THE VICTORIAN NOVEL

READERS AND WRITERS. During the Victorian Age, for the first time, there was a communion of interests
and opinions between writers and their readers. One reason for this close relationship was the enormous
growth of the middle classes. Its members borrowed books from circulating libraries and read the abundant
Variety of periodicals. Moreover, Victorian writers themselves often belongend to the middle class.
THE PUBLISHING WORLD. A great deal of Victorian literature was first published in a serial form. Essays,
verse and even novels made their first appearance in instalments in the pages of periodicals. This allowed
the writer to feel he was in constant contact with his public. He could always alter the story.
THE VICTORIANS’ INTEREST IN PROSE. The Victorians showed a marked interest in prose. The spread of
scientific knowledge made the novel realistic; the spread of democracy made it social and humanitarian.
THE NOVELIST’S AIM. Early Victorian novelists felt they had a moral and social responsibility. They wanted
to reflect the social changes that had been in progress for a long time. The novelists described society as
they saw it. They were aware of the evils of their society, such as the terrible conditions of manual workers
and the exploitation of children. Didacticism was one of the main features of Victorian novels.
THE NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE. The voice of the omniscient narrator provided a comment on the plot and
erected a rigid barrier between 'right and wrong behaviours, light and darkness. Retribution and punishment
were to be found in the final chapter of the novel, where the whole texture of events, adventures and
incidents had to be explained and justified.
SETTING AND CHARACTERS. The setting chosen by most Victorian novelists was the city, which was the main
symbol of the industrial civilisation. Victorian writers concentrated on the creation of realistic characters the
public could easily identify with, in terms of comedy or dramatic passion.
TYPES OF NOVEL.
•The novel of manners: It kept close to the original 19century models. It dealt with economic and social
problems and described a particular class or situation.
•The humanitarian novel: Charles Dickens's novels are mostly admired for their tone, combining humour
with a sentimental request for reform for the less fortunate. They constitute the bulk of what is generally.
called the humanitarian novel.
•The novel of formation: These novels dealt with one character's. development from early youth to some
soft of maturity.
•Literary nosense: A particular aspect of Victorian literature is what is called 'nonsense’.
WOMEN WRITERS. It is important to underline that a great number of novels published during the mid-
Victorian Period were written by women. This output is surprising considering the state of subjection of
Victorian Women. It is less surprising if one remembers that the majority of novel-buyers and readers
Were women: Middle-class women had more time to spend at home than men and could devote part of the
day to reading. However, it was not easy to get published, and some women used a male pseudonym.
THEMES. The most important themes developed were
• differences and the dramatic contrast between the lower and middle classes, between the rich and the
poor; Utilitarian philosophy and damage caused by the factory system;
• children and their exploitation cruelty in boarding schools;
• education;
• women and their exploitation;
• middle-class family life.

CHARLES DICKENS
LIFE AND WORKS. Charles Dickens was born in 1812. He had an unhappy childhood. His father was
imprisoned for debt and at the age of 12 he was put to work in a factory. When the family finances improved
and his father was released, he was sent to a school in London. By 1832 he had become a very successful
shorthand reporter of parliamentary debates in the House of Commons, and began to work as a reporter for
a newspaper. He adopted the pen name Boz, publishing Sketches by Boz', a collection of articles and tales
describing London's people and scenes. Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in April 1836, and during the
same year he published the second series of Sketches by 'Boz. Dickens started a full-time career as a novelist,
producing work of increasing complexity at an incredible rate though he also continued his journalistic, and
editorial activities. Oliver Twist was begun in 1837 and continued in monthly befalments until April 1839.
The protagonists of his autobiographical novels became the symbols of an exploited childhood confronted
with the bitter realities of slums and factories. Other works deal with the conditions of the poor and the
working class in general. He died in 1870 and he aaa buried in Westminster Abbey.
CHARACTERS. Dickens shifted the social frontiers of the novel: the 18century realistic, upper-middle-class
world was replaced by the one of the lower orders. He was the creator of characters and caricatures who
live immortally in the English imagination. His aim was to arouse the reader's interest by exaggerating his
characters' habits as well as the language of the London middle and lower classes. He was always on the side
of the poor, the outcast and also the working class. Children are often the most important characters in
Dickens's novels. They become the moral teachers instead of the taught, the examples instead of the
imitators.
A DIDACTIC AIM. This didactic stance was very effective, since the result was that the more educated, the
wealthier classes acquired knowledge about their poorer neighbours, of whom they previously knew little
or nothing. Dickens's task was to make the ruling classes aware of the social problems without offending his
middle-class readers.
STYLE AND REPUTATION. Dickens employed the most effective language. He did so with his careful choice
of adjectives, repetitions of words and structures. He is considered as the greatest novelist in the English
language.
DICKENS’S NARRATIVE. Dickens's novels were influenced by the Bible, fairy tales, fables and nursery. His
plots are well-planned even if at times they appear a bit artificial, sentimental and episodic.
London was the setting of most of his novels: he always seemed to have something new to say about it and
showed an intimate knowledge of it. He was aware of the spiritual and material corruption of daily reality
under the impact of industrialism, the result was an increasingly critical attitude towards his society. In fact,
in his mature works Dickens succeeded in drawing popular attention to public abuses, evils and wrongs by
mingling terrible descriptions of London misery and crime with the most amusing sketches of metropolitan
life.