Len

between the writers ariu

interests and opinions
There was a communion of

readers literature. They borrowed books from

The Victorians were avid consumers of
circulating libraries and read various periodicals.

Victorian novelist:
1. Described society as they saw it;
those sentiments which could
2. Expressed different kinds of emotion, except
offend current morals;
3. Were aware of the evils of their society,
such as the terrible conditions of
criticism much less
manual workers and the exploitation of children. Their was

radical than that of contemporary European writers;

4. Didacticism was one of the main features of Victorian novels, because novelist
also conceived of literature vehicle to correct the vices.
as a
of the
5. Concentrated on the creation of characters and achieved deeper analysis
characters' inner lives;
6. Presented retribution and punishment in the final chapter, where the whole
texture of events, incidents had to be explained and justified.

The voice of the omniscient narrator provided a comment on plot and erected a
the
chosen by most
rigid barrier between 'right' and 'wrong' light and darkness. The setting
Victorian novelists was the town, which was the main symbol of industrial civilisation
as well as the expression of anonymous lives and lost identities.

The most important themes developed were:

Differences between the lower and middle classes;
Children and their exploitation;
Education;
-Women and their exploitation;
Middle-class family life.

Types of novels:

TYPES FEATURES MAIN EXPONENT

THE NOVEL OF MANNERS Dealt with economic, | W.M. Thackeray
social problems.
THE HUMANITARIAN Combined humour with a | C. Dickens
NOVEL sentimental request for
reformfor the poor.
THE NOVEL OF Dealt with one character's C. Dickens
FORMATION development from early | C. Brontë
youth tomaturity.
LITERARY NONSENSE Presented a nonsensical| L. Carroll
universe where the social
rules and conventions are
disintegrated.
EXOTIC NOVEL Dealt with adventures. R. Kipling
 in prose
middle classes. The novel is written
In England the novel was associated with the rising
and is a narrative, so 'tells' a stony. It has characters, action and a plot, the storyline.
that not always presented
sequence of events, the story,
are
A narrative text is made up of a
in chronological order. In a narrative text we find:
The introduction of the situation;
The breakdown of the initial situation;
The development of the story to the climax;
The end, where the initial situation can be restored or changed.

with the description of the

In a novel, the place settings can be interior or exterior and deal
to the time of the day,
landscape, interiors and objects. Time settings, instead, usually refer
the season or the year.
narrative text is the speaking voice, that is the narrator. The
narrator
An essential element of a
the story is told. The
is a person that tells the story and gives the point of view from which
narrator may be internal or external. The internal narrator is a character
in the story; the
external narrator may be a voice outside the story that describes events he/she hasn't taken

part in.
The narrator can also befirst person or third-person.
T h e first-person narrator employs the T mode; it can coincide with a character in the
story or the protagonist who tells about his/her life.
The third-person narrator tells the story from the outside. He/she can be obtrusive
when he/she makes personal remarks or provides a comment on the society of the
time. The narrator is unobtrusive when he/she shows what happens but doesn't
interfere with the story.
The omniscient narrator is one that knows the feelings and thoughts of every character
in the story.

The author chooses the way to tell his/her story between dialogue, description or narration.
These modes are usually interlaced according to the writer's aims.

The characters are the people who appear in a novel. The presentation of a character can be
direct (through the description of them) or indirect (when the reader has to discover what the
character is like from his/her actions).
There can be rmajor and minor characters. A distinction can be made between round and flat
characters. Flat characters are built around a single psychological quality and they don't change
throughout the story. Round characters grow and develop as the narration unfolds and
influence the development of the story.
In the novel Northanger Abbey (1817) by Jane Austen the author introduces the
heroine, Catherine Morland: she was plain and didn't look like a heroine; she liked
boy's games like cricket and she disliked girls' accomplishment.

The theme is the idea the author tries to convey by means of the story; it can be
explicit or
implicit. The theme contains the message whose interpretation leads to
the meaning of the text.
an understanding of
Every literary work has a main theme which
can be divided into sub-themes
(is the secondary
to a larger theme) or motifs (a recurring or dominant idea).
Little Women (1868-1869) by Louisa
May Alcott tells the story of four
coping with many difficulties together with their mother while their sisters,
who are
fathers is away
fighting in the American Civil War. In the
text they wake
realisation that presents will be few and
on Christmas day to the
feasting limited
they are determined to make the best of life. compared to the past, but
 Charles Dickens born in Portsmouth in 1812. He had an unhappy childhood: his=
was
he was put out in a factory and he-
father was imprisoned for debt and at the age of 12
was sent to a school in London.
At 15, he found employment as an office boy at a
1832 he had become a very successful shorthand reporter
of
lawyer's; by
parliamentary debates in the House of Commons, and began to work a s a reporter for
a newspaper.
'Boz', publishing Sketches collection of
by Boz', a
In 1836 he adopted the pen name
articles and tales describing London's people and scenes, written for the periodical

