Charles Dickens

1812-1870

The most popular English novelist of the Victorian era

Family life

• His father: John, a clerck in the Navy Pay Office• His mother: Elizabeth Barrow• Financially comfortable and then destitute• 1824: his parents were sent to prison for debts

Dickens’s early years

• Family imprisoned for debts• Young Charles forced to work in Warren’s shoe factory:

traumatic experience which influenced his novels a lot• Mostly self-educated – erratic schooling (regular

schooling until 1824)• In 1827 he took a job as a legal clerck: he soon

developed a contempt for lawyers and law institutions• When he was a young men he entered serious

journalism (as a reporter in courts and in Parliament) → this enabled him to meet a wide range of people and to understand the feelings and the reactions of the readers

Dickens's early years

His first works were short articles (Sketches by Boz = his pen name) describing London people and scene, published in 1836: immense success and popularity

Then he published The Pickweak Papers (1st novel) relating the comic adventures of a group of people travelling on the English road. Published from 1836 to 1837 it made Dickens very famous in Britain and also in America

Dickens’s works

- A dozen major novels- A large number of short stories (including

a number of Christmas-themed stories)- A handful of plays- Several non-fiction books- Dickens's novels were initially serialised in

weekly and monthly magazines (different installments), then reprinted in standard book formats.

Themes of Dickens's novelsDickens was deeply conscious of social

injustice, political incompetence, and of the poverty and suffering of the masses.

He had a very critical attitude towards contemporary society.

For example his novel Oliver Twist deals with the sufferings of an orphan brought up in the workhouse who runs away to London and joins a gang of thieves made up of children.

Oliver Twist is set in London, the vast and crowded city where different classes and social groups live alongside each other and yet do not communicate.

Dickens created unforgettable characters, especially vagabonds, orphans, criminals. He portrays a vivid picture of Victorian England. His characters belong mainly to the lower and middle classes.

Dickens is a great master of the English language. He succeeded in mixing social criticism with the pathetic and the comic. He is also very good in creating dialogues. The main strength of Dickens's style is his humour.

Oliver Twist

An early example of the social novel, the book calls the public's attention to various contemporary evils, including the Poor Law, child labour and the recruitment of children as criminals.

Dickens mocks the hypocrisies of his times by surrounding the novel's serious themes with sarcasm and dark humour.

The novel may have been inspired by Dikens' own early youth as a child labourer contributed to the story's development.

Oliver is taken to the workhouse (p. 272)

Guided analysis (1)1. Oliver’s origins: he is a foundling, his parents are unknown

2. Now Oliver is nine years old and he is too old to stay at the orphanage, so he must go to the workhouse where he will have to work for a living.

3. The question “Will she go with me?” would suggest that Oliver is sorry at leaving Mrs Mann. In fact it is quite the opposite, since his only desire is to escape from Mrs Mann’s dreadful house. To the child Mr Bumble represents the power of the institutions and he is awed by him; however he lies to him because, after seeing Mrs Mann menacing him with her fist in the background he fears her reaction.

4. Oliver’s sufferings : the phrases that make us guess Oliver’s sufferings in Mrs Mann’s house are

• lines 25-26 the outerhands

• lines 32-35 Oliver was aboutcountenance

Oliver is taken to the workhouse (p. 272)

Guided analysis (2)4) focus on the characters:

Words and phrases that point out Mrs Mann's hypocrisy and shrewdness: “inflaming her left eye with the corner of her apron” (ll.3-4) - “You, Mr Bumble!” (l. 13) - “Why, you're quite a literary character sir!” (l. 18) - “Mrs Mann, who had got behind the beadle's chair, and was shaking her fist” (ll. 33-34) - “Mrs Mann give him a piece of bread and butter, lest he should seem too hungry when he got to the workhouse” (ll. 43-45).

Mr Bumble's presumptuousness: “The beadle drew himself up with great pride and said “I invented it” (l. 12) - “Well, well, said the beadle, evidently gratified with the compliment, perhaps I may be, perhaps I may be, Mrs Mann” (ll. 19-20) - “I have come out myself to take him there” (l. 22).

Oliver is taken to the workhouse (p. 272)

Guided analysis (3)5) Phrases which express Dickens' humour: “his benevolent protectress” (l. 27)

- “Oliver made a bow, which was divided...cocked hat on the table” (ll.29-30) - “It was no very difficult matter for the boy to call tears into his eyes” - “Mrs Mann gave him a thousand embraces and, what Oliver wanted a great deal more, a piece of bread and butter” (ll. 43-44); phrases which express Dickens' sentimentality: “Hunger and recent ill-usage are great assistants if you want to cry” (ll. 41-42) - “he burst into an agony of childish grief” (l. 48) - “Wretched as were the little companions in misery he was leaving behind, they were only friends he had ever known” (ll. 49-50).

Dickens' intention in writing this passage: by illustrating Oliver's miserable conditions Dickens wants to describe the inhumane treatment orphan children received at institutions, here represented by such wicked grotesque characters as Mrs Mann and Mr Bumble. He stresses the hypocrisy and false concern with the children of the institutions, which under formal respect of procedures hid the inner cruelty of those who should have taken care of them.

Oliver is taken to the workhouse (p. 272)

Guided analysis (4)The passage is highly effective; in fact we have a well balanced interplay

between Dickens' moral seriousness and the humorous treatment of the situation.