The Victorian Period (1832 1900)

Began with the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne and lasted until her death. Because it
spans over 6 decades, the year 1870 is often used to divide the era into early Victorian and
late Victorian.
Victorian literature deals with the problems of the day that included the social, economic,
religious and intellectual issues surrounding the industrial Revolution, growing class tensions,
the early feminist movement, pressures towards political and social reform and the impact of
Charles Darwins theory of evolution on philosophy and religion.
It was the period when the novel began its rise in popularity. The availability of cheap paper
made mass publication possible.
Socialized novels and magazines were popular with the mases. Contrived plot twists such as
strained coincidences and romantic triangles were often utilized. This time also was a heightened
conflict between the rich and the poor. In poetry, elegies were extremely popular.

Charles Dickens British realist novelist (1812-1870)

C.D is known as an early master of the English realist novel and one of the most celebrated and
most enduring novelists of the Victorian era and of all times.
Despite his lack of formal education, he was not only an active journalist bur also a vigorous
writer who campaigned for childrens rights, education and other social reforms.
Dickens creative genius has been praised by fellow writers from Lev Tolstoy to George Orwell
for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterizations and social criticism. On the other
hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological
depth, loose writing and saccharine sentimentalism.
The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his
writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.
In C. Ds David Copperfield and Great Expectations, the protagonists are self-educated
orphans who head to London with the goal of becoming gentlemen.
The Victorian middle-class work ethic demanded that the hero earn his way to success. Pip is an
exception having a benefactor and rejecting the expected lifestyle of marriage and success.
The English Bildungsroman explores external and internal conflicts. In the U.S., Dickens
contemporary Mark Twain also made use of the bildungsroman.
David Copperfield and Great Expectations are set in early Victorian England against a
backdrop of great social change. The Industrial revolution had transformed the social landscape
and enabled capitalists and manufacturers to amass huge fortunes and the gap between rich and
poor remained wide.

London, a teeming mass of humanity lit by gas lamps at night and darkened by sooty clouds
from smokestacks during the day, rose in dark contrast to Britains sparsely populated rural areas.
More and more people moved to the city in search of the opportunities that technological
innovation promised. But this migration overpopulated the already crowded cities and poverty,
disease, hazardous factory conditions and ramshackle housing became widespread.
Dickens acutely observed these phenomena of the Industrial revolution and used them as the
canvas on which he painted David Copperfield and other urban novels.

David Copperfield (1849-1850)

One of the most popular and enduring novels of Charles Dickens, also his personal favorite. Its a
semi-autobiographical work, most noted for the early chapters describing Dickenss experience
of being taken out of school as a child to work in a factory in London while his father was
imprisoned for unpaid debts.
Here, Dickens addresses the social injustices of urban poverty and industrial labor. It is the first
novel to be fully narrated in the first person.
Mr. Micawber is a satirical version of Charles Dickenss father, a likable person who can never
scrape together the money he needs. Many of the secondary characters spring from Dickenss
experiences as a young man in financial distress in London.
In later years, Dickens called David Copperfield his favorite child and many critics consider
the novel to be one of his best depictions of childhood.

Great Expectations
Is Charles Dickenss 13th novel and penultimate completed one. A bildungsroman which depicts
the personal growth and development of an orphan named Pip. It is Dickenss second novel, after
David Copperfield to be fully narrated in the first person.
It is set among the marshes in Kent and in London, in the early to mid-1800s and contains some
of Dickens most memorable scenes, including the opening, in the graveyard, when young Pip is
accosted by the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch.
Great Expectations is full of extreme imagery poverty, prison ships and chains and fights to
the death and has a colorful cast of characters who have entered popular culture: the eccentric
Miss Havisham, the beautiful but cold Estella, Joe - the king and generous blacksmith.
Great Expectations is popular both with readers and critics and has been translated into many
languages and adapted numerous times into various media. G. B. Shaw praised the novel as all
of one piece and constantly truthful.

Although written in the 1st person, the reader knows that G. E. is not an autobiography but a
novel, a work of fiction with plot and characters, including a narrator- protagonist and pure
virtual creations of Dickenss imagination.
Dickens themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of
good over evil. Hope and social exclusion are two competing themes. The eponymous
expectations refers to its Victorian definition, a legacy to come. The title immediately
announces that money plays an important part in the novel and, as in his most novels, most
characters, in the beginning are living in insecurity.
Thus, pip orphaned, grows up in a world full of sinister tombs, dangerous swamps and
threatening masses of prison ships emerging from the fog that dominates the shores.
Other major themes are crime, social class, empire and ambition. From an early age, Pip feels
guilt. he is also afraid that someone will find out about his crime and arrest him. This fear grows
when he finds out that his benefactor is a convict.
Pip has this internal struggle with his conscience throughout the book. Also, he becomes
involved with a broad range of classes, from criminals like Magwitch to the extremely rich like
Miss Havisham.