CHARLES DICKENS

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812. He had an unhappy childhood. His father was
imprisoned for debt and at the age of 12 was put to work in a factory. When the family's finances
improved and his father was released, he was sent to school in London. At 15, he got a job as a
messenger boy for a lawyer and studied shorthand at night. By 1832 he had become a very
successful shorthand reporter of parliamentary debates in the House of Commons. In 1833 his first
short story appeared and in 1836, while still a journalist, he adopted the pseudonym 'Boz',
publishing Sketches by 'Boz', a collection of articles and short stories describing the people and
scenes of London, written for the Monthly Magazine . It was immediately followed by The
Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, which was serialized and revealed Dickens' humorous
and satirical qualities. Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in April 1836 and in the same year he
became editor of Bentley's Miscellany and published the second series of 'Boz' Sketches. Following
the success of The Pickwick Papers, Dickens began a full-time career as a novelist, producing
works of increasing complexity while also continuing his journalism and publishing activities.
Oliver Twist was started in 1837 and continued in monthly installments until April 1839. Dickens
strongly opposed the United States when he visited the country in 1842. His American Notes
appeared in October of that year, in which he advocated international copyright and the abolition of
slavery. In 1845 was the publication of A Christmas Carol, the first of Dickens' successful
Christmas books. The protagonists of his autobiographical novels, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield
became symbols of an exploited childhood confronted with the bitter reality of slums and factories.
Other works include Bleak House and Hard Times, which deal with the conditions of the poor and
the working class in general. Dickens died in Kent in 1870 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
CHARACTERS
Dickens was the creator of characters and caricatures who live immortal in the English imagination:
Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Gradgrind, Scrooge and many others. He has aroused the reader's interest by
exaggerating the habits of his characters and the language of London's middle and lower classes,
such as hoteliers, shopkeepers and merchants, whose social peculiarities he has freely, but without
sarcasm, ridiculed, such as vanity and ambition . He was always on the side of the poor, the
marginalized and the working class. Children are often the most important characters in Dickens'
novels. Many examples of good and wise children versus worthless parents and other grown-ups
illustrate in fiction the reverse of the natural order of things: children become the moral teachers
rather than the educated, the exemplars rather than 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 neighbors, of whom they previously knew little or
nothing. Dickens’s task was never to get the most wronged and suffering to rebel, or even
encourage discontent, but 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 and accomplished the most graphic and powerful
descriptions of life and character ever attempted by any novelist. He did so with his careful choice
of adjectives, repetitions of words and structures, juxtapositions of images and ideas, hyperbolic and
ironic remarks. He is considered as the greatest novel is tin the English language.

DICKENS’S NARRATIVE
His plots are well-planned even if at times they appear a bit artificial, sentimental and episodic.
Certainly the conditions of publication in monthly or weekly instalments discouraged unified
plotting and created pressure on Dickens to conform to the public taste. 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 gradually developed a more radical social view, although he did not become a
revolutionary thinker. 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.

OLIVER TWIST
Oliver Twist first appeared in serial form in 1837 and was later published as a book. the novel deals
with the economic insecurity and humiliation Dickens suffered as a child. Oliver Twist is a poor
boy of unknown parentage he was born in a workhouse in a small town near London in the early
1800's, his mother dies almost soon after his birth and he is raised in an inhumane workhouse . the
boy commits the unforgivable offense of begging for more food when he is starving so the parish
official offers £5 to anyone willing to take on Oliver as an apprentice, in fact he is then sold to a
undertaker but the cruelty and unhappiness he feels with his new The master makes him escape to
London, but falls into the hands of a gang of young pickpockets trained by Fagan who run a school
for would-be thieves. Unfortunately Oliver is not a successful student he is caught on his first theft
attempt, but Mr Brownlow, the victim, instead of accusing him of theft takes him home and takes
care of him. Oliver is eventually kidnapped by Fagin's gang and forced to commit a burglary but is
shot and wounded on the job Oliver is adopted by Mr Brownlow. In the end, after some
investigations into who Oliver is, it turns out that he has noble origins and in the end, the gang of
pickpockets and Oliver's half-brother who wanted to frame him are arrested.
SETTING AND CHARACTERS
The most important setting of the novel is London, represented at three different social levels. First,
the provincial world of the almshouse is revealed. The inhabitants of this world, belonging to the
petty bourgeoisie of society, are calculating and insensitive to the feelings of the poor. Secondly, the
criminal world is described, with pickpockets and murderers, the weapon they use to achieve their
end is violence. Finally, the world of the Victorian middle class is introduced. In this world live
decent people who show respect for moral values and believe in the principle of human dignity.
Dickens attacked the social evils of his time, such as poor housing, unjust courts and the
underworld. As the poverty level increased, parish-run workhouses were built throughout England
to relieve the poor. However, the conditions prevailing in the workhouses were appalling and
provided no means for social or economic progress. Furthermore, as Dickens points out, instead of
alleviating the suffering of the poor, the officials who ran the workhouses abused their rights as
individuals and caused them further misery.