The Life of Charles Dickens

1200 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Cultural study of Dickens hard times

Understanding the experiences of one’s past may inspire the decisions that will lead the course of one’s life. Charles Dickens’s childhood was overwhelming and had many difficult phases. It is truly impressive for a young boy to support his family, mostly on his own, and be able to maintain a suitable education. These hardship episodes may have been difficult for him, but it made him who he had always wanted to be. Eventually, he had been known as one of the most significant writers since Shakespeare. 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. Education is vastