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Charles Dickens - Performer Heritage, 2

Letteratura Inglese Quinto Liceo Scientifico (Liceo (Italia))

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CHARLES DICKENS (p. 37,38)

Life
o He was born in Portsmouth (which is in the southern coast of England) in 1812
o When he was 12 his father was imprisoned for debts and he had to work in a factory. In fact he had an
unhappy childhood, so he had experienced himself the cruelty of his time.
o Some years later his father was released and the family finances improved
o He started studying in London
o He was employed by a lawyer’s at the age of 15 while he studied shorthand at night
o He became a newspaper reporter with the pen name Boz. In 1836 he published Sketches by ‘Boz’ which is
a collection of articles and tales describing London’s people and scenes

These short articles were written for the

periodical Monthly Magazine
o He married Catherine Hogarth in 1836
o (after the enormous success of The Pickwick Paper) In the same year he became a full-time career as a
novelist, but continued to be a journalist and a publisher
o He died in Kent in 1870, he was buried in Westminster Abbey

Works

o In 1836 Sketches by ‘Boz’

o The Pickwick Papers: it was published in instalments and it revealed Dickens’s humoristic and satirical
qualities

o In 1837 he began Oliver Twist which continued monthly until 1839

o American Notes: in 1842 he visited the country; although he was a republican he disappointed the United
States. In this book he advocated/promoted international copyright and the abolition of slavery

o A Christmas Carol: it was published in 1843 and it’s the first of his successful Christmas books

o David Copperfield

o Bleak House

o Hard Times

o Little Dorrit

o Great Expectation (1861)

Oliver Twist The title of the books and the protagonists of these
David Copperfield autobiographical novels are the same. These three books
Little Dorrit became the symbol of exploited/manipulated childhood

Bleak House They dealt with the conditions of the

Hard Times poor and the working class in general. In
the background of the stories there is
social issues

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Great Expectation

Characters

 His characters came from humble classes. The one of the lower orders replaced the 18th-century realistic,
upper-middle-class world.

 He created characters, like weak female characters, and caricatures who live in the English imagination

 His aim was to arouse/stimulate the reader’s interest by his characters’ habits, the language of the London
upper class on Victorian society on richness and squalor of Victorian Age

 He was always on the side of the poor. The outcast and also the working class

 Children are often the most important characters. They are the moral teachers and the example for all the
adults

The aim: Dickens’s aim was to make the ruling class aware/conscious of the social problems without
offending his middle-classes readers

The faults of the legal system  Oliver Twist, Bleak House.

The horrors of factory employment  David Copperfield, Hard Times.

Scandals in private schools  David Copperfield.

The appalling living conditions in the slums  Bleak House.

These are the main Victorian controversies that are present in some of Dickens’s novels

Style

Dickens’s style was very rich and original. He used the most effective language and powerful descriptions of
live and characters that was never used before from any other novelist. He is considered the grates
novelist in the English language.

The main stylistic features of his novels are:

• long list of objects and people;

• adjectives used in pairs or in groups of three and four;
• several details, not strictly necessary;
• repetitions of the same words and sentence 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.

Themes

 Family, childhood and poverty.

 Dickens’s children are either innocent or corrupted by adults.

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 Most of these children begin in negative circumstances and rise to happy endings which resolve the
contradictions in their lives created by the adult world.

Dickens’s narrative

 Dickens’s novels are influenced by many different sources for example the Bible, nursery rimes, the Gothic
novels and 18th century novelists

 His plot are well-planned even if sometimes they appear a little artificial

 The major part of his stories are set in London

 He had an incredibly critical eye towards his society

Curiosities

He had a photographic memory of events and people in his childhood, which he used in his writings

He was interested in hypnotism and he tried to use it with his wife and children

He was an obsessive-compulsive for example he always slept with his head pointing to north

A Christmas Carol was published when the traditions of Christmas tree and carols became popular

In 1846 he founded Urania Cottage where ‘fallen women’ learnt domestic skills and reintegrated into
society

There are about 400 films and TV series based on his works

OLIVER TWIST (pag.39)

Oliver Twist is an educational novel first appeared in instatements in 1837 and only later was published
as a book.

This novel is an autobiographical one in fact it dealt with economic insecurity and humiliating child
experiences, which Dickens himself experienced when he was little.

The name ‘Twist’ even if it is given to the protagonist by accident, represents the changes of the fortune
around the boy.

