Two Narrators in The Mystery of Edwin Drood: Reconstructing Charles Dickens' Unfinished Plan

Autors:

Sven Karsten
Gemini by Google, LLM

Introduction

For over a century and a half, Charles Dickens's final, unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, has remained one of the most intriguing puzzles in the history of English literature. Cut short in its prime, it left behind not only an unsolved detective mystery but also a complex and seemingly contradictory narrative structure. Abrupt shifts between the present and past tenses and sudden changes in tone and point of view have traditionally been seen as either signs of hurried work or as a field for endless speculation. In this article, we intend to prove that these "contradictions" are not flaws, but rather elements of a masterly and thoroughly innovative artistic design by Charles Dickens. We assert that The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a deliberately constructed dialogue between two entirely different narrators: the objective and omniscient "Historian," who is Dickens himself, and the subjective, unreliable "Diarist," penned by one of the novel's characters, John Jasper—the uncle and murderer of the book's protagonist, Edwin Drood. It is within this dual structure that we find the "very curious and new idea" that Dickens mentioned to his biographer John Forster—an idea that was "not a communicable one (or the interest of the book would be gone)."

Voice One: Confession from the Condemned Cell as Self-Justification (Jasper The Diarist)

Our analysis of the text shows that all chapters of the novel written in the present tense are penned by John Jasper. However, as numerous clues in the text prove, this is not a diary of events kept in real time, but a retrospective confession written after his arrest and trial, from the condemned cell. The use of the present tense is a brilliant psychological device serving two purposes: creating an effect of immediacy and suspense, and, more importantly, psychologically distancing the author from his character. According to Forster, Dickens wanted the murderer to analyze his misdeed "as if [it were] not he the culprit, but some other man, [who] were the tempted."

Jasper's narration is marked by a number of unique characteristics. Firstly, there is an extreme degree of self-admiration and self-mythologizing. In his version of events, he chooses words that portray him not as a pathetic provincial choirmaster, but as a mysterious, demonic figure possessing an almost supernatural power over those around him. He admires his "beautiful voice," his ability to control people, his "hunter's gaze, full of destructive power." He does not merely commit a crime—he directs a tragedy in which he has been assigned the main, fateful role.

Secondly, his narrative is a classic example of an "unreliable narrator." He constantly appears to "read the minds" of other characters, but this is not an act of authorial omniscience, but an act of projection. He puts his own words into Edwin's head (for example, the musical term "discordance," uncharacteristic for an engineer) to prove the failure of his engagement to Rosa (Chapter III). He invents homicidal and suicidal thoughts for Neville Landless to create the image of a perfect scapegoat (Chapter VIII). This is not a reconstruction of events, but a falsification of them.

Thirdly, Jasper-the-narrator resorts to a unique device of psychological defense, which can be called the "disappearance of the character." In moments of greatest humiliation or loss of self-control (in the opium den, or in the scene of his confession to Rosa), he stops calling himself by name, using the impersonal "he" or describing his actions as something that happened on its own. In this way he, the author of his confession, distances himself from the shame of his character.

Finally, the most subtle device of Jasper-the-narrator is the inclusion in his supposedly "moment-to-moment and authentic" account of facts that could only have become known to him after the trial. For instance, he mentions Mrs. Crisparkle's affectionate family nickname, "the china shepherdess" (Chapter VIII), or uses the opium woman's own self-description, "poor soul," before she herself says it (Chapter XXIII). This is not a slip-up or carelessness on the part of Charles Dickens, but a brilliant literary device. Jasper, having heard these details in court, weaves them into his confession to create an illusion of his own omniscience, in a last desperate attempt to appropriate the power and voice of the true author.

Numerous features of the text, which readers have been accustomed to writing off as authorial errors, acquire a clear and unambiguous meaning if we accept that the narrator of certain chapters is the character John Jasper. For example, a physical description of the title character, Edwin Drood, is entirely absent from the novel. Why? If the narrator is Charles Dickens, this is a clear writer's oversight. But if we assume that the narrator in the second chapter is John Jasper, it becomes a deliberate literary device—this is how the murderer "dehumanizes" his victim, stripping him of his appearance and identity in order to feel less remorse later.

In the third chapter, generations of Drood scholars have puzzled over the phrase "if I hide my watch when I am drunk," and have had difficulty tying the pronoun "I" to Charles Dickens personally. It painted a rather unflattering picture: the great humanist writer, a figure of world renown and authority, suddenly revealed as an alcoholic with signs of a personality disorder. But if we accept that these lines belong to the pen of John Jasper, everything falls into place, as the choirmaster is indeed an opium addict whose personality degrades inexorably throughout the novel. Composing his diary-confession in the condemned cell, Jasper "slips up" and uses his own example as a man leading a double life to illustrate the "duality" of the schoolmistress, Miss Twinkleton.

