Charles Dickens Research Paper

Many prevalent themes exist throughout the works of Charles Dickens. Throughout Dickens’ childhood, he was constantly abandoned by his parents and forced into manual labor to support his family (Watkins 11). It follows naturally that many of the themes throughout Dickens’ works involve the abandonment of children and the protection of the desolate child (11-24). This abandonment of Charles by his parents undoubtedly led to several of the themes incorporated into his works. The first theme that is worth examining is that of the will power and resolution to protect the inner child rejected by a parent (11). When his mother forced him to work in a blacking factory, Dickens began to lose hope in all those who were supposed to be his guardians

This helped for one of the main themes, in Charles’ works, that of his resentment towards maternal figures. Dickens own personal accounts express his hostility towards his mother for not supporting him throughout his childhood (21-22). Watkins also argues that another aspect which is imperative to Dickens’ resentment of the mother figure is that his mother sent his sister to be educated at the Royal Academy of Music, while Charles was left to mope around at home (23). Dickens portrays the ideal true mother as one who always loves the child, even though the mother in David Copperfield fails the son, and the mother in Nicholas Nickelby is totally self-concerned and incapable of love (47). It is evident through these novels that Dickens did not leave his mothers abandonment throughout his childhood unnoticed. In addition to the two fictional mothers mentioned, Watkins argues that Dicken’s character Sally Brass, is the most brutally rejecting of mothers, who blatantly hates and maltreats her child (47). The rest of Dickens works are riddled with mothers who should not be raising children based on his descriptions of them. These fictional mothers include Mrs. Tetterby, Mrs. Jellyby and Mrs. Pocket (47-48). These mothers are prime examples of

Dickens harbored an intense animosity towards all women whom he was attracted to (25). As Watkins points out, this is in part due to his rejection by his mother and the numerous girlfriends and failed relationships throughout his youth and young adulthood (25). Dickens often portrayed many of the female characters in his novels as less than admirable. His character David’s obsession with Dora is undoubtedly a parallel to Charles’ infatuation with his lost girlfriend Maria Beadnell (25). Watkins argues that Dickens felt the need to punish these women in his novels because the women they were based off had threatened the independent persona that he had forged for himself, or because the women reminded Dickens of his mother, the one woman he could never really punish (25). It can be inferred that Dickens’ resentment towards maternal and womanly figures can manifest and translate itself into other themes throughout his