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Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens. STUDY QUESTIONS MILLENNIUM 2 P. 29. How remarkable was Dickens’ life?

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Charles Dickens

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  1. Charles Dickens STUDY QUESTIONS MILLENNIUM 2 P. 29

  2. How remarkable was Dickens’ life? • Dickens had a hard life mainly during his childhood and adolescence and this influenced his work deeply. In fact, after his father was sent to prison for debt, he had to work in a factory at the age of twelve and two years later he was a clerk in a legal office. The work in the lawyer’s office made him despise lawyers and the law as an institution. His entering the world of journalism helped him learn, on the one hand, other people’s problems and, on the other, the readers’ feelings and reactions. • List his most famous novels and group them under headings according to their themes. • The comic and picaresque: The Pickwick Papers; • Workhouses: Oliver Twist; • Boarding schools: Nicholas Nickleby, Martin Chuzzlewit; • Factory system and utilitarian philosophy: Hard Times; • Love of money: Dombey and Son; • Lawyers and the law: Bleak House;

  3. Childhood: David Copperfield; • Growing up: Great Expectations. • What are the settings of his novels? • He presents a number of settings: he moves from the countryside to the provincial towns and to the settlements of the north. However, his most typical setting is London. • What are the distinctive features of his characters and plots? • He portrays a vivid picture of Victorian England. • His best characters are mainly from the lower and middle class • while the upper class and the aristocracy are not so well described. • His characters can be easily subdivided in good and bad characters, particularly in his early novels. • His novels are complex, made up of plots and subplots, rich in mystery and intrigue.

  4. Why is he known as a master of the English language? • Because of: • his gallery of vivid and unforgettable characters from the lower and middle class; • his ability to combine the pathetic with the comic; • his clever use of themes linked to social issues; • his skilful use of a vivid, humorous dialogue. What was Dickens’ reputation? • He reached great fame and influenced both his contemporaries and successors at home and abroad. • Earlier critics tended to see him just as a comic writer and an entertainer. • Contemporary critics instead appreciate in his work the ability he had in exploring the human psyche and in representing social conflicts.

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