Charles Dickens: life, novels, themes, aims, style, Oliver Twist., Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Charles Dickens: life, novels, themes, aims, style, Oliver Twist. e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! CHARLES DICKENS One of the most famous authors of all ages. His name was connected with children books, but that’s because he was always interested in children, but his novels were addressed to the middle class. He wrote serialized novels 1. DICKENS’S LIFE - Born in Portsmouth in 1812. - Unhappy childhood: he had to work in a factory at the age of 12 (his father went to prison for debts). - He became a newspaper reporter with the pen name Boz. - In 1836 Sketches by Boz, articles about London people and scenes, were published in instalments. - Success with autobiographical novels: Oliver Twist (1838), David Copperfield (1849-50) - David Copperfield DC is an inversion of Charles Dickens CD, Little Dorrit (1857). - Bleak House (1853), Hard Times (1854), Great Expectations (1860-61) set against the background of social issues. - Busy editor of magazines. - Died in 1870. 2. THE SETTING OF DICKENS’S NOVELS - Dickens was the great novelist of cities, especially London depicted at three different social levels: . the parochial world of the workhouses -> its inhabitants belong to the lower middle class (Workhouses: institutions connected with the church that wanted to help poor people, prostitute, orphans they built some buildings where they gave accommodations and food in change of work - women were separated from men and from children, extremely harsh conditions, hard,); . the criminal world -> murderers, pickpockets living in squalid slums; . the Victorian middle class -> respectable people believing in human dignity. - Detailed description of ‘Seven Dials’, a notorious slum district -> its sense of disorientation and confinement is clearly expressed in Dickens’s novels. 3. DICKENS’S CHARACTERS - Dickens shifted the social frontiers of the novel: . the 18th-century realistic upper middle-class world was replaced by the one of the lower orders. . he depicted Victorian society in all its variety, its richness and its squalor. - He created: . caricatures -> he exaggerated and ridiculed peculiar social characteristics of the middle, lower and lowest classes; stereotypes . weak female characters. - He was on the side of the poor, the outcast, the working-class. 4. DICKENS’S THEMES - Family, childhood and poverty -> the subjects to which he returned time and again. - Dickens’s children are either innocent or corrupted by adults always positive and innocent, if they aren’t the fault is on the adults. - Most of these children begin in negative circumstances and rise to happy endings which resolve the contradictions in their life created by the adult world. 5. DICKENS’S AIMS - Dickens tried to get the common intelligence of the country to alleviate social sufferings. - He was a campaigning novelist and his books highlight all the great Victorian controversies: . The faults of the legal system -> Oliver Twist, Bleak House . The horrors of factory employment -> David Copperfield, Hard Times . Scandals in private schools -> David Copperfield . The miseries of prostitution . The appalling living conditions in slums -> Bleak House . Corruption in government -> Bleak House 6. DICKENS’S STYLE Dickens’s style is very rich and original. - The main stylistic features of his novels are: . long list of objects and people; . adjectives used in pairs or in group of three and four; . several details, not strictly necessary. . repetitions of the same word/s and/or sentence structure. . the same concept/s is/are expressed more than once, but with different words. . use of antithetical images in order to underline the characters’ features. . exaggeration of the characters’ faults. . suspense at the end of the episodes or introduction of a sensational event to keep the readers’ interest. - Very intense life - Father in debts – 1823-24 – He had to work in a factory – Extremely unpleasant experience – never forgotten by him (David Copperfield – novel with a lot of autobiographical elements going back back to Dickens’experience in the factory where he worked as a child) - Social commitment and identification with the poor and the oppressed - Literary success came very early - He wrote in instalments (periodicals) – serialized novels - Many activities, interests, travels (Usa – Ch – F –I) - 10 children – separated from his wife – eventful life - NOVELS – he’s a novelist – 14 novels – all the novels are characterized by elaborate plots and subplots + sense of humour – lots of characters and events - Characters: good/evil ch. – heroes/heroines – criminals/evil characters - Talented in portraying characters – flat characters (as opposed to round characters – they develop in the course of the story); sometimes stereotypes/ exaggerated portraits - Description of the setting – the city, esp. London - As a writer he believed that he had a reforming mission, he makes a criticicism of the Victorian society, but he was never a revolutionary, he never questions the basic values of his time: HARD WORK, FAMILY LIFE, ROMANTIC LOVE, THE VALUES/THE MORAL CODE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS – As a consequence he provides the readers with a reassuring view and therefore he had a HUGE SUCCESS. - Recurrent themes:  Exploitation of child labour  Ill-treatment of pupils in schools  Unsafe factory conditions  Injustices  Imprisonment for debts  Unhealthy slums  Greediness and selfishness of the rich upper class  Poor condition of the working class Novels: Mix of social criticism + social realism