Dickens: Oliver Twist, Hard Times, A Christmas Carol, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Dickens: Oliver Twist, Hard Times, A Christmas Carol e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! The early Victorian novel: Leading genre: For the first time, the novel becomes the leading genre: it reflects the new social and economic developments, the scientific discoveries and the ethical problem raised by the Industrial Revolution. Victorian readers has to be instructed and the early Victorian novels present conformity to accepted moral standards; the main representative is Charles Dickens. The Romantic Age in England never produced great novels of Romantic love, since it is always subordinated to social conventions. Main features: The general tendency was towards a mild realism and the characters were linked to comedy (Dickens) and to drama of passion (Brontë sisters). The narrator was generally omniscient: he/she can be a companion to the reader (Dickens) or an involved first person narrator (Charlotte). Emily is an exception, since she uses three different narrators with shifting point of view. The late Victorian novel: Realistic and horror novels: The tendency, in this case, is towards realism, following Darwin’s theories and the studies of the influence of the social environment on men. The novel provided a detailed picture, avoiding any judgment or comment and had a predilection for poor and degraded social settings and failed characters. The late Victorian novels also included horror stories, like “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, that cast serious doubt on human nature, since humans can not separate the good from the bad. The novelists in this period followed the anti-Victorian trend, which culminated in the Aesthetic Movement, whose major representative is Wilde. Charles Dickens (1812- 1870): Life and early works: D. is the most popular English novelist and a prolific writer. His father is arrested for debt and sent to prison and D. is forced to work in a factory, experiencing the terrible industrial working conditions, which he finds traumatic (this experience remains in his mind and influences his novels). At the age of 14, he goes to work in a legal office, which allows him to see the corruption of the lawyers. Then, he starts writing stories (adopts the pen name “Boz”) that appears in newspapers in chapters. His first novel is “The Pickwick Papers”: it is about the adventures of a group of eccentric people and is characterized by a mix of comic and picaresque elements; it makes Dickens famous in Britain and in the US. Themes: Dickens is conscious of social injustice, poverty and suffering of the masses, which makes him critical towards contemporary society, as shown in almost all his novels. Some of the most famous are: • “Oliver Twist”: tells the sufferings of an orphan living in a workhouse, who runs away from London, joining a group of thieves; • “Nicholas Nickleby” and “Martin Chuzzlewit”: in which he attacks cruelty in schools; • “Hard Times”: he deals with the sufferings of the factory system and the harm done by utilitarianism; • “Dombey and Son”: about the Victorian love for money; • “Bleak House”: tell how law destroys people’s lives; • “David Copperfield”: is a semi-autobiographical work describing pains and wonders in childhood. Then, he creates a series of Christmas Books which contributes to the creation of Christmas that survives to this day; some examples are “Christmas Carol” and “The Cricket on the Hearth”, that are a mixture of supernatural and sentimental and has a moral purpose. Settings, characters and plots: D.’s favorite setting is London, but he also set his stories in the countryside or in the provincial towns. He creates lively and unforgettable characters from the lower and middle class, usually eccentric, vagabonds, criminal and orphans. Even though they are well-described, his characters are stereotyped and strictly divided into good and bad. D’s plots include many stories, plot and subplot, characterized by intrigue and mystery. He writes in a poetic way and uses satire and humor. Also, the names of his characters give information about their personality. Style: D, is considered the master of the English language due to his combination of the pathetic, the comic and social criticism. His main strengths are his humor and his dialogues, while his weakness is the melodramatic or openly didactic passages. D. also influences his contemporaries and successors (Dostoyevsky and Kafka). Earlier critics consider him a comic writer and entertainer (whose plots are impossible and whose characters are superficial), but contemporary critics see his works as mix of social realism and poetical devices (metaphor and symbolism), which allow him to explore the depths of the human psyche and to represent social conflict. Video summary: Charles Dickens is the most famous writer in the 19th century English literature and his purpose is to fix and change the world with his novels (which have to be wide-spread, because he wants his novels to be read by the people who have the power to change things and do not feel any sense of urgency). He writes his novels in order to connect people to the social problems of his time such as: the evils of an industrializing society, the working conditions in factories, child labor, social snobbery and the inefficiencies of government bureaucracy. Even though he was a sensitive person, he is not able to build up a family; in fact, he marries Catherine Hogarth (who gives him 10 children) but he cheats on her with Ellen Ternan, an actress (D. and his wife separate). Also, he is not a good father, since he acts in a cold and detached way with his children, because his only preoccupation is his work Oliver Twist (1837-38): ►Oliver Twist is a nine-year old, frightened and weak child brought up in the orphanage of Mrs. Mann, who is cruel to the children she is supposed to look after. On O’s birthday Mr. Bumble, the parish officer, comes to the orphanage; he is described as a pompous man with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. The passage is rich in humor and gives a full portrait of Mrs. Mann’s hypocrisy and of Mr. Bumble’s vanity. O. appears only in the last part of the extract when he asked to answer some questions. He has already learned what to say, in order to avoid punishments from Mrs. Mann; in fact, he pretends to be sorry at leaving Mrs. Mann but he is only sorry at leaving his friends at the orphanage. In this story, D’s humor and sentimentality are shown. Characters: ►Mr. Bumble: The reader is not given many information about Mr. Bumble but we know that he is a negative and dishonest character, since he is a parish officer and, as such, he represents the law. We get to know him personality thanks to the dialogue with Mrs. Mann, which show that he is cruel and only interested in his business, because he is the one who names the children, like if they were just objects or instruments he owns. In addiction, the fact that he loves compliment (even when they are not sincere), shows his false modesty. ►Mrs. Mann: she is probably a masculine woman, as shown by his name; she is cruel and careless and never looks after the children, as she would be supposed to. Also, she beats up the orphans, since Oliver is very careful in choosing the answers for Mr. Bumble, probably in order to avoid a violent punishment. ►Oliver: is an innocent orphan who knows anything about his true identity; he does not even know what family means, since Mrs. Mann never really looked after him, leaving him covered by dirt and dressed with old clothes. Hard Times (1854), “A classroom definition of a horse”: The story is set in Coketown (=industrial town made of coke) and has two main themes: • inhumanity of the factory system; • application of the utilitarian philosophy. The 3 main characters are: • Mr. Gradgrind (the teacher); • Sissy and Bitzer (two students). Summary: The extract is taken from Dickens’s Hard Times. The scene is set in a school, where Mr. Gradgrind, the teacher, is giving a lesson to his students, teaching the importance of facts. Then he picks on a new student, calling her “number 20”. She is Sissy Jupe, a poor girl whose father works with horses. Mr Gradgrind decides to change the girl’s name in Cecilia which, according to him, is more appropriate; then, he objects to Cecilia’s father’s job and asks her questions about it and asks her to provide a definition of a horse. When the girl is unable to do it, he calls another student, Bitzer, who is represented as the model student. The boy gives a scientific definition of the animal and is praised by the teacher. Analysis: Gradgrind is a teacher who believes in facts and statistics and has founded a school where his theories are taught; he is a rational and stiff (as we can understand from his physical description: his head and fingers are square). He is the typical Victorian teacher: he is strict and cruel, refers to his students as “little pitchers