Effective Images of People and Places Created by Dickens

Effective Images of People and Places Created by Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in

Portsmouth. Dicken's childhood was not particularly happy one, and

many of the events he endured and people he met inspired his books.

The second child of a clerk in the navy pay-office, Dickens moved to

London with his family when he was two years old. His father was often

in debt, and finally in 1824 was sent to debtor's prison with the rest

of the family in Marshalsea. Dickens, on the other hand was put o work

at a shoe-blacking warehouse. Memories of this time haunted him for

the rest of his life.

Despite the fact his parents failed to educate him, Dickens worked

hard to learn shorthand and in 1827 became a solicitor's clerk. Then,

in 1829 until 1831 he worked as a court reporter. During this time he

was also a regular reader at the British museum.

He then reported on Parliament. There he gained a detailed knowledge

of London and its inhabitants. His interest in drama developed. In

1833 his first story 'A dinner at Poplar Walk' was published.

Dickens was a reporter for Morning Chronicle and became engaged to

Catherine Hogarth, daughter of George Hogarth, editor of Evening

Chronicle. Dickens' second story, Sketches by Boz was then published.

By 1836 Pickwick Papers had begun publication in monthly parts,

Dickens would often end each chapter on a cliff-hanger so the reader

would want to know what happened next so therefore was enouraged to

buy the next instalment. Dickens then married Catherine Hogarth.

In 1837 Oliver Twist was published in parts in Bentley's Miscellany

magazine. It is Dicken's first sto...

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...(Pip's)

young eyes as if he were eluding that hands of the dead people,

stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his

ankle and pull him in.". As Magwich gets further away his legs seem

"numbed and stiff", he is "still hugging himself in both arms, and

picking his way with his sore feet among the great stones dropped into

the marshes here and there."

The chapter concludes by saying "The marshes were just a long black

horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river

was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so

black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense

black lines intermixed." All this imagery signifies Pip's dread. Pip

then starts to think of Magwich as a pirate come to life, this scares

him and he "ran home without stopping".