52 pages • 1 hour read
The Great Train Robbery
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Themes
Misconceptions About the Nature of Crime
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussions of pedophilia.
Nearly every aspect of The Great Train Robbery demonstrates Victorian concepts of crime, from the background of the perpetrators and their reasons for committing crimes to how those crimes should be punished. Crichton displays a particularly intense focus on discerning which crimes are punished and which are overlooked. He also describes in great detail the various characters that make up the criminal underworld. Crichton’s overarching assessment is that it is a mistake to believe that crime doesn’t pay, and he uses his novel to demonstrate that those who commit crimes often benefit enormously.
Crichton describes Victorian England as being characterized by a persistent faith in the inevitability of societal progress. The people of the time commonly believed that this progress as manifested in new technologies such as trains, would inevitably lead to a reduction in crime. The key impediment to this process, in the Victorian view, was the criminal underclass of petty thieves, sex workers, and others who were forced to live on the margins of society and made their living with underhanded methods. This dynamic is shown through the actions of the main co-conspirators as well as their various associates, such as the “swell” Teddy Burke who pickpockets from the wealthy. Historically, part of what made the real heist so scandalous was the fact that, as Crichton states, “it was absolutely astonishing to discover that ‘the criminal class’ had found a way to prey upon progress—and indeed to carry out a crime aboard the very hallmark of progress, the railway” (17).
However, Crichton’s novel suggests that this Victorian belief was maintained only by a society-wide indifference to the crimes committed by the upper classes. A key example of this disparity can be found in the widespread tolerance of sex workers, whose services various upper-class men required to satiate their sexual desires. This aspect of Victorian society is illustrated when Mr. Henry Fowler has no qualms about having sex with a child sex worker. Another example is the story of Sir John Alderston, who pretends that his case of wine was stolen from the train. If Alderston had been a lower-class man, this crime would have been considered a mark of his questionable character, but because he is wealthy, his crime is instead explained away as a momentary lapse of good judgment, and his performative guilt over the incident is interpreted as “the strength of this great man’s character” (191). Similarly, Mr. Trent’s engagement in ratting, a nominally illegal sport, is seen as a minor flaw rather than a criminal activity.
However illustrative these minor examples might be, the main protagonist, Pierce, is the most prominent embodiment of the idea that crime does, in fact, pay. He rises up from obscure circumstances through a wide variety of grifts, heists, and scams to become an accepted member of the upper class who “count[s] among his acquaintances Ministers, Members of Parliament, foreign ambassadors, banker, and others of substantial standing” (5). After the Great Train Robbery, he gets away with the gold and evades punishment along with his lover Miriam and his getaway driver Barlow. By contrast, the only member of the conspiracy who is ultimately worse off as a result of his participation is the otherwise honest Burgess who dies of disease in prison.
Examining the Nuances of Victorian Society
Crichton writes in detail about the unique aspects of Victorian society, which serve as a colorful background to the crime. To create the illusion that his novel is a nonfiction account, he adopts a tone and style that deliberately mimics the hallmarks of such narratives. While these passages of the novel are largely historically accurate (such as his descriptions of the development of the Crystal Palace and the limited roles of women in Victorian society), he also inserts convincing fabrications, such as the fictitious Bateson’s Belfry. However, with both the fictionalized and historically accurate aspects of the novel, Crichton endeavors to demonstrate that all of Victorian society—the inequality, the rapid industrialization, and the rigid gender roles—ultimately made Pierce’s methods possible and facilitated the success of the Great Train Robbery.
The first example of the historical narrative mode can be found in Chapter 5, “The Railway Office,” in which Crichton gives a largely accurate account of the development of London Bridge station. This interlude sets up the later scene in which Pierce and Agar stake out the station to gather information for their eventual heist of the train manager’s office. The next historical passage can be found in Chapter 6, “The Problem and the Solution,” wherein Crichton describes the importance of metal safes as a security measure in Victorian England. Because advanced explosives had not yet been developed, “any decently constructed metal safe represented a genuine barrier to theft” (24). This historical background is provided to explain why Pierce and his co-conspirators are so concerned with locating all four keys for the safes rather than attempting to blow the safes up or otherwise crack them to access the gold within.
One of the most important elements of historical background given in the text is the role of women in Victorian society. Crichton notes that low-income women during this time frame were perceived to be “of no pressing concern; they were slovenly creatures lacking in education and a discriminating view of the world” (60). The Victorian views of women were highly restrictive and demeaning, for women were seen as having very little reasoning ability and were thought to be “governed by their emotions, and hence required strict controls on their behavior by the more rational and levelheaded male” (83). Ironically, this low opinion of women’s ability allows Miriam to avoid detection and arrest, for she conducts herself in such a way as to play to the biases of the culture that surrounds her.
The Development of New Technologies
The Victorian era denotes the time period from 1837 to 1901, when Britain was ruled by Queen Victoria. In this time of rapid change, England experienced intense industrialization that led to the development of new technologies and transformed the fabric of society. Crichton focuses on these new technologies and the changes they wrought, exploring how these elements might impact the planning and execution of a heist as complex as Pierce’s. Within the context of the novel, while the primary new technology is the expansion of the railways, other technologies such as safes, keys, and even mountaineering equipment all influence the crime itself.
To further explore this theme, Crichton gives a brief history of the development and expansion of the British rail system and its relationship to the gold heist as understood by Victorians. He notes that although “the growth of the English railways was swift and pervasive” (xiv), it was also highly disruptive to the poor, who were displaced whenever new railway stations were built. He asserts that the new railways were a key example of “undeniable progress, and to the Victorian mind such progress implied moral as well as material advancement” (xv). In Crichton’s view, it is for this reason that the gold heist so shocks Victorian society, for the co-conspirators “carry out a crime aboard the very hallmark of progress, the railway” (xv).
Pierce and his co-conspirators use other cutting-edge technology of their time to plan and enact the heist. One such example is the stopwatch, “a marvel of the latest engineering” that Pierce and Agar use to track the movements of the railway station employees while staking out London Bridge Station (20). Other examples are more developed, such as the discussion of keys and their absolute necessity when it comes to opening Chubb’s safes during a time that predates the high-quality explosives that might otherwise make short work of safe cracking. Pierce also displays audacious confidence in acquiring and using mountaineering equipment to hang off the side of the train and unlock the padlock from the outside. Crichton notes that, in 1855, “mountaineering was a new sport, only three or four years old” (199). Thus, it is clear that Pierce’s interest in technology extends even beyond his criminal need for it for as Fowler notes, Pierce’s house “was always fitted out with the latest appurtenances, some of them exceedingly clever” (11). Ultimately, the novel highlights the common truth that crime evolves with the technology around it. As is shown in The Great Train Robbery, Pierce and his co-conspirators use every aspect of the most recent technology of his time to successfully complete the heist.
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By Michael Crichton
