Pawnbroking in the Victorian Era
Pleasant Riderhood “was an unlicensed pawnbroker, keeping what was popularly called a Leaving Shop, by lending insignificant sums on insignificant articles of property deposited with her as security.” The Leaving Shop was set up by Pleasant’s mother before she died (Dickens 345).
Pawning
To pawn goods was an easy, legal way to get cash. The shops were maintained to help people hide their hocking habits. Many shops had the entrance at the back of the building (“Pawnbrokers”). Pawning showed how desperate people were for money because the pawning business only provided temporary relief. The pawnbroker’s “lend bank notes on ‘Goods honestly come by’ at five per cent., and which they sell if not redeemed” (Poovey 240).
Employment in the Pawnbroking Business (1871)
* # men=49; # women=79
* Figures also include shopkeepers and dealers (“The economy”)
The Pawnbroker’s Shop
The pawnbroker had “trinkets and expensive jewellery, while the more humble money-lender boldly advertises his calling, and invites observation.”Dickens described...
From the period between the 1870’s through the 1890’s, it became an era known as the Gilded Age. The term was characterized by a famous American Literature author named Mark Twain. The writer tried to point out that the term means that while on the outside society may seem perfect and in order, underneath there is poverty, crime, corruption, and many other issues between American society’s rich and poor. This era’s gild is thicker than the cheaper material it’s covering. This can be shown through the countless numbers of achievements and advances America has made during the period of reconstruction and expansion, industrialization, and foreign affairs.
One of the strongest of these critics is George Brimley, who, in his article entitled “Dickens’s Bleak House” published in The Spectator in 1853, writes that “Bleak House is, even more than its predecessors, chargeable with not simple faults, but absolute want of construction”(161). He finds that the structure of Bleak House fails because there is no connection between actors and incidents. Brimley points to the interest of Richard Carstone in the Chancery case. The case only serves to draw out Carstone’s personality faults that would have been drawn out in any other interest he may have had. The Chancery case, then, is trivial for it fails to exert any real impact on the characters...
Prima facie this constituted carrying on a business of lending money on the security of pawned goods in its natural and ordinary meaning. Furthermore, the second reading speech of the 1996 Pawnbrokers Act did not show an intention to reduce the ambit of the businesses subject to the obligations of licencing under the Act. It was designed to “prevent and remedy problems in the current marketplace’’ , ‘‘streamline’’ licensing of pawnbrokers and second- hand dealers who deal in ‘‘high-risk-of-theft goods’’, and provide for record keeping to assist in the return of such goods where it could be shown that they had been stolen from their true owner. A technical legal meaning of ‘‘pawned goods’’ would thwart the achievements of these objectives. Kirby J finishes his judgment with yet another attack on the reasoning of the majority, and asks whether it can “seriously be suggested that it was the purpose and object of the New South Wales Parliament to exempt a person, such as the appellant, carrying on the business of lending money on deposited goods, from the obligation to secure and comply with a licence as a pawnbroker under the Act?”
It is the year 2001 and not much has changed in our society from the time the Holocaust occurred. A lot of people still believe that the Holocaust did not exist or they try to forget that it did. The Pawnbroker is a film that expresses these feelings. This film also depicts how one man tries to forget his past by becoming a hermit. The Pawnbroker uses some images to show some points about how a survivor is affected by the Holocaust.
Scrooge is a great example of the wealthy, who never gave to the poor and would rarely put money into charities. Dickens was appalled by the conditions the working class had to endure. “Dickens felt that self-interest, uncontrolled, subject to the passions and desires
Charles Dickens’s powerful novel encompasses the notion that generosity involves more than just the giving of money, it requires the giving of one's goodwill and compassion, this required for Scrooge’s own redemption as well as attempting to insinuate within the reader a reflection of their own values and behaviours. Dickens’s novella also acts to warn Scrooge and the audience of the ramifications of their actions if they do not take this into consideration, that generosity always involves more than just the giving of money, it requires the giving of one's goodwill and compassion.
A significant English novelist, Charles Dickens was born during the Victorian-English era on February 7, 1812 in Landport, now part of Portsmouth, England. He was the second child and the eldest son of eight children to John Dickens and Elizabeth Dickens. Theatrical and brilliant, his mother, Elizabeth Dickens, was a storyteller and an impersonator. On the other hand, Dickens’s father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office. John Dickens was an unselfish, welcoming, and loved to live a high quality life, even though he could not often afford it. He put his family through continuous insatiability because of financial debt. This eventually resulted in him being sent to prison, “His wife and children, with the exception of Charles, who was put to work at Warren's Blacking Factory significant novelist, joined him in the Marshalsea Prison” (Victorian Web). Later after his release form prison, he retired form the Navy Pay Office and worked as a reporter. One can conclude that these problematical events in his early childhood made his life arduous because he had to pay of his father’s financial debt, but also he had to maintain a well education to become who he wanted to be.
