CHARLES DICKENS

(Portsmouth, 1812 1870)

Childhood: his father went to prison for debt and he had to work in a factory at the age of twelve.
Adulthood: he became a journalist at the Parliament and Low Courts

He is not a revolutionary thinker, he is just aware of the spiritual and material corruption caused by the development of
industrialization. He is interested in in public abuses, evils and wrongs.

Novels
He exposed the exploited lives of children in the factories and the suffering of the prisoners and their horrible condition.
He also criticizes the school system and the mismanagement of private schools where education doesn't favor creativity
but is materialistically orientated. Some novels are set against the background of social issues and point out the evils of
society, specially of its institutions. The strength of his novels lies less in pathos and more in humor and satire.
Oliver Twist (1838), David Copperfield (1849), Little Dorrit (1857)
Hard Times (1854), Great Expectations (1860), Bleak House (1853)

Influence: bible, fairy tales, fables, nursery, rhymes, essays, gothic novels
Setting: London, described in realistic details

Characters
Dickens created caricatures of the middle class characters. He exaggerated and ridiculed the peculiar social
characteristics of them using their own voices and dialogue. He is always on the side of the poor and the outcast. The
most important characters in Dickens' novels are often children: he reverses the natural order of things by making
children the moral teachers instead of the taught, the examples.

Message
He wants the wealthier classes to acquired a knowledge of their poorer neighbors of which many were previously
ignorant. His intent is not to induce revolution or to encouraged discontent, but to get the common intelligence of the
country, in all its different classes. Dickens is considered a moralist because of the solution he gives for evils: good
heart. To him society is wrong, there is justice only for the rich.

OLIVER TWIST
Charles Dickens

The novel first appeared in instalments, in 1837, and lather was published in a book. The main themes are the economic
insecurity and humiliation, the author experienced when he was a child.
Name: twist is a name given to the protagonist by accident and it represents the outrageous reversals of
fortune that he will experience.
Plot: the main character is a young poor boy orphan and brought up in a workhouse. He is sold to an
undertaker as an apprentice but the cruelty and the unhappiness he experiences get him to run away to London.
There he becomes part of a gang of young pickpockets who try to make a thief out of him. An old gentleman
helps the boy, but Oliver is kidnapped by the gang and forced to commit burglary. At the end of the novel he is
adopted by a middle-class family and they discover his noble origins.
Setting: the most important settings of the novel is London, depicted at three social levels:
Parochial world of the workhouse, where people are calculating and insensible.
Criminal world of pickpockets and murderers, characterized by poverty, violence and crime
Victorian middle-class world, where live respectable people.
Workhouse: the conditions prevailing in the workhouses were appalling. Labour was required, families were
always separated and rations of food and clothing were meagre: poverty was considered the consequence of
laziness and the dreadful conditions in the workhouses should have inspire the poor to get better their
conditions. Instead it was impossible to do so and workhouses did not provided any means for social or
economic improvement.

DAVID COPPERFIELD
Charles Dickens

The novel follows the development of the hero, from childhood to adulthood and his troubled quest for identity. The
protagonist is also the narrator, and the book is built as a fictional autobiography. David is never offstage.
Plot: it consists in David's narration in his maturity of the events and incidents through which he remembers
his life. The plot can be divided into three parts:
Childhood (chapters 1-18): David is a posthumous child and at the beginning his life is happy, with his
 mother Clara and his nurse Peggotty. This condition is destroyed by the arrival of his stepfather, Mr
Murdstone and his sister Jane. This period ends when completes his time at Strong's school, where he was
tormented and brutalised.
Manhood (chapter 19-53): David experiences poverty, despair and loneliness, after his mother's death. His
financial problems lead him to his imprisonment for debt. David then decides to look for a career in
London and becomes a parliamentary reporter and a successful writer. This period ends with the death of
his first wife, Dora.
Maturity (chapter 54-64): it represents the very end of the novel and contains the symbolic death and
rebirth of the protagonist who marries his predestined love, Agnes, and lives happily ever after.
Characters: like all Dickens figure, they are both realistic and romantic, exaggerated and characterized by a
particular psychological trait.
David: the protagonist can be considered both as the hero of the novel and not. In the matter of fact he is
not an example of integrity, who, with brave actions and spiritual strength defeats the forces of evil. His
lack of discipline, romanticism and self-deception lead him to disaster. However he can be called hero
because he learns through experiences and suffering.
Themes: the struggle of the weak in society; strict education based on hard work and physical punishment;
cruelty to children, exploited by adults; bad living conditions of the poor; the importance of social status;
friendship and love.
Atmosphere: the novel is a sort of combination between realism and enchantment; there is an apparent realism
but the protagonists are also imbued with magic of fairy tales.