CHARLES DICKENS

CHARLES DICKENS

Life.

He was born at Landport in 1812.

He sent to work in a shoe-blacking factory in London to help his father, imprisoned for debts.

This experience marked the beginning of Dickens' s social commitment and identification with the poor and the oppressed  (unpleasant experience).

He was apprenticed in attorney' s office to study law.

These experience provided the material for the description of lawyers and their world.

He travelled in America, Switzerland, France and Italy. He died in 1870.

Stages in his life.

1) period of insicurity = the hero is uncertain of his collocation in society.

Desire to be a gentleman (Oliver Twist).

2) period of maturity = he reached fame, security, a typical victorian novelist for his morality e

love for the family (David Copperfield).

3) period of disillusion = he separated from his wife and went to live with an actress.

He was against victorian respectability. He is aware of the

contradictions in society e in his own life (pessimism) (Great expectations).

Publishing procedure.

He presented his novels in serial form on newspapers and magazines.

The pratice of serial pubblication brought Dickens into direct contact with his readers during the creation of the novel.

Dickens could change and modify his plot according to the readers' preferences and requests (sensation novel).

Literary influences: use of humourpicaresque novel (around the life & adventures of a central character)

descriptive techniques (people & landscape) from W. Scott.

Interest in the Theatre fair for dialogue, sensational & melodramatic devices

Characters.

He learned a lot from urban life, the unhappy circumstances of his own childhood. Here he found material for his scenes and characters.

- he created a great variety of men, women and children.

- he tend to be exaggerated beings. (caricatures)

- they are static with unchanging qualities. Diversification is created by situations, not by characters.

- they are good or bad.

- Minor characters have always an element of caricature (Mr. Bumble).

- Women are perfect angels or lost women.

Setting.

- a world of crime = disase, death (symbolic) that represents not the individual experience

but suggests the destiny of the wohole society.

- a world full of coincidences = he was against realism that reproduces reality as a photo.

- he gave great meaning to descriptions = the city is humanized, the atmosphere absorbs the

characters, people become similar to objects (The

description of cities are more human than the

description of the characters).

Dickens' s talent is evident in the description of environment: reality is the starting point, but the writer' s immagination transforms a setting into a richly detailed fresco .

Es. Hard times - in coketown recalls the actual environment of northern mill towns and, at the same time,

becomes a symbolic representation of the economic and spiritual poverty that oppresses its working class.

Themes.

Usually a life, from childhood to maturity to death (hero in the making novel).

He attacked what he considered the worst social abuses of his time, which are reflected in his recurrent themes: - the exploitation of child labour ;

- the ill-treatment of pupils in hideous schools ;

- unsafe factory conditions ;

- injustices caused by the ferocious penal code ;

- imprisonment for debt ;

- the unsanitary slums ;

- the greediness and selfishness of the rich upper classes ;

- the plight of the working class.

Style.

His language is resourceful, full of analogies, short sentences that illuminate the characters, outrageous.

He had a natural sense of humour that has kept alive the characters of his novels up to the present time.

His rich comic vein can be found in character drawing, in dialogues and wohole episodes

(funny inventions and exuberant language).

Productions.

Oliver Twist = Oliver is an orphan brought up in a workhouse, an istitution for poor people,

until he runs away to London to escape from starvation and ill-treatment. In

London' s underworld, he falls into the clutches of the villainous Fagin, a thief

who trains boys like Oliver to pick pockets. At the end Oliver becames a gentleman.

-Fairy tale in which good triunmphs over evil.

-Scene not realistic: author creates a melodramatic climax, ironically insists on the

disproportionate reaction. Sympathy & irony are balanced

-Love for Exaggerationcreate a tragic-comic vision of Victorian World.

Hard times = The story takes place in the Industrial Revolution on man and the environment.

Words :

commitment = impegno greediness = avidità

attorney = procuratore    selfishness = egoismi

beings = presente    resourceful = ingegnoso

environment = ambiente   outrageous = oltraggioso

fresco = affresco    vein = venatura

mill = stabilimento drawing = disegno

hideous = odioso   clutches = grinfie

slum = vicolo    thief = ladro