Charles Dickens’ (1812-1970) father had great financial difficulties. The boy had a rather miserable childhood, and the lad spent much of his time in poorhouses and workhouses. Did poverty overwhelm Charles Dickens? Was his negative environment to blame for an unproductive and fruitless life? No it wasn’t. Dickens retreated into his imaginary world and incisively wrote about the need for social reform in what later became such literary classics such as Oliver Twist and David Copperfield.
both positive and negative traits that they hold. Sydney Carton in Charles Dickens’ A Tale
In Dickens day, a curiosity shop was an establishment where individuals would go to purchase precious or antique gifts, and it is in one of these shops that thirteen year-old Nell lived with her Grandfather. A short summary of the story is that the Grandfather has an addictive gambling problem, and gambles the money needed to run the shop away, all the while borrowing money from Daniel Quilp, a nasty goblin type figure of a man. The losses amount to the shop being taken over by Quilp, leaving Nell and the Grandfather fleeing to avoid him. They wander the English countryside amongst the throng of carnivals, sideshows, philanthropic souls who try to help them, and downtrodden people who try to exploit them. Their deaths, Nell’s especially, whose Dickens wrote of in a lingering, sentimental tone, are where the discussion of the book has been centered on for over a century-and-a-half.
The author’s description of Dombey’s appearance gives an inkling of his disposition. He is characterized with a bald head and his skin tone is a tint of red. The man is known for looking “stern and pompous.” (7) Dickens is already gradually conveying the sense that he is a serious man. Dombey is dressed with a watch-chain
Louisa Gradgrind, the daughter of Thomas Gradgrind, has always followed her father’s philosophy of leading a factual based life, ever since her upbringing in her fathers school and up to many important decisions in life. Not until her marriage to Mr. Bounderby comes close to failing, does she realize the mistakes made in her life. She charges to her fathers home and expresses her concern to her father in a time of need. Dickens uses this moment of Louisa’s to showcase his mastery of imagery...
As the first stray hints of bright morning begin to peek over the urban horizon, ominous, shadowy trails of smoke erupt from the gray giants soon to be filled up with machines. Leaving behind embalming coats of soot and residue in every direction, the endlessly winding serpents indiscriminately constrict the breaths of the impoverished workers and devour fancy in their paths. Meanwhile, on a hill overlooking the town, the factory owner rests easily in a bulky red house bearing BOUNDERBY upon a brazen plate. Dickens’ depictions of Coketown in Hard Times embody the flaws and corruption that persist in the fictional, industrialized city. The political and economic systems in the story, modeled after those in mid-19th century England, call for conformity and monotony while devaluing imagination and individuality amongst its citizens, all for the selfish gains of a small number of upper class individuals. The interminable streams of smoke emerging from the factory chimneys recurrently enunciate the dangers of increasingly prevalent industrialism as well as Bounderby’s pomposity and immorality.
For instance, when Micawber writes his letters of woe expressing his desire to pay his creditors, he is most eloquent, but his actions speak louder than his words do. In her critical paper “The Long History of “In Short”: Mr. Micawber, Letter-Writers, and Literary Men, “ Laura Rotunno argues that, “Micawber...accentuates what the letter-writers promise: wealth, wisdom, and security if one believes in and obeys society's rules. The result...is that his letters capture just how far removed...social success is from the life of Victorian laborers and debtors” (Rotunno, 426). In other words, Micawber tells the recipient of his appeal for help whatever he feels is necessary to open their wallet to assist him out of his present financial difficulty. He promises that he will become a new man over and over, but continues to waste every opportunity of success that crosses his path.
He earns a sizable income trading furs and cloths around England and haggling for better prices. Unlike the Sergeant of Law, who is in a constant struggle to reach nobility status, the Merchant is striving to reach prominence in the rising middle class, or bourgeoisie, in 14th century England. Chaucer writes of the Merchant, “So estatly was he of his governaunce, / With his bargaynes and with his chevyysaunce” (281-2). This means that he manages his financial affairs in a very dignified and stately manner in loans, bargains, and negotiations that nobody knows that he is actually in debt, except for Chaucer, who seems to figure it out immediately, implying that the Merchant thinks he is better at hiding his debt than he really is. He covers up for his debt seemingly by purchasing expensive outerwear. In contrast to the Sergeant of Law, the Merchant is much more concerned with his outward appearance. Chaucer begins his description of the merchant as, “…ther with a forked berd. / In motlee and hye on horse he sat, / Upon his heed a Flaundryssh bevere hat. / His bootes clasped faire and fetisly” (270-3). The Merchant, with his forked beard, gaudy clothing, Flemish beaver hat, and elegantly clasped boots, sits pompously on his horse. This description elicits a sense that the Merchant relies on appearances to sell his products and make him a recognizable figure. However, Chaucer cannot even remember his name