My first extract is “Murdering the innocents”. Life was very difficult for the poor in the Victorian times. It was very different depending on your class. Dickens used the novels to put across his opinion about the poor peoples hard lives. For example there were no laws about how long people could work; this had an effect on the amount of machinery – related accidents that happened in the Victorian era. Many children were working too long resulting in injury and death. Those children who were luckier enough to go to schools lives were better in the sense there getting an education but there teachers were strict and used the cane and there were large classes teaching a wide range of students. Dickens makes us engage with the characters. The title of the first extract is ‘murdering the innocents’. This suggests the extract is about murder, it suggests killing the children, and however the extract doesn’t involve murder of children. The title is a metaphor that in my opinion means the killing of the things that make a child, a child. It suggests ‘the innocents’ are being destroyed. It also refers to the section in the bible where the King Herod orders all children under the age of 2 to be killed so the ‘new king’ wouldn’t be a threat to him. In this extract Dickens explores poor people. He’s attempting to show rich people how poor peoples’ lives are difficult compared with theirs. Dickens wants to make the point that in his time school was only about facts and figures. He wanted the children to have an imagination so he was very critical o the education they received. For example in the extract Gradgrind asks Bitzer for his definition of a horse, the definition was not an imaginative one, you would not be able to picture a horse ... ... middle of paper ... ...s trying to put across his message to show the children there are people less fortunate than themselves and that they should appreciate what they have, also I think he’s trying to make them understand how the poor’s lives are shut away from the rich. I found the description of the boys on the boat most effective as it’s about the children attempting to row the boat on the thick lake of dye and pollution. The sections show that education and industrial towns have moved on from the industrial revolution, education has moved forward by having a lot more schools, teachers and laws about ill treatment towards pupils. Furthermore children under the age of 13 aren’t allowed to work at all and ones over 13 have limited hours up to the age of around 15, 16 where more variety is available, also most of the pollution has gone leaving clear skies again, and machinery is safer.
In this paper I would like to discuss the possibly affects that this book might have had on the world, the time around Charles Dickens, and the fact that Charles Dickens paid close attention to the world around him.
In Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, Mr. Vholes is Richard Carstone’s legal advisor. Introduced to Richard by Mr. Skimpole, Vholes encourages and assists Richard as he attempts to unravel the mysteries of the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case in Chancery. Vholes, however, may not have the best intentions. Through descriptions of his gloomy physical appearance, suspicious actions, and unfortunate connections to English law, Dickens paints a vivid image of Mr. Vholes—a man who cannot be trusted. Vholes, therefore, is made up of multiple layers; as each layer peels away, the reader understands a little bit more of this secretive man. Surprisingly, Mr. Vholes is seen as more and more evil as readers journey to the center of his being.
The aforementioned imagery of a baby being left at the steps of an orphanage in a cardboard box in comparison to a new adult being left alone to tackle the real world by his parents helps create the tragic tone that manifests itself in the young adult’s feelings of abandonment. The irony of the parents acting as the stork to deliver their children to the real world in lines 1-2, instead of the basic stork that is known for delivering a child to his parents further adds to the tragic tone that encapsulates the first four stanzas. The uninhabited swingset seats rocking back and forth in the wind in lines 9-10 symbolize the desertion of now-knowingly simplistic items that caused the young adults’ enjoyment in their youth and the solemn longing that these young adults have to regain this enjoyment once more. The new adults long for the mysticality and wonder that they used to feel when they were children with thriving imaginations. With adulthood comes a departure from imagination and a greater step towards logic and reason.
Readers of Charles Dickens' journalism will recognize many of the author's themes as common to his novels. Certainly, Dickens addresses his fascination with the criminal underground, his sympathy for the poor, especially children, and his interest in the penal system in both his novels and his essays. The two genres allow the author to address these matters with different approaches, though with similar ends in mind.
Charles Dickens was a social commentator of a period when social class was important and where lower classes were stereotyped as being evil untrustworthy crooks, and were to be avoided. Another example is the blatant anti-Semitism in the book. Fagin is constantly referred to as 'The Jew'. in Victorian times Jewish people were seen as immigrants, and people treated them with much the same discourtesy. Though in Dickensian Times racism was not a recognized form of prejudice so these comments would have been acceptable.
