Charles Dickens
1812 - 1870
«It was the best of times, it was the worst
of times, it was the age of wisdom, it
was the age of foolishness, it was the
epoch of belief, it was the epoch of
incredulity, it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness, it was the
spring of hope, it was the winter of
despair…»
Life
1812
Born in Portsmouth from a lower middle-class family
(2nd of 8 siblings) unhappy childhood, forced
to work in a shoe-polish factory at 12 for 10 hours a
day for 3 years (father in prison for debts) this
and his future working experiences will inspire much
of the contents of his novels
1825-1828 He works as a clerk for an attorney he understands he has a
talent for writing
He starts writing as a reporter at Parliament and the Law Courts for
1833 “The Morning Chronicle” and publishes sketches under the
pseudonym of Boz, “Sketches by Boz, a series of articles describing
London people and places
From rags to riches
1836
He gets married to have a rich family (ten children) he
will later leave his wife for an actress (1858)
1838-1861
All his major works are published, first in serial form (monthly
or weekly) then as novels enormous production
After years travelling (also to the US, France and Italy), he dies and
1870
is buried in Westminster Abbey (Poet’s Corner)
Oliver Twist (1838) A Christmas Carol (1843) David Copperfield (1849-50)
humanitarian novel sentimental novel sentimental novel
Bleak House (1852-53) Hard Times (1854) A tale of two cities (1859)
humanitarian novel humanitarian novel Historical novel
Great expectations (1860-61) The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished)
humanitarian novel
Main features
Setting Characters
Fascinated by urban life, Dickens sets Mainly caricatures, stereotypes, personifications
many of his novels in London (with of vices and virtues; exaggerated and ridiculed
some exceptions): realistic description (specific human features accentuated)
Middle, lower and lowest classes; mainly men
Perfect background for social issues: (weak female characters)
mixture of London misery and crime
and amusing sketches of the town
Too good or too bad BUT each is an individual
different from the others
Different classes and social groups
live alongside each other and yet Described in their external qualities (characters
never communicate speak for themselves); lacking psychological
insight
Children are presented as good, as teachers
Vivid portrait of life in 19th century
compared to worthless, hypocritical parents and
England: variety, richness, squalor
adults (innocent or corrupted by adults)
Main features
Themes Style
Always on the side of the poor, He mixes social criticism and
the outcast and also the working satire
classes
Characters are put in funny situations
from which Dickens disentangles
He focuses on the exploitation of
them in the most unexpected ways
children, on the condition in the
workhouses, on the consequences
of the Industrial Revolution, on lack
of education
Episodic, due to publication in
instalments - suspense from one to the
other, abundance of characters, of
He points out the hypocrisy of climaxes and of coincidences, of plots
society, its injustices and cruelty and subplots - holds reader’s attention
Always on the side of the poor, the Sometimes melodramatic (full of
outcast and also the working classes pathos)
So was he a revolutionary writer?
NO YES
He denounces, through the fiction, Yet his novels have a didactic aim
many wrong aspects and as he wants to make people
inhumanities of the Victorian Age, (especially wealthier classes) aware
BUT he didn’t completely react of their poorer neighbours
against the society of his time and,
as a true Victorian, he didn’t
propose revolutionary changes for
his period He challenged the popular
Victorian idea that some people
were more prone to vice than
He never means to induce others: he stated that people were
revolution or to bring about any forced into crime and prostitution
real change in Victorian society by poverty, hunger and corruption
Oliver Twist
1838
«Now that he was enveloped in the old calico
robes which had grown yellow in the same
service, he was badged and ticketed [….]—a
parish child—the orphan of a workhouse—
the humble, half-starved drudge—to be
cuffed and buffeted through the world—
despised by all, and pitied by none. Oliver
cried lustily. If he could have known that
he was an orphan, left to the tender mercies
of church-wardens and overseers, perhaps
he would have cried the louder.…»
Some dates to remember
1834 Poor Law Amendment Act Poverty is a crime
Establishment of workhouses
(alternatives: crime or prostitution)
First instalment of Oliver Twist
1837 (in Bentley’s Miscellany, a
periodical edited by Dickens)
The plot
Main features
Three different social levels:
Setting
1. The world of the workhouse (lower-middle
1830s - in the past class, insensible and calculating people)
2. The criminal world of pickpockets and
murderers, driven to crime by poverty.
