CHARLES DICKENS (1812 -
1870)
Dickens had an unappy childhood, in fact his father was prisoned for
debt and he had to work in a factory since the age of twelve. These days of
sufferings inspired much of the content of his novels. In fact when he realized
that he had talent for writing he became a newspaper report and he wrote his
novels in a monthly magazine in the form of instalments. His most important
novels are Pickwick Papers, David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, published in
1838. Dickens belongs to the 1° generation of victorian novelists, so
he speaks about his own time and about social changes. In particular he
criticizes some aspects of society (law-workhouses), but he respects the
structure and the political system in general, while the 2° generation novelists were consiouss of hypocrisy of their own
time and they criticize all the aspects of society. The fact of writing for a
magazine made him to conform to the
public taste in using a melodramatic tone and in introducing an atmosphere
of suspance at the end of every instalment. In particular he attracts the
lower-middle-classes readers, because they found their lives and problems
mirrored by his novels and the upper-classes readers, which share the
humanitarian feelings toward the less luky people. The most recurring themes in Dickens's novels are
childhood and social criticism, infact describing the life of children, Dickens
criticizes the social institutions and the social conditions of the industrial
revolution, which forced children to work in the workhouses in miserable
conditions. In his novels the events are narrated by a third person narrator,
but often they are seen through the eyes of the protagonist, a child, so the
events are distorted and are full of gothic
elements. Most of Dickens'characters
belong to the lower-middle class, the class which Dickens knew best and to
which he was the first to assign the role of protagonist in fiction. He focuses
his attention on their economic worries, their fear of social instability and
poverty with a sympathy, due to the same experiences he proved. Dickens' criticism of society is almost
exclusively moral. He attacks the law, parliamentary government, the
educational system but he doesn't suggest any solution and improvements, but
his attitude isn't destructive because he doesn't want to overthrown the
socio-economical system. Chapter 1:
Dikens describes Oliver's birth in an unknown workhouse. Yet from the beginning
we can understand how life would be for Oliver (ushered into this world of
sorrow and trouble) and also the description of his difficult birth is an
allegory of his future sorrow. An important feature of Dicken's style is irony,
which appears in particular from the description of Mrs Thingummy (is considered
an object and not a person),which is an old drunk woman and when the infant
Oliver bawled and adverted the guests of the workhouse that "a new burden had
been imposed upon the parish". Besides Dickens criticized the strict
class-division when Oliver, for the fact that he is dressed as a ragged person,
is "bagded and ticked" as an orphan of the workhouse. Chapter 2: Oliver is about ten years old, so he had to start
working and he is presented to the board (hence the irony for the double
interpretation of the word board). Here Dickens underlines the hypocrisy of the
workhouses, which instead of helping poor people, exploited them and in change
it provided for them unwealthy food and a place to sleep. Moreover Dickens
makes a deep dinstinction between the good children exploited and the evil
directors of the work house (the boy is fool - what could the boy be crying for
?- pray for the people who feed you and take care of you, like a Christian -
that boy will be hung). Dickens exaggerates on the consequences of Oliver's
request, in particular the astonishment of the master and of the board and the
decision to "offer a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver
Twist off the hands of the parish" in this way Dickens criticizes the
apparently philantrophy of reach people.
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