Charles DICKENS (1812-70)
Life and works
Dickens was born in Portsmouth. He had an unhappy childhood, since his father went to prison
for debt and he had to work in a factory at the age of twelve. These days of sufferings were to
inspire much of the content of his novel. When he realized that he had a talent for writing, he
taught himself short and became a newspaper reporter.
•Autobiographical novels;
•their protagonist all became the symbols of an exploited childhood confronted with the
grim and bitter realities of slums and factories.
•dealing with social issues, such as the conditions of the poor and the working class in
general.
•These entire novels gave him wealth and fame.
•In the novels “David Copperfield” and “Oliver Twist”, Dickens attacks one or more social
evils: debtor’s prisons, workhouses, repressive education, capital punishment and
conformism masked by religion and justice. In all these novels, the greatest victims are the
children either individually or in groups, often ill-treated, exploited in the hardest jobs
(mining, textile industry), starved or beaten to death. Another important topic is his
criticism of the top role of money in the Victorian materialistic society.
Charles Dickens is the symbol of the deep contradictions typical of the Victorian Age and
embodies what was both positive and negative in it. He condemned the rigidity of the Victorian
morality but he was imbued with it: he denounced the evils of his society but he was not able
to propose radical solutions for them.
He identifies the origin of social evils in man’s hypocrisy, lack of love and greed for money. All
Dickens’s novels were published in serial form and editors imposed a censorship on the writers.
•The reading public increased, including the low middle class.
•Episodic structure.
•The narrator is usually third person and omniscient.
•Dickens’s style is journalistic.
Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist is a child of unknown parents, born in a workhouse, where he leads a miserable
existence under the tyranny of Bumble.
He runs away to London and meets a boy dressed as a man, the Artful Dodger, who takes him
to the old Jew, a teacher of theft’s art. Oliver is caught to the police but he is acquitted. He is
taken home by Mr Brownlow who notice the likeness between Oliver and the portrait of a young
man in his house. A mysterious figure, Monks wants to know all about Oliver. He reveals that he
is Oliver’s brother. His father was a friend of Mr Brownlow. Oliver is adopted by Mr Brownlow
and begins a new life.