Charles Dickens, Summary PDF

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CHARLES DICKENS Life: he was born in 1812 in Porthmouth but after some ears his family moved to London, where his father was imprisoned for debt (he was a naval clerk and he used to live above his economical possibilities). 1824: Charles was sent to work in a blacking factory  traumatic experience which marked him and his literary production for life  then his father’s conditions had improved, so Charles went back to school. 1832: Charles had become a very successful parlamentary reportet and a newspaper reporter. 1837-1857: he published his most important novels  “Oliver Twist” (1837-39), “David Copperfield” (1849-50), “Hard Times” (1854) + “A Christmas Carol” (1843, a short story).

“OLIVER TWIST” (1837-1839): Plot: Oliver Twist is the son of a fallen woman which died after Oliver’s birth  Oliver is transferred to an orphanag, where he spends 9 years of his life, then he went to an adult workhouse: here the other boys, who lived in harsh conditions, make him ask for more soup at the end of a meal: the director of the workhouse, Mr. Bumble, decided to offer 5 pound to anyone who would have taken Oliver away from his workhouse  Oliver escapes and starts working for an undertaker, but then he decides to runa way to London, where he lives gaining the basics for him from thefts. At the end of the novel he discovers to be the son of an upper class family, so he gets adopted by a rich man and starts spending with him his new life in the countryside as a bourgouise man.

Themes: the setting of the novel and its characters allow Dickens to criticise the Victorian policy through the poor (first part of the novel: critique to the charity organization run by the Church and the Government established by the “Poor Laws”). Dickens denounces the workhouse system: children got separated from families and forced to work in conditions of rationed food and inadeguate clothing  poverty = consequence of lazyness: the workhouse system had to make the poor improve their conditions theough the hard work: Dickens depicts the director as lazy, greedy and arrogant. In Dickens’ novels the injustices and violence suffered by the poor in the city seem to be produced by the city itself (Dickens’ description of London in the Victorian Age = best description  Jacob’s Island)  Idealised Countryside: here the poor are free from the squalor of the cities. Oliver’s character: challenge to the Victorian ideal that the poor are evil at birth (corrupted environment = source of vice)  Emile Zola (French Naturalism) will use Dickens’ novels as models in the project of building the French Naturalism’s poetics (creating a model and putting it in a specific environment, particular and scientific analysis of the evolution of this model).

Key Concepts:  Dickens attacks the unfair treatment that the poor received in his time: his target is the “New Poor Law”, which considered poverty as a sort of crime to be cured by housing people in the “workhouses” with the result that people would rather die alone than ask for such aid.  This was the first English novel with a child as the main character: Dickens wanted to convince readers that children where suffering such as the adults, but in his novel he uses pathetic children not only to move the readers to tears,

but also to social reforms  today his character seem sentimentalised, but “Oliver Twist” was a landmark in literatura for making central use of children and showing their vulnerability.  The novel is based on the contrast between good and evil, and depicts the criminal underworld of London  the evil appears the more striking and believable, but in the end it’s defeated by the good and evil people are punished  the structure of the novel builds up to Oliver’s gradual discovery of his true identity and in the end Dickens rewards him with the discovery of his real family.

“HARD TIMES” (1854): The Story: the novel is set in the fictious town of Coketown (Dickens modelled on the industrial town of Preston)  Thomas Gradgrind is a citizen of Coketown and the school headmaster: he’s a pratical man who believes only in facts and figures  he brings up his two older childrens, Louisa and Tom, in a severe way crushing any imaginative impulse (just like he did with the children of his school). In accordance with her father’s whishes, Louisa marries Josiah Bouderby (factory owner, 30 years older than her) and her brother Tom gets employed by Bounderby’s firm  Louisa, unhappy in her marriage, is attracted by an unscroupolous politician who comes to Coketown, James Harthouse. When he tries to seduce Louisa she goes to her father for protection and Gradgring finally understands that his rational and perfectly ordered world is very limited: Louisa separates from Bounderby and Tom unwisely robs his employe and tries to fall the suspicions onto an innocent craftman, Stephen Blackpool  but he’s soon discovered and forced to leave the country.

Themes and Features: written in 1854, this novel is a powerful critique of some of the de-humanising effects of the industrial society (characterised by its drive for material gain and efficiency at the expense of cultivation more human qualities). Dickens’ sense of humor is one of the most radically modern aspects of his writing: an aspects that influenced many modern writers  although realiry is often the starting point for the settings of Dickens’ novels, his style transforms the environment into a vivid symbol of the type of life it represents: Coketown is quite realistic in its depiction of the monotonous environment of and industrial town, but at the same time it’s a symbolic portraits of the poverty (economical and spiritual) that oppresses the working class. Many scenes of this novel are conceived in a vivid and theatrical way: Dickens’ description of the environment and not simply illustrative, but also provide a social and psychological map of the situation they depict.

Unforgettable Characters: as in all his novels, Dickens demonstrates his talent for portraying unforgettable characters often drawn from real life models but transformed through comic exaggeration. Character of Thomas Gradgrind: probably based on the Utilitarian leader, James Mill (Utilitarism = 19th-century political, economic and social doctrine which based all values on utility, measured by the extent to which it promoted the material happiness of the greatest number of people). For Dickens, Utilitarism was based on a fallacious conception of the human nature  its reliance on statistical evidence left no space for human qualities (generosity, altruism and imagination), and its concern with quantitative analysis made it insensitive to the individual.

Gradgrind himself believes that education should be merely practical and factual, allowing no place for imagination and emotion  Dickens: “my satire is against those who see figures and averages and nothing else, the representative and most enormous vice of this time”.

Key Concepts: the Setting: Coketown (fictious city, modelled on Late-Victorian Industrial Town  Preston)  red bricks made black by the chimneys and the endless smoke from factories (= endless work: pistons moved up and down like the head of a “mad elephant”), gloomy atmosphere  Dickens analyzes the effects of industrialization: alienation (loss of humanity and depression  monotonous life) but also proudness (industrialization led to the town efficiency and the production of welfare). Novel = the life in Coketown  Thomas Gradgrind, the school headmaster, “a man of facts and realities”, strict but genuine: education based of the phylosophical theory of Utilitarianism (based only on notions, considered arid and too mechanical) imposed to its children (Tom and Louisa) and its students (called “pitchers”)  Sissy Jupes (daughter of a circusman): she rebels against Gradgrind’s methods (she’s the symbol of fantasy and imagination) Louisa marries Bounderby (a rich friend of Gradgrind, 30 years older than her  he called his workers as “hands”): she wanted to please his father and she wanted to protect Tom, who worked for him, but she got seduced by Harthouse, a smart politician. Novel can be divided in 3 parts:  Book I – the “Sowing”: introduction of the plot and the education of children.  Book II – the “Reaping”: development of the plot and evolution of the characters.  Book III – the “Gathering”: failure of Gradgrind’s methods (Tom becomes a criminal and Louisa becomes depressed)....