Monthly Magazine.
Dickens married Catherine Hogarth April 1836, and during the same year he
in
published the second series of Sketches by 'Boz'. Dickens started a full-time career as
a novelist. Oliver Twist was begun in 1837 and continued in
instalments until
monthlythe first Dickens's
April 1839; in 1844 he published the novel A Christmas Carol,
successful Christmas book. The protagonist of his autobiographical novels became the
symbols of exploited childhood confronted with the bitter realities of slums and
an
factories; other works includes the conditions of poor and the working class in general.
He was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1870.
Dickens adopted three different social levels:
The parochial world of the workhouses;
The criminal world murderers, pickpockets living in slums;
The Victorian middle class.

NOVELS
Oliver Twist (1838);
David Copperfield (1850);
Little Dorrit (1857);
Bleak House (1853);
Hard Times (1854);
Great Expectation (1861).

CHARACTER
He created:
Caricatures: he exaggerated and ridiculed particular social characteristics of the
middle, lower and lowest classes;
Weak female characters.
Ho wac on the cid of thonoor theoutcact +ho asOrkinG dlac
IM
Dickens tried persuade the common inteligence of the country to alleviate social
to
Victorian
ufferings. He was a campaigning novelist and his books highlight all the great
ontroversies:
The faults of the legal system;
The horrors of the factory employment;
Scandals in private schools;
The appalling living conditions in the slums.

STYLE (wY/SARCes enLS)

Dickens's style is very rich and original. The main stylistic features of his novels are:

Long list of objects and people;

Adjectives used in pairs or in groups of three or four;
Several details, not strictly necessary;
Repetitions of the same words and sentences structures;
The same concepts are expressed more than once, but with different words;
Use of antithetical images and ideas in order to underline the characters'
features;
Exaggeration of the characters' faults;
Suspense at the end of the episodes or introduction of a sensational event to
keep the readers' interest.
Oliver Twist is a poorboy of unknown parents; he was born in a workhouse in a small
town near London in the
early 1800s. His mother dies almost immediately after his
birth and he is brought up In a workhouse in an inhuman
way. The boy commits the
unpardonable offence of asking for more food when he is close to starving, so the
parish officlal offers flve pounds to anyone wlling to take Oliver on as an apprentice.
In fact, he is later sold to an
undertaker, but the cruelty and the unhappiness he
experiences with his new master make him run away to London.
There he falls into the hands of a gang of
young pickpockets, trained by Fagin, who
runs a school for would-be thieves.
Unfortunately, Oliver is not a successful student:
he is caught on his first attempt at theft. Mr
Brownlow, the victim, is stricken by the
ragged and unhealthy appearance of Oliver and rather than charging him with
he takes him home and takes care of him. theft,
Oliver is eventually
kidnapped by Fagin's gang and forced to commit burglary; during
the job he is shot and wounded. Ollver
is adopted by Mr Brownlow and at last
kindness and affection. receives
Investigations are made about who Oliver is and it is discovered
that he has noble origins. In the end the
gang of pickpockets and Oliver's half-brothers,
who paid the thieves in order to
ruin Oliver and have their father's
himself, are arrested. property all for
 MORE ANALYSIS -
OLIVER WANT SOME
the fact (vv. 23-
parts: the introduction (v. 1-22),
The text can be divided into three

39) and the reaction (w. 40-67).

to suffer a
condition of Oliver and his friends, obliged
The introduction describes the some night
months. But one boy, tall for his age, threatened
slow starvation for three the
and someone had to ask to
who
the boy next him.
slept A council was held,
to eat

master for more food: it fell to Oliver Twist.

Dickens describes the
The second part, the fact, very precise way:
is described in a

of the dinner, each character and his role, and

then describes the Oliver's
moment

felling.
Then there is the last part, the reaction. This request has shocked the master, paralysed
form of
the assistants with wonder and the boys with fear. To judge this great
"rebellion" was organised board in solemn conclave and everyone believed that he
a

would be hang or something like that. At the end the director of the workhouse, Mr.
Limbkins, decided to offer a reward of five pounds to "anybody who would take Oliver
Twist off the hands of parish."

The story developed into three parts: narration, description and dialogue.

In this text we find the visual situation of children (exaggeration), irony and
exaggeration about the master.