Little Dorrit

Amy Dorrit is the titular character upon whom the novel is focused. Since she is small, slender, and looks young for her age, she earns the nickname “Little Dorrit,” but this leads people to infantilize her even after she becomes an adult. Unlike her siblings, Amy was born in the Marshalsea debtors’ prison and grows up within its walls; this earns her another nickname: “child of the Marshalsea.” The prison is the only home she knows until her father is released when she is in her early twenties. Many important people in her life die when she is just a child—including her mother, her nurse, and her godfather—and Amy grows up with a strong sense of duty and responsibility, taking care of herself and her family. However, her birth in the Marshalsea often separates her from the rest of her family, who all cling to their pride in their “good breeding” before William Dorrit’s imprisonment. Arthur Clennam notices “that they were lazily habituated to her, as they were to all the rest of their condition” (125); the Dorrits treat Amy as just another reality of life in the Marshalsea rather than appreciating her love for them.