Mr. Jobling / Mr. Weevle Character Analysis

Mr. Jobling is a friend of Mr. Guppy and Bart Smallweed’s and has recently been fired from his job as a clerk. Mr. Jobling is an unlucky man and an unsuccessful social climber. He plots with Mr. Guppy to move into Krook’s shop so that he can spy on the old man and find out if there are valuable legal papers contained within the jumble of documents which crowd the shop. Before this move, Mr. Jobling changes his name to Mr. Weevle. During his stay with Krook, Mr. Weevle works hard to ingratiate himself with the old man. He buys Krook gin and helps him to read—Krook is illiterate but jealously guards his documents because he knows they are legal papers and suspects their value—and does odd jobs around the house. This leads the neighbors to surmise that Mr. Weevle may inherit Krook’s fortune. Mr. Weevle almost succeeds in getting evidence from Krook, which proves that Esther Summerson is Lady Dedlock’s daughter, and that her father was Krook’s previous lodger, Captain Hawdon, but Krook spontaneously combusts before the exchange takes place and the letters are destroyed in the fire. Mr. Weevle is taken in by Mr. Guppy’s suggestions that he has powerful friends and is involved in an important and confidential mystery and is slightly in awe of his friend. However, because the reader knows that this is not the case, and that Mr. Guppy is exaggerating, it is obvious that Mr. Weevle is very gullible and not as cunning as his compatriot. Mr. Weevle regrets his involvement in the conspiracy after Krook’s death and comes to believe that his room, which was the room occupied by Captain Hawdon before his death, is haunted because of his guilt over trying to steal the letters.