In many ways the Victorian Era is not as different as one might initially expect, though there—of course—have been many social improvements since those times. Individuals of Victorian England had, as we do today, a strong attachment to media entertainment. Just as many American anxiously await the release of new episodes of television shows weekly, Victorian England was similarly riveted through weekly installments from a wide variety of periodicals of the time that too were released on daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. Fans were riveted for the next installment of works like Oliver Twist, The Moonstone, and other such works that have in modern times been compiled into united novels. A particularly popular one of these periodicals was Household Words beginning at the second half of the nineteenth century.
Household Words was one of the most popular periodicals of its time and came to be a place, along with its latter replacement All the Year Round, to find the best up-and-coming literary works. Household Words was edited by the already famous Charles Dickens (The Guardian), which only added to the periodical’s appeal, and he so domineered the periodical that author’s names were not written only “Conducted by Charles Dickens” emblazoned on the top of each page (Household Words 145). The weekly periodical was created in 1850 and lasted until 1859 when Charles Dickens began to have disputes with the publishers; following said disputes, Charles Dickens began his own periodical—for which he had 50 percent ownership—called All the Year Round (The Guardian). The article was developed for a middle class audience with a small portion of disposable income with each weekly article costing a tuppenny (The Guardian), writin...
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...cts and for different purposes. It is particularly surprising how direct some were in their open symbolic criticism of class institutions that so strongly governed the period like “A Mutiny in India.” One may also note, however, that this magazine was clearly not solely focused on issues from an entirely negative perspective; some merely used dark sympathy-drawing language as a means of showing how far society has come from some portions of its dark past, just as people watch some television programs for information, some for romance, and some for their social commentary in modern times.
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9 Daniel Pool, What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist — the Facts of Daily Life in 19th Century England (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), 75.
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Of the extraordinary amount of literary devices available to authors, Charles Dickens uses quite a few in his novel A Tale of Two Cities, which is set during the French Revolution. One of his more distinctive devices is character foils. The five sets of foils are Carton and Darnay, Carton and Stryver, Darnay and the Marquis de Evremonde, Madame Defarge, and Mr. Lorry and Jerry Cruncher. Dickens uses foil characters to highlight the virtues of several major characters in order to show the theme of personal, loving relationships having the ability to prevail over heartless violence and self-consuming vengeance.
Parkinson, Kristen L. "What Do You Play, Boy?; Card Games in Great Expectations." Dickens Quarterly (2010): 119-37. Web.
In many novels, the society created by the author is surrounded by wealth and corruption. Numerous amount of times these settings are produced based on the life in which the author lives. Charles Dickens is no different. In the midst of most of his novels, Dickens exposes the deception of Victorian England and the strict society that holds everything together. In Dickens' novel Our Mutual Friend, a satire is created where the basis of the novel is the mockery against money and morals. Throughout this novel, multiple symbols and depictions of the characters display the corruption of the mind that surrounds social classes in Victorian England.
Charles Dickens is a Victorian author and literary genius known for writing many classics, creating memorable characters, intriguing storylines, and rendering thought-provoking themes and messages in his novels and short stories; to many, he is even considered as one the greatest authors of all time. “Dickensian” is a term used to describe anything that is reminiscent of Dickens or his writings. Dickens is admired for his social criticism, realism, writing style, unique characterizations, linguistic creativity, comedy, and continues to be widely popular today, leaving an incredible legacy behind.
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