History Literature / LittleDorrit

* MotorMouth: Flora.

* AgeGapRomance: Arthur and Pet Meagles; Arthur and Amy Dorrit. Arthur is really not ''that'' old (he's in his early forties), but considers himself "old and grave" because of his joyless life so far. * {{Blackmail}}: Rigaud discovers that [[spoiler: Arthur is not Mrs. Clennam's child]], resulting in this trope.

As per usual in Dickens, their stories intersect not only with each other's, but with those of LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters. Clennam's interest in the Dorrits' case soon leads to a stunning reversal of fortune: as it turns out William Dorrit is the long-lost heir to a great estate. To Amy's frank bewilderment, her family's unswerving goal thereafter becomes acceptance in the highest circles of Society, as led by the great financier Merdle -- or, more accurately, by his wife and her 'fine bosom'. As a corollary, of course, the Dorrits' efforts require blotting out all memory of their past... up to and definitely including Little Dorrit's years of patient care and loyalty. To better make this clean break, they embark on a grand tour of Europe.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: As per the norm for a Dickens novel.

* {{Blackmail}}: Rigaud discovers that [[spoiler: Arthur is not Mrs. Clennam's child]], resulting in this trope.

* DontYouDarePityMe: Miss Wade's entire guiding philosophy. She was an orphan and a charity case and from her earliest childhood has interpreted even the most basic acts of kindness and consideration to be acts of condescension and pity. And she hates this.

* GadgeteersHouse: Doyce's factory in Bleeding Heart Yard: "The little counting-house reserved for his own occupation, was a room of wood and glass at the end of a long low workshop, filled with benches, and vices, and tools, and straps, and wheels; which, when they were in gear with the steam-engine, went tearing round as though they had a suicidal mission to grind the business to dust and tear the factory to pieces. A communication of great trap-doors in the floor and roof with the workshop above and the workshop below, made a shaft of light in this perspective, which brought to Clennam’s mind the child’s old picture-book, where similar rays were the witnesses of Abel’s murder. The noises were sufficiently removed and shut out from the counting-house to blend into a busy hum, interspersed with periodical clinks and thumps. The patient figures at work were swarthy with the filings of iron and steel that danced on every bench and bubbled up through every chink in the planking. The workshop was arrived at by a step-ladder from the outer yard below, where it served as a shelter for the large grindstone where tools were sharpened. The whole had at once a fanciful and practical air in Clennam’s eyes, which was a welcome change; and, as often as he raised them from his first work of getting the array of business documents into perfect order, he glanced at these things with a feeling of pleasure in his pursuit that was new to him."

* MayDecemberRomance: Arthur and Pet Meagles; Arthur and Amy Dorrit. Arthur is really not ''that'' old (he's in his early forties), but considers himself "old and grave" because of his joyless life so far.

* MeaningfulName: Well, it ''is'' Dickens. Most notably, Merdle, Mrs. General, Sparkler, the Barnacles, Flintwinch, and Tattycoram.

* RashomonStyle: The 1988 film is in two parts, as we see the same events from Arthur Clennam's perspective and then Amy Dorrit's perspective. There are noticeable differences between each half's versions of events.

* SpoiledSweet: Pet.

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As the story opens, Amy's father William Dorrit has likewise earned the title of 'Father of the Marshalsea' as the longest-serving inmate; his particular debts are so involved -- and he himself so helpless in the face of them -- that he's been locked up for twenty-five years now with no hope of release anytime soon. With little to work with save her own innate goodness, young Amy determinedly takes charge of the family after her mother dies, fiercely guarding her father's pretences to being merely a gentleman temporarily down on his luck to the extent of not telling him that she's also arranged for her older siblings and herself to work outside the prison.

* AccidentalMisnaming: Tattycoram's name is actually Harriet, but no one calls her that except Miss Wade. The Meagles all insist it's too ingrained of a habit to change.

* DisabledMeansHelpless: Subverted with Maggy, who, despite being severely affected by [[BrainFever a very bad fever when she was ten]], can still take care of herself. Played straight with Mrs. Clennam, who in spite of her forceful character is paralyzed in a wheelchair and unable to leave the upper floor of her house.