Short Summary of "The Battle of Life" by Charles Dickens

The Battle of Life is one among another Christmas Novels of Charles Dickens. However this novel was less known when compared to his other novels.

This novel basically depicts the battles one faces in life and winning them. Unlike his other stories, this does not have any supernatural reference. The story is basically divided into three parts. This story in some manner is similar to The Cricket on the Hearth and has a happing ending too.

The story begins by describing the place, which is actually a setting in an English village that stands on the site of a historic battle. Some characters in the story refers to battle as a symbol and hence the name of the story. It begins by narrating the life of a widower father, Dr. Jeddler and his two daughters, Grace and Marion along with their two servants Clemency Newcome and Ben Britain. They all live happily at the English village.

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Marion is engaged with Albert Heathfield and as he has reached maturity, he sets his journey to complete his studies and leaves his love with her sister and promises to come back to the hands of his love.

At the breakfast table, on the day Alfred was leaving, two lawyers, Snitchey and Craggs join them to complete the legalities and require the signatures of the servants as witnesses. The second half begins in the office of these lawyers. They are joined by a libertine Michael Warden, who is about to leave the country because of the loss of his inheritance on horses, and is advised by the lawyers to be away for about six years.

However he expresses his interest in Marion on his visit to the Jeddler house after a riding incident. Even though the layers warn him of the engagement of Marion, he says she is grown up now and will come away with him.

About a month later, Alfred was about to arrive and on the day of his arrival a great part was hosted. However when he reaches the house, the family realizes that Marion has left the house after writing a letter.

Every member thinks Marion has gone with Alfred Warden, whom she had met secretly in the evening under the compulsion of Clemency. When Jeddler finds this out, he fires her out of the house and in such a situation, Britain marries her.

After about six years when almost everything settled in the Jeddler family, and among the servants, one day they see Warden come by and is surprised. He comes to know then that Alfred and Grace are married. It is then that the tangles are slowly untied. Warden reveals that even though he had asked Marion to marry him, she denied and has been staying with her aunt Martha. She went missing the night before Alfred comes was only because she knew that her sister Grace loved Alfred more than her and was sacrificing her love. Marion did not want that o happen and she sacrificed her life.

Toward the end, after all the confusions and reunions, Warden and Marion marry and they all live happily. Through this simple story, Dickens tries to explains that in every person’s life there is war and it is up to him or her to decide whether to win it peacefully or by hurting others. A beautiful story of life is being explained here.