Scarica Charles Dickens and oliver twist e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! CHARLES DICKENS Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in the beginning of 19th century. He is suffering a lot during his childhood because he works in a factory for a long time. He also suffering the loneliness because in a first time his father and in a second time the rest of the family was imprisoned for many debts. He wrote many novels that published initially as instalments in magazine and then as a complete book. He wrote also for theatre. He died in the second half of 19th century and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Dickens create a lot number of characters. The protagonist in his works is the oppressed because he would represent the social injustice. Dickens published his works in a first time in monthly instalment so everybody could be waited next month to read the next instalment. The stories of Pickwick Papers deal with the adventure of Pickwick and his three friends who formed the Pickwick Club. But the main popular novel is perhaps Oliver Twist: the story of an orphaned boy that talk about the exploitation of children and the cruelty of workhouses. Dickens wrote very copiously and quickly because he under the pressure from his publisher and he had need of money. His novels guaranteed a succession of great tension. This was a technique utilized to rise sales. He endies his episode with a dramatic turn of events that provoked suspense in the reader who would buy the next issue. The characters of Dickens were caricatures of virtues of vices that are most memorable in English literature. The novels of Dickens were focus on the social critics. He focuses on issue like the consequence of industrial revolution in poor life, education, child labour. He believes in ethical and political potential of literature. The social world of Dickens includes people from all walks of life: lawyers, industrialist. Teachers. Many of his novels settings in London. OLIVER TWIST - plot: Oliver Twist was born in a workhouse in 1830, his mother died after his birth, till 9 years old he lived in a baby farm, he lived in a miserable condition. One day he was punished by some friends because he asked for some more gruel saying: “please, I want some more”. Then he was sold for 5 pounds. The first man who wanted to buy him was a brutal man; the second man was an undertaker who took Oliver into his service. He was a good man but his wife refused Oliver. They fight and he runs away to London, there he met jack who offered him a shelter in London but he was a pickpocket. The house he went to, named Fagin house, was trained by a gang of pickpocket. They trained him to become one of them. After a few days he followed two boys on a criminal mission. Oliver was rescued by mr. Brownlow, a gentleman, but some members of the gang kidnapped the boy. After many incidents, the gang was caught by the police and Oliver was adopted by mr. brownlow, so he finally found a family. - poor law and workhouses: Charles dickens himself had had personal experience of poverty and child labor and through Oliver Twist expressed his anger at the living conditions of the poor and the iniquity of the poor law of 1834, which dictated that public charity was to be administrated through workhouses. Poverty was seen as a sin and under the terms of the poor law, poor people could only receive assistance if they lived and worked in workhouses. Conditions were as harsh as possible in order to discouraged the poor from relying on public charity. Families were divided and children forced to do hard physical work. The only alternative to the suffering and humiliation of life in the workhouse, where the hypocritical middle class, was a life of crime or prostitution. - victorian morality and a happy ending: Against this background young Oliver stands out as a child with a pure heart and a determined spirit. This isn’t the transformation of a young criminal into a gentleman, and no similar redemption is offered to the other poor characters in the novel, all of whom meet death violently or through civil justice. Oliver’s happy ending comes as a result of the discovery of his true identity. The misery that surrounds Oliver stands in stark contrast to the examples of individual love and true charity that lead to his salvation. His involvement in crime with Fagin’s gang brings him into contact first with mr. brownlow, who takes him home and looks after him, and then with mrs maylie and rose, who nurse him back to health. Dickens bitterly criticized the conditions of victorian England but offered his readers a fairly tale happy ending to the story of evil, poverty and hypocrisy.
