Scarica CHARLES DICKENS, Oliver Twist e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! CHARLES DICKENS LIFE Charles Dickens was born in Hampshire in 1812. he with his family moved to London where Charles, at age of 12 ,was sent to work 12 hours a day in a factory. His education at this time is scarce but the factory owner, a friend of his father's, decided to give him some private lessons. His father's financial situation, was so bad that the family was arrested. Fortunately the family's situation improved when Dickens's grandmother died and left the family a small amount of money which helped their to be release from prison. Dickens began to write various papers anonymously and novels after a reading tour of the US in 1868 that he became ill and died in 1870. Charles Dickens is one of the most prolific writers in English literature. His childhood poverty had a profound effect on him and his writing and also gave him an acute sensitivity towards his environment and his age. Dickens carefully chooses the names for his characters because he wanted to tell the reader something about their physical appearance. FEATURES OF DICKENS'S NOVELS His novels are full of pathos, sentimentality and melodrama. His characterisation can be compared to that of Shakespeare, but unlike Shakespeare's characterisation those we find in the works of Dickens are caricatures, deliberately accentuating one specific human feature. They are consequently 'flat' characters, often either all good or all bad. but nevertheless they still remain unforgettable, due to Dickens's animated and vibrant writing DICKENS'S POPULARITY Dickens used the popular medium of the time, which was the novel in instalments. the members of the families would meet together in the evenings to read the latest episodes and discuss the possible events of the following week's issue, a popularity similar to the TV soap operas of today. This made these works a potentially powerful tool for social and political propaganda DICKENS'S MOST FAMOUS NOVELS Dickens's most popular works include: -A Christmas Carol, which is the story of a bad man, who, after being visited by ghosts who reveal his selfish character to him, is transformed by the end of the novel into a generous man. -Hard Times It focuses on the oppressive effect that factory-life has on the characters in the novel. -Oliver Twist tells the story of the orphan Oliver who becomes the victim of a gang of boy thieves in London led by one of Dickens's most famous villains, Fagin. The most important themes of this novel are the exploitation of children and the deplorable conditions of the workhouses. OLIVER TWIST (1837-38) Oliver Twist Set in slums of London, this novel exposes the situation of the workhouses and the exploitation of children as a cheap form of labour and as criminals. THE PLOT Oliver Twist is an orphan who at the age of nine is taken back into the workhouse where he was born to work for his food. In the workhouse Oliver shocks everyone by asking for more food, something never done before by any other child. As a consequence he is sold for £5 (pounds) to work as an apprentice in a company, but this situation is no better than the workhouse so he decides to run away to London. There he makes friends with the Artful Dodger, a talented pick-pocket, who takes him back to his “home”, Fagin's den, in the slums of London. Fagin leads a gang of boy thieves helped by Bill Sikes and his girlfriend Nancy, a prostitute. Oliver is forced to work for Fagin as a thief and one night is shot when trying to steal from a rich family. When the lady of the house, Mrs Maylie, realises he is only a child she is shocked and decides to take care of him. Nancy visits Mrs Maylie and with the help of a kind gentleman who befriended Oliver, Mr Brownlow, they discover Oliver's true identity and he is adopted by Mr Brownlow. Nancy is murdered by Bill Sikes for helping Oliver but Sikes also dies and Fagin is finally captured by the police. The innocent young Oliver is saved and the villains are all punished.