This amplifies the situation and links in with the fact that the story was originally intended to be read aloud and discussed. It is evident that Dickens constitutes suspense throughout the story, beginning with the decisive opening words, the vivid description of the cutting and the signalman. The conventional qualities of the story are unmistakeable~ the dark, eerie atmosphere and the distinct sense of the supernatural help to amplify the enigma. Dickens' ability to sustain mystery, suspense and ambiguity provide thrilling reading material
Dickens is attempting to show through Oliver Twist that Oliver is idealistic in thinking that everyone is good. Dickens portrays Victorian Society as a whole as being idealistic and in denial of some of the things that were happening during their time period. Having lived in the Victorian Era, Dickens had firsthand experience with the people who lived in this time period. There was poverty, illness, and violence that the high class citizens during this era essentially attempted to ignore. ...
"The Victorians were avowedly, unashamedly, incorrigibly moralists. They . . . engaged in philanthropic enterprises in part to satisfy their own moral needs. And they were moralists in behalf of the poor, whom they sought not only to assist materially but also to elevate morally, spiritually, culturally, and intellectually . . . ." (Himmelfarb 48(8)). Charles Dickens used characterization as the basis of his pursuit of this moral goal in the serialized Oliver Twist. His satyr was meant to draw parallels to the dark side of an era of British progress. One side of progress is wealth, the other side of the same coin is poverty, despair, misery and crime. Dickens allegorized evil in contrast to good through characterization and melodrama. "Most of the moral judgments of the reader are pre-made for him or her. As a result, the reader objectively absorbs the moral lessons Dickens has set forth" (Stoddard).
“Charles Dickens: Great Expectations.” (2 Feb, 2006): 2. Online. World Wide Web. 2 Feb, 2006. Available http://www.uned.es/dpto-filologias-extranjeras/cursos/LenguaIglesaIII/TextosYComentarios/dickens.htm.
Charles Dickens is one of the most popular and ingenious writers of the XIX century. He is the author of many novels. Due to reach personal experience Dickens managed to create vivid images of all kinds of people: kind and cruel ones, of the oppressed and the oppressors. Deep, wise psychoanalysis, irony, perhaps some of the sentimentalism place the reader not only in the position of spectator but also of the participant of situations that happen to Dickens’ heroes. Dickens makes the reader to think, to laugh and to cry together with his heroes throughout his books.
Charles Dickens is one of the most famous writers of the Victorian Age. This period is known for industrialization which brought about many problems. Workers were trying to fight for the rights which were taken from them. Dickens depicts this struggle in many of his works. In Hard Times he focuses on the new way of thinking, a result of the development of technology. The reader is introduced to the new philosophy applied to the upbringing of Victorian children, represented by Thomas Gradgrind and his off spring. This type of education had many negative effects on these young minds. One of them is dehumanization which is noticeable in the acts of Louisa and Tom Gradgrind. This research paper is going to focus on Dickens’ portrait of the Gradgrinds’ education and its
Charles Dickens is well known for his distinctive writing style. Few authors before or since are as adept at bringing a character to life for the reader as he was. His novels are populated with characters who seem real to his readers, perhaps even reminding them of someone they know. What readers may not know, however, is that Dickens often based some of his most famous characters, those both beloved or reviled, on people in his own life. It is possible to see the important people, places, and events of Dickens' life thinly disguised in his fiction. Stylistically, evidence of this can be seen in Great Expectations. For instance, semblances of his mother, father, past loves, and even Dickens himself are visible in the novel. However, Dickens' past influenced not only character and plot devices in Great Expectations, but also the very syntax he used to create his fiction. Parallels can be seen between his musings on his personal life and his portrayal of people and places in Great Expectations.
Most of the story revolved around utilitarianism and the study of cold hard facts, but when the character flaws began to surface as a result of this philosophy, Dickens is quick to emphasize them. One actually sees the main character of the book and firm supporter of utilitarianism, Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, experience the faults of his practice and begin to stray from it. Now, after watching his life fall apart, maybe he wishes he were in the circus.
Throughout the novel there are two very prominent themes: the notion that industrialization has a mechanizing effect on human beings and the recurring battle of fact versus fancy. However, the latter can be seen as subordinate to the first. Forthwith in the novel Dickens establishes the emphasis on facts and statistics (“The One Thing Needful”), using a monologue to introduce his novel: “Now, what I want is, Facts. […]Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.” (Dickens 3). Immediately the stage is set, with Dickens creating a character whose sole belief could no doubt be proved using further statistics and facts. What Dickens has also done by the end of the first chapter is describe a character who possesses qualities common to many industrialists and of that era, a character who himself appears to represent a part of the industry, one who was “inflexible, dry, and dictatorial” (Dickens 3). Given the prevalence of utilitarianism in the time of writing, it is apparent why Dickens chose to embody the main theme in a character that is so “eminently practical” that he comes off as cold as the great hulking...
In the opening Dickens uses a narrator who speaks in the first person. This brings the reader straight into the scene, immediately catching th...