CHARLES

DICKENS

Victorian age

Victorian literature reflects the social, political, and religious problems of the reign
of Queen Victoria. Great Britain reached the top of its power during this
period: from 1837 to 1901. Trade and commerce expanded, and science and
technology made rapid advances. The Industrial Revolution, which had begun in
the 1700's, brought increased wealth to the middle classes.
The Queen was able to keep at bay any conflict. Her respectable behaviour
known as "Victorianism" made her beloved especially by the middle classes.
British decided to use protectionism and so approved Corn laws: the price of the
corn had kept higher than usual. Afterwards the prime minister Robert Peel
repealed the Corn Laws.
Britain had a primary industrial and economic position in the world and this was
symbolised by "The Great Exhibition" of 1851.The English political scene was
dominated by Gladstone, who tried to find a solution to the Irish question in order
to prevent an agrarian revolt. Between 1880 and 1900 the Fabian Society, an
association of middle-class intellectuals, supported the election of Labour
members to Parliament.
The "Women's Social and Political Union", whose adherents were called
"suffragettes", garanted full voting rights to women.
The most noticeable change was the growth of a very large middle class,
portrayed in the novels of Dickens. However this image of general improvement
is wrong: suffering people continued to exist,
in spite of improvements in working conditions the lives of workers remained
hard.
In this period there were many changes in politics and many countries were
colonized; but there were also negative aspects such as the exploitation of children
and the lack of medical cares.

Dickens’s life

Dickens was born near Portsmouth in 1812. After a few years' residence in
Chatham, the family removed to London, where they lived in a dingy suburb. He
was obliged to leave school and earn his living labelling bottles in a blacking
factory. The factory was dirty and cold, his work-mates were rough and violent,
and he felt deeply humiliated. These painful experiences are alluded particularly
in David Copperfield. Later he was sent to a school in Hampstead, and shortly
afterwards he began to work as a clerk in a lawyer's office.
He then acted as parliamentary reporter, first for The True Sun, and from 1835
for The Morning Chronicle. In the same year he married Catherine Hogarth; in this
period he wrote the Pickwick Papers which, appeared in instalments during 1837-
39. Simultaneously he wrote Oliver Twist. Thenceforward Dickens's literary
career was a continued success.
In 1841 Dickens went to America, and was received with great enthusiasm and
in the following year Dickens went to Italy. In 1858 he separated from his wife.
Dickens was now in the full tide of his readings, and decided to give a course of
them in America. But the effect on his health was such that he was obliged, on
medical advice, to abandon all appearances of the kind. He died in June 1870, and
was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Features and themes

Charles Dickens is the foremost representative of the Victorian Novel; extremely

popular in his age and after, he has been read and loved by millions of people all
over the world.
Dickens wrote 20 novels (including 5 short Christmas books), and many
sketches. After the success of The Pickwick Papers, Dickens turned to serious
themes and plots. However, he always introduced enough humour to keep his
books entertaining.
Oliver Twist describes the adventures of a poor orphan boy. The book was noted
for its sensational presentation of London's criminal world and for its attack on
England's mistreatment of the poor.
In Nicholas Nickleby, Dickens criticized greedy proprietors of private schools,
who treated students brutally and taught them nothing.
In the second phase of his production, he became bitterer, often taking the form
of biting satire. The characters and plot in his works seemed to emphasize the evil
side of human experience. He turned to symbolic themes to help express and
expand his observations on topical political and social issues and on larger matters
of morality and values.
With David Copperfield, Dickens temporarily abandoned social criticism for
semiautobiography. The novel describes a young man's discovery of the realities
of adult life.
The unhealthy London fog in Bleak House symbolized the illness of his society,
especially its lack of responsibility towards the downtrodden and unfortunate.
Bleak House is Dickens's most comprehensive attack on the Law, of which long
experience had made him sceptical.
Background of David Copperfield
David Copperfield is a novel that follows the developements of the hero from
childhood to adulthood. David, like Dickens, is a parlamentary reporter, who
becomes a writer.
The first chapters of David Copperfield introduce the main themes of the whole
novel:
1 a fragile creature's struggle to live: David is an orphan and a victim
2 the great importance of education based on hard work and punishment
3 cruelty to children
4 the bad living conditions of the poor
5 the importance of the social status

David is not a hero in the ordinary sense of the term, since he is not a primary
example of integrity who, either by brave actions or spiritual example, defeats the
forces of evil. The pervading atmosphere of the novel is a combination of realism
and enchantament; throughout the book there is no real pressure of reality, no
logic cause and effect.
Uriah Heep is a strange creature unable to smile and he hates David because he
is the embodiment of what he might have been. David's attraction to Uriah is the
human attraction to evil.
The plot

The story deals with the life of David Copperfield from childhood to maturity.
David is born in England in 1820. David's father had died six months before he
was born, and seven years later, his mother marries Mr Edward Murdstone. David
is given good reason to dislike his stepfather and has similar feelings for Mr
Murdstone's sister, Jane, who moves into the house soon afterwards. Mr
Murdstone thrashes David for falling behind with his studies. Following one of
these thrashings, David bites him and is sent away to a boarding school, Salem
House, with a ruthless headmaster, Mr. Creakle. Here he befriends James
Steerforth and Tommy Traddles, both of whom he meets again later on.
David returns home for the holidays to find out that his mother has had a baby
boy. Soon after David goes back to Salem House, his mother and her baby die and
David has to return home immediately. Mr Murdstone sends him to work in a
factory in London, of which Murdstone is a joint owner. The grim reality of hand-
to-mouth factory existence echoes Dickens' own travails in a blacking factory. His
landlord, Mr Wilkins Micawber, is sent to a debtor's prison (the King's Bench
Prison) after going bankrupt, and he is there for several months before being
released and moving to Plymouth. David now has nobody left to care for him in
London, and decides to run away.
He walks all the way from London to Dover, to find his only relative, his aunt
Miss Betsey. His eccentric Aunt Betsey Trotwood agrees to bring him up, despite
Mr Murdstone visiting in a bid to regain custody of David. David's aunt renames
him 'Trotwood Copperfield', soon shortened to "Trot", and for the rest of the novel
he is called by either name, depending on whether he is communicating with
someone he has known for a long time, or someone he has only recently met.
The story follows David as he grows to adulthood, and is enlivened by the many
well-known characters who enter, leave and re-enter his life. These include
Peggotty, his faithful former housekeeper for his mother, her family, and their
orphaned niece Little Emily who lives with them and charms the young David.
David's romantic but self-serving schoolfriend, Steerforth, seduces and dishonors
Little Emily, triggering the novel's greatest tragedy; and his landlord's daughter
and ideal "angel in the house," Agnes Wickfield, becomes his confident. The two
most familiar characters are David's sometime mentor, the constantly debt-ridden
Mr Wilkins Micawber, and the devious and fraudulent clerk, Uriah Heep, whose
misdeeds are eventually discovered with Micawber's assistance.
Micawber is painted as a sympathetic character, even if the author deplores his
financial ineptitude; and Micawber, like Dickens's own father, is briefly
imprisoned for insolvency.
Like in all Dickens's novels, the major characters get some measure of what they
deserve, and few narrative threads are left hanging. Dan Peggotty safely
transports Little Emily to a new life in Australia. Everybody involved finally finds
security and happiness in their new lives in Australia.
David first marries the beautiful but naïve Dora Spenlow, but she dies after
failing to recover from a miscarriage early in their marriage. David then does
some soul-searching and eventually finds the true happiness with the lovely
Agnes, who had secretly always loved him. They have several children, including
a daughter named in honor of Betsey Trotwood.