Dickens + Oliver Twist analisi, Dispense di Inglese

Scarica Dickens + Oliver Twist analisi e più Dispense in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! CHARLES DICKENS Charles Dickens was born in 1812 in Portsmouth. He attended school and was fond of reading, especially the novels of Daniel Defoe and Henry Fielding, but his childhood was unhappy. In 1823 Dickens moved to London and his father ended up in prison for debts, so Charles was forced to work in a shoe polish factory at the age of 12. This was a very painful time for him and his experiences were often described in his novels. A few years later he goes to work in a legal department, and becomes a journalist. He collaborates with various newspapers and magazines and in the first period of his literary career he begins to write humorous works such as “Sketches by Boz”, a collection of articles describing scenes of London life which became very popular. "Boz" was the stage name with which he signed his works. Over the next twenty years, Charles Dickens published many novels in serial form in famous magazines of the time such as: - Oliver Twist (1838), - David Copperfield (1849-1850), - Little Dorrit (1857), whose protagonists became the symbol of exploited childhood, one of the most serious social problems of the time. Among his most famous works we mention: - The Old Curiosity Shop ( 1840), - Hard Times ( 1854), - Bleak House (1852-53), - Great Expectations (1860-61) - Our Mutual Friend ( 1864-65) - A Christmas Carol (1843). Dickens was a very prolific and hugely successful writer; he not only wrote novels but also wrote plays and spent the last years of his life traveling and reading his plays in public, some even in the presence of Queen Victoria. He died in 1870 and was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey in London. In the Victorian Era the novel was not only a form of entertainment but also a vehicle for the circulation of social and political ideas and the novelists of this period, most notably Charles Dickens, felt the need to inform their readers and make them aware of the social ills of the time; for this reason social criticism was one of the most important features of Dickens' novels. He set most of his novels in London, in neighborhoods like "Seven Dials", belonging to the slums. These novels were a means to express his criticism of society but also to stir the consciences of the richest: he denounced the terrible conditions in which workers and child labor were forced to work (with "David Copperfield" and "Hard Times"), crime and prostitution, and the English legal system (with "Oliver Twist"), but juxtaposing them with humorous and comical episodes. Dickens created a gallery of characters, belonging to three different social classes (as society was divided in the Victorian era): - the parochial world of the workhouses (its inhabitants belong to the lower middle class) - the criminal world (murderers, pickpockets living in squalid slums) - the Victorian middle class (respectable people believing in human dignity) and described their attitudes, ambitions and vanities. Some of his characters are among the most memorable in the history of English literature, such as the orphan Oliver Twist, or Ebenezer Scrooge, the protagonist of “A Christmas Carol”, whose surname "Scrooge" has become part of the English language to indicate a miserly person. In his works: - introduces caricature (an exaggeration of middle and lower social class characteristics), these are flat characters - the woman was always portrayed as a weak character - Dickens was on the side of the poor, the workers and the outcasts. Dickens' favorite themes were family, childhood and poverty, and usually the children in his stories are innocent or corrupted by adults, even if the story almost always ends with a happy ending. His writing style is rich and original, characterized by long lists of objects and people, groups of three or four adjectives, and superfluous details. But also repetitions of the same word or of the same concept, albeit with different words, and the use of antithetical images to underline the characteristics of the characters. And above all, the suspense, which is always present at the end of each episode to keep readers interested (as is also the case in today's TV series). - OLIVER TWIST Oliver Twist is the second novel by the English writer Charles Dickens, in which the author deals with social issues such as poverty, exploitation of child labor and crime. Published in 1837 and set in London, Oliver Twist tells the story of the homonymous orphan boy who, at the age of nine, escapes from the institution where he grew up and joins a gang of young criminals. - PLOT The work inaugurates the vein of the English social novel and, through Oliver Twist, Dickens recounts the exploitation of child labor and social injustice. Oliver Twist grew up in an orphanage and at the age of 9 he started working in a workhouse where he earned a reputation as an agitator for asking for an extra food ration. From this moment on Oliver is dismissed from the workplace and starts working as a chimney sweep but life is not easy and decides to move to London. Here he meets a group of petty thieves, captain Fagin and Bill, but Oliver will not realize it until he is arrested for a theft (which he did not commit) against a member of good society, Mr. Brownlow. However, the evidence is not enough and, once exonerated, he is welcomed into the house by Mr. Brownlow. Fagin and Bill want him back in the gang and get help from the prostitute Nancy to kidnap him. Once back in the group, Fagin forces Oliver to rob the home of the rich Mrs. Maylie, but during the theft he is injured and Mrs. Maylie, moved by the story of the boy's misadventures, decides to cure him. Fagin doesn't give up and contacts the thug Monks to kidnap him again. Monks, however, discovers that he is Oliver's half-brother as well as Mrs. Maylie's nephew, and that he too will inherit a large fortune. Nancy discovers the criminal plan of the two and warns Mr. Brownlow and Mrs. Maylie. For this Nancy will be killed but Mr. Brownlow captures Fagin, thus putting an end to his criminal plan. Oliver discovers that he is Mrs. Maylie's nephew and that he can therefore inherit her fortune, he is also adopted by Mr. Brownlow and with him begins his middle-class life.