They all die a violent death
London and environs; an unnamed smaller
3. The world of the Victorian middle class,
English city; the English countryside
respectable people with a regard for moral
values and human dignity
city vs. countryside Characters
Protagonist: Oliver Twist
Narration
Anonymous third person omniscient narrator; Other characters: Mr Bumble; Mrs Mann; Fagin;
point of view of various characters in turn. The Bill Sikes; Jack Dawkins (The Artful Dodger);
narrator’s tone is not objective but Monks; Mr Brownlow; Nancy; Mrs Maylie; Rose
sympathetic to the protagonist (less to the
other characters): with hypocritical or morally
Style
bad characters, the tone turns to ironic or
sarcastic Ironic, sarcastic; sentimental
Main features
Action
Oliver is a good, morally intact boy but the Oliver is taken care of by a gang of London
social environment in which he is raised thieves but refuses to join them in their
encourages thievery and prostitution. Oliver thievery. An upper-class family takes him but
struggles to find his identity and rise above the thieves and Monks continue to pursue him
the abject conditions of the lower class
Nancy is murdered for revealing Monks’s plan
Fagin is executed and Sikes dies; Oliver and
to Mr Brownlow, who in the end learns all of
his new family live out their days in happiness
Oliver’s story from Monks
in the English countryside
Themes
SOCIAL CRITICISM: workhouses run by parishes,
justice and the underworld. These institutions only reproduces the awful
conditions in which the poor lived
Dickens points out the failure of charity
and criticizes the government and the The idea behind it was that if poverty was the
churches who run charitable institutions consequence of laziness, then the dreadful
conditions in the workhouse would only inspire
them to better their circumstances so that they
would not rely on public charity anymore
The author emphasizes the greed,
laziness, arrogance and individuality (see
Mr. Bumble) of “charitable” workers Hypocrisy and cruelty of Victorian England
To them he opposes characters who show Focus on origins (Victorian decorum and
affection and humanity like Mr. Brownlow, respectability issues)
Rose and Mrs. Maylie: their love and true
However, Oliver’s happy ending is not the consequence
charity lead to Oliver’s salvation
of a revolution: it’s simply because he discovers his true
identity and so he returns to his rightful status
Themes
CITY VS COUNTRYSIDE : All the injustices and
privations suffered by the poor in Oliver Dickens’s portrait of rural life is far less realistic
Twist occur in cities—either the great city than his portrait of urban life
of London or the provincial city where
Oliver is born
The author’s distance from the countryside
allows him to idealize it
Country scenes have the potential to
“purify thoughts” and erase some of the
vices that develop in the city
ORIGINS VS INNER PURITY : Throughout the
But Oliver is good at heart even when he is
novel, Dickens uses Oliver’s character to
surrounded by criminals
challenge the Victorian idea that poor
people and criminals are already evil at
birth, arguing instead that a corrupt
environment is the source of vice
Besides, characters such as Monks prove to
be unscrupulous even if they were born rich
The protagonist
Oliver Twist stands out against this
background as a child with a pure heart
and a determined spirit. His is not the
story of the transformation of a young
criminal into a gentleman: he is above any
corruption and so he is offered a kind of
“redemption”
“That boy will be hung”
He is saved, the
others are hung
Critics made to Dickens
• several details, not strictly necessary
• exaggeration of the characters’ faults
• pathetic tone
• plot solved through coincidences
• anti-semitic, stereotypical portray of FAGIN
Fagin is a Jewish villain, greedy and avaricious. He teaches children to make their livings by
pickpocketing and other criminal activities. Despite the wealth he has acquired, he does very little
to improve the squalid lives of the children he guards
In the earlier versions of the book he is Dickens stated that "it unfortunately was
referred to by his racial and religious origin
Vs
true, of the time to which the story
257 times (“the Jew”), against 42 uses of refers, that the class of criminal almost
"Fagin" or "the old man” (later versions invariably was a Jew”, then added that
have fewer references to the race) he meant no imputation against the
Jewish people
The origin of Oliver’s name
“Please, sir, I want some more”
(From the movie: scene 1 and 2)
More what?
