The Sequel Of My Resolution

1. Charles Dickens:
- Born: 1812
- Dickens's pen name for his early pieces was Boz
- Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth
- The greatest critical realist
- Born to a impoverished family → child labor → favorite theme
- He is so poplar because:
+ Enduring characters
+ Mixing humor with serious questions about social justice
-> a light touch with heavy issues: cruelty
+ to children, the mistreatment of women, and urban poverty and debt
2. Summary ‘ the sequel of my resulution’
- David sold some of the clothes in order to buy food. The shopkeepers
who bought the clothes took advantage of him, and travelers abused him
on the road.
- David arrived at the home of his aunt, Miss Betsey Trotwood, who
initially tried to send him away.
- When he told her that he was her nephew, she consulted with Mr. Dick,
the man who lived upstairs in her home. Mr. Dick suggested that before
she did anything, she gave David a bath. Miss Betsey repeatedly
compared David to the sister he never had and concluded that his sister
would not have done the stupid things David had done.
- Miss Betsey was a tough, sharp woman obsessed with keeping donkeys
off the grass in front of her house. She bathed and fed David and spoke to
Mr. Dick at length about David’s mother, whom she pitied very much.
David was nervous about whether his aunt would keep him or send him
away.
3. Write to prove that Dickens is a writer with profound humanism.
An adventure story – the wandering journey of a hero:
- Thrilling, unconnected incidents
- The hero persevered and reached his goal
4. The first person point of view:
 - “At the end of 1848, Dickens “very gravely” embraced the suggestion
“thrown out” by Forster that he should write his next novel “in the first
person.” Despite struggling initially, he soon wrote with the confidence
(and trepidation) of someone who was revisiting his own past. “The
story,” remarked Forster, “bore him irresistibly along”.
- A storyteller and a witness -> a reliable fictional double of the author
- Interpretive faculties (makes sense of the world by rationalising our
experience within the context of a personal and cultural narrative )
- Moral qualities
5. The power of description:
- Detailed and vivid, melodramatic and emotional, but realistic
- Strong similes & exaggerations:
• The surroundings
• David’s mental & physical state
• The people David encountered
- Examples?
- The shopkeepers
- Detailed and vivid, melodramatic and emotional, but realistic
- Dense description
- Humorous commentaries
- Examples?
• This was a disagreeable way…
• The second shopkeeper’s bizarre manner
• Aunt Betsey’s perplexed but concerned reaction
6. Symbols
- “a piece of water, and a great foolish image in the middle, blowing a
shell”
- Symbolism: An artistic and poetic movement or style using
- symbolic images and indirect suggestion to express mystical
- ideas, emotions, and states of mind - from lexico.com
- A great many coats and pairs of trousers dangling from the low ceiling
- Two feeble candles
- “Neat little cottage” and the “carefully tended” garden “full of flowers”?
 - flowers stand as images of rebirth and health—a significance that points
to a springlike quality in characters associated with their blossoms.
Flowers indicate fresh perspective and thought and often recall moments
of frivolity and release.

7. Themes
- The Plight of the Weak
• The powerful abuse the weak and helpless.
• Exploitation - not pity or compassion - is the rule in an industrial
society.
• The inhumanity of child labor, morally good characters suffer
punishment at the hands of forces larger than themselves.
• The weak in David Copperfield never escape the domination of the
powerful by challenging the powerful directly. Instead, the weak must
ally themselves with equally powerful characters.
• E.g. David doesn’t stand up to and challenge his authority. Instead, he
flees to the wealthy Miss Betsey, whose financial stability affords her the
power to shelter David. David’s escape proves neither self-reliance nor
his own inner virtue, but rather the significance of family ties and family
money in human relationships.
- Home and Family
• The ideal Victorian home was one that served as a refuge from the
outside world, with the wife/mother providing an atmosphere of calm.

1. Write about 200 words to analyse the key traits of Davis’s personality in the
extract of the novel The Sequel of My Resolution by Charles Dickens as
they are revealed in what he/she does, says and thinks (20 pts.) 

2. Write about 200 words to analyse the literary techniques used in ….. by
…… and how you interpret and appreciate those techniques. (20 pts.) 
3. Write about 150 words to discuss the theme of …. in …… by …… (10 pts.)