PLOT

o Oliver is a poor boy with unknown parents; in fact he was born in a workhouse near London in the early
1800s. His mother died a few days later his birth so he grew up in the workhouse in an inhuman way.

o On day he asked for some more food, and that was considered an unforgivable/unpardonable offence
despite he was close to starving. Immediately after he was beat (bastonare) and closed in the
furnace/boiler; after this event parish officials/ecclesiastical units offered 5 pounds to everyone who
would take him on as an apprentice.

o He was sold to a cruel man from who some days later he escaped/ran away from London

o He met a band of pickpockets and became part of their gang; the leader was Fagin who ran a school for
would-be thieves.

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o Oliver wasn’t a successful student, in fact he was caught on his first attempt at theft. The victim, Mr
Brownlow, was stricken/hurt by his torn clothes and his unhealthy appearance and decided to take him
home and take care of him, instead of charging/denouncing.

o Oliver was kidnapped by Fagin’s gang and forced to commit burglary; during the job he was hit by a
shot.

o Oliver came back to Mr Brownlow’s place and was adopted by him he received kindness and
affection

o Oliver discovered, thanks to some investigations, that he had noble origins

o Oliver’s half-brother had paid Fagin’s gang to ruin Oliver; at the end of the novel they were arrested and
he inherited all his father’s properties.

SETTING AND CHARACTERS

The most important setting of the novel is London, in which there are three different social levels.

The parochial world of the workhouses: they are calculating and insensible to the feelings of the poor

The criminal world: poor people were forced to poverty to become pickpockets or murderers, in general the
used violence. They lived in dirty deprived urban neighbourhood and often they died in a miserable way

Victorian middle class: they were respectable people who show a regard/consideration for moral values and
believe in the principle of human dignity

THE WORLD OF THE WORKHOUSE

Dickens attacked the social evils of his time, such as poor houses, unjust court and the
underworld/organised crime. With the rise of in the level of poverty workhouses increased, too; their
original aim was to give relief to the poor BUT actually they didn’t provide any social or economic
improvement. The officers, instead of alleviating the sufferings of the poor, abused their rights and caused
them more misery.

HARD TIMES (pag. 46)

PLOT

o The story is set in an imaginary town named Coketown

o Thomas Gradgrind is an educator who believes in fact and statistics

o He has founded a school where his theories are taught: the school tries to turn children into little machines

o He decides to grow up two children, Louisa and Tom, by repressing their imagination and feelings

o His daughter marries Josiah Bounderby, a rich banker of the city, but 30 years older than her

o She decides to marry in order to give her brother Tom a job in Bounderby’s bank BUT she is unhappy and
Tom is lazy and selfish, in fact he robs his employer

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o When he is discovered he is obliged to leave the county

o At the end Mr Gradgrind understands the damage he has caused to his children and gives up his narrow-
minded, materialistic philosophy

SETTING

The setting of the story is Coketown; it stands foe a real industrial town in Victorian England in the middle
of 19th century.

Dickens made a metaphor between the city and a “brick” jungle: the machineries of factories ale like mad
elephants, and their smoke looks like serpents.

All buildings are the same, with the brick facade covered with coal burnt in factories

Factory owners seem proud of the polluted air of the city because it symbolise the productivity and
industry

Other people considered polluted air depressing

STRUCTURE

Hard times is divided into three books, and each book is divided into separate chapters

1. Sowing: it shows us Mr Gradgrind’s ecucation system with Louisa, Tom and Stephen Blackpool

2. Reaping: it shows the failure of Mr Gradgrind’s project presenting Louisa’s unhappy marriage, Tom’s
selfishness and criminal ways and Stephen’ rejection from Coketown

3. Garnering: Mr Gradgrind’s project fails and in this book is presented instability

THEMES
 A critique of materialism and the philosophy of Utilitarianism
 The interest in facts and not in emotions and feelings
Hard times is a “denunciation novel”;
there is the accusation of some of the
negative effects of the industrial society

 A denunciation of the ugliness and squalor of the new industrial age

 The belief that human nature can be measured , quantified and governed by reason

 The gap/difference/contrast between poor and rich

DICKENS’S AIM

He wanted to denounce the danger of the teaching methods called “object lesson”, so the risk of allowing
people to become like machines

He believed that without compassion and imagination, life would be unbearable/intolerable.

A CRITIQUE OF MATERIALISM

In the entire novel there is the contrast between rich and poor, workers and factory owners.

They were forced to work long hours for low pay in

dirty, loud and dangerous factory. They had had few
options of improving their terrible living and
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Dickens, in Hard Times, suggest that 19th-century England was turning human beings into machines by
avoiding the development of their emotions and imagination.

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