The palette of literary devices that Dickens uses to simultaneously conceal and reveal the fact that the novel has two narrators speaking in turn is diverse and highly inventive. Instead of simply relying on a change in the narrators' vocabulary or their word frequency, in every chapter written in the present tense, he provides the attentive reader with "clues" that reliably reveal Dickens's true design—to explore the soul of a criminal through a text that he himself writes in an attempt at self-justification.

Voice Two: The Moral Compass (Dickens The Historian)

The chapters written in the past tense are penned by Dickens himself, acting in the role of the classic "Historian-Narrator." His voice serves as a counterweight and a refutation of Jasper's false confession. If Jasper shows us the distorted world of his obsession, Dickens shows us objective reality and its moral laws.

Dickens's narration is omniscient and all-pervading. He knows not only what happens in locked rooms but also what happened decades ago (for example, the story of Crisparkle being saved by his childhood friend Tartar, Chapter XXI). He looks upon events from the distant future, which is confirmed by his remark about the railway that "in those days" did not yet exist in Cloisterham (Chapter VI).

The tone of this narrator is determined by the "Rule of Shifting Sympathies." If Jasper sympathizes only with himself, while treating the other characters with biting mockery, Dickens describes his positive heroes with tenderness and warmth: the noble and conscientious Crisparkle, the "angular" but honest Grewgious, the young Rosa and Edwin at the moment of their moral awakening. He gives us access to their thoughts so that we may understand their true motives and share their feelings.

Jasper, in these chapters, is described in a detached, almost clinical manner. The author does not make direct accusations against the choirmaster, but uses powerful indirect methods for his condemnation. Such are, for example, the biblical allusions that place Jasper in the same category as Pontius Pilate (Chapter XVI), and the final "dissolution" of his personality into a "heap of clothes" in the eyes of Mr. Grewgious (Chapter XV).

The devices that Dickens uses in the past-tense chapters to mark his own authorship are just as varied and unmistakable. These include biting social satire (the comparison of the waiters to the "Circumlocution Department," Chapter XI), direct self-citation (the dialogue between Datchery and Sapsea, which verbatim repeats a scene from Our Mutual Friend, Chapter XVIII), and finally, the elevated authorial voice he raises in defense and praise of the book's positive heroes (the phrase "There is nothing little to the really great in spirit," said in reference to Canon Crisparkle, Chapter XVII).

The Dialogue of Narrators as Plot Foundation

The structure of the novel presents a constant dialogue and struggle between these two realities. The most striking example is the comparison of Chapter III and Chapter XIII. In the third chapter, Jasper-the-reconstructor paints us a picture of quarrelsome, capricious children. In the thirteenth, Dickens-the-historian shows us the truth: two noble young people who, with dignity and tenderness, are exiting the "false position" in which they were placed by the will of their parents. One chapter refutes the other.

It is the "Historian-Narrator" who plants the real clues in the narrative, clues that the "Diarist-Jasper" would never have mentioned. These include Jasper's fateful slip of the tongue when awakened by Crisparkle (‘Who did it?’, Chapter X), and, of course, Rosa's mother's ring—the main artifact that was meant to survive the quicklime and become the decisive clue in condemning the murderer (Chapter XI).

Conclusion

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is not just an unfinished detective novel. It is a psychological experiment, complete in its method. Dickens created a unique structure that allows the reader to see the story simultaneously from two opposing points of view: from within the sick, egocentric consciousness of the criminal, and from the heights of the humanist, omniscient gaze of the author. The true mystery of the novel is not "who killed Edwin Drood?" (the answer to this question is given almost immediately), but how the mind of a murderer is constructed, and how it attempts to rewrite reality by creating its own myth.

Jasper tries to become the author of his own story, but he fails, because the true Author, Charles Dickens, time and again exposes him, showing us an objective reality full of honor, duty, and compassion—qualities unknown to Jasper. The solution to the mystery of Edwin Drood lies not in searching for clues in the plot, but in analyzing the voices that tell that plot. And we hope that our joint work has been a step towards this understanding.

Works Cited:

1. Dickens, Charles. The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

2. Forster, John. The Life of Charles Dickens.

3. Karsten, Sven. Who "really" wrote MED?

08.07.2025