Young Martin's comic odyssey to the New World; the naive Tom Pinch's rite of passage from innocence to enlightenment; the smooth scheming of the arch hypocrite Pecksniff; the grotesque self-love of Mrs. Gamp; the increasingly-desperate machinations of murderous Jonas Chuzzlewit; all are portrayed with a typically Dickensian flair for unerringly accurate social satire and buoyantly extravagant characterization.