it might even be a means of survival in the Marshal Sea, which the "locals maintain a precarious identity by systematically denying the reality of their situation.” Just as the prisoners pose as college kids, Dorrit also pretends to be above his station; his welcome speech asserts that he is "no beggar" (Dickens 1996, pp. 614) and he survives on the euphemistic terms "testimonies", "subscriptions" and "tributes" which he creatively fails to address. recognize, for example by taking them in a hidden way. packages or via a handshake. So one could say that self-deception is what keeps William alive and well for so long; it is to the Marshalsea's refuge of self-deception and grandeur that William retreats in his final days. When Amy first refuses Arthur's help, she acknowledges this point, that liberating the Sea from the Marshals "might be anything but a service to him... He may not be treated so kindly outside…he may not be as fit for life outside” (Dickens 1996, p. 95). This duality of the Marshalsea, who provides both imprisonment and protection, is reflected in Dickens in the prison of William's self-deception; it is a means of survival as much as a means of imprisonment. The self-deception for William, however, is more exaggerated than for the college students because his debt is much more exaggerated; he not only owes substantial financial debts, but also a deep moral debt to Amy, what Scott calls a "human debt" stemming from his obsession with status that requires Amy to care for him and his siblings; a debt that, as with testimonies, he “creatively refuses to acknowledge” even when “the payment of [these human debts]… is their mere acknowledgment” (Scott 1979, pp. 161–165). The effect of this imprisonment on William is illustrated by his internal conflict, the "interjections of 'ha' and 'hem'... suggest that he is undergoing some struggle with himself" (McKnight 1993, pp. 64, cited in Smith 2005) and become more frequent as his deception deepens. ; his Marshalsea speech in Rome contains 23 stutters and numerous repetitions. This internal conflict is destructive for William, demonstrating “the incapacity of the human mind…to credit its own lies” (Scott 1979, pp. 159). William's final collapse is "the terrible revenge of [this] spirit which finally escapes from its own prison and thus destroys its jailer" (Lucas, 1970). The self-deception that kept him in the Marshal Sea has now killed William in terms of wealth, but the impact can be seen as further influencing his life when self-deception is taken as the basis for his greed and of its social pretension. William's obsession with status is rooted in his self-deception and his supposed need to maintain "a tone" (Dickens 1996, pp. 614) in the Marshalsea, demonstrating the self-deception of not only William but also college students who provide the,. 20-40