Charles Dickens

Dickens born in Portsmouth in 1812. he had a Unhappy childhood: he had to

work in a factory at the age of 12 (his father went to prison for debts).
Life
He became a newspaper reporter with the pen name Boz.
Lots of novels, initially published as instalments in magazines.
He wrotes also melodrama (= happy endings) and for the theatre.
He was always in complicated economic situations.

Dickens believed in the social reform and with his books he wanted to denunce
the victorian controversial, so he aim sensibilize the reader showing them the evil
Dicken’s Aim: of society.
so, criticism:
✓ the faults of the legal system (Oliver Twist)
✓ the horrors of factory employment (David Copperfield, Hard Times)
✓ scandals in private schools (David Copperfield)

Important also because….

DICKENS as SHAKESPEARE is important because he had diffuse many words today
consideras common.
Also his work is famous in cinema.

A Christmas Carol, a ghost story featuring

the conversion of a miser to the spirit of
Work Christmas.

Hard times, on education and the hardship

of the working class during the Industral
revolution.

Es. Important extract is Coketown

DICKEN’S STILES

Dickens rapresent the life as it really is --> realism. But he is also shows drama and hummor:
suspense at the end of the episodes or introduction of a sensational event to keep the readers’
interested. He wants to entertain but also show the reality of things to the reader(didactic
purpose).

CHARACTERS
His characters are caricatures embodying particular vices or virtues . They are flat characters. All
good or all bad. There are characters including all social classes of london : gentlemen, lawyers,
teachers, laborers.
They are characterized by:
 Their name;
 The description of their physical appearance (intrusive narrator);
 The way they speak (dialogues).
 Exposes the situation in
workhouse and the The themes are:
exploitation of children.
- Extreme poverty,
OLIVER TWIST
- Hunger
- Murder
- blackmail
Plot:
Is a poor boy of unknown parents brought
into a workhouse. He run away to london Why Oliver the name Twist?
and became part of gang of young
Because Oliver is always twisted around by
pickpockets, then gets helped by a middle /
circumstances or by people.
class family that adopted him. Happy ending
noble origins.

Particolari:
o criticism the poverty and the iniquity of the Poor Law of 1834.
Who didn't work in the factory was abandoned to a life of crime and prostitution.
Poverty was seen as a sin.
o Happy ending: there is no transformations of characters nor revolutionary changes.
o The misery is in contrast to the examples of love and true charity (Mr Brownlow and Mrs
Maylie).

Bleak House
In, an urban novel, D describes
slums, property speculation, Parallel to dickens also verga wrote
overcrowded graveyards, about the
contagious diseases and Dickens e poor conditions in which the children
educational needs of children. Verga found themselves.

Jo: a homeless man who is a

chimney sweep for a living

VERISMO:
omniscient narrator Verga focused on the rural life and writen the lives
that guides readers in of the poor Sicilian.
the interpretation of He wrote Rosso Malpelo, he works in a sand mine
characters and he is fatherless; He is presented through the
eyes of the community and as a evil boy.
impersonal
narrator (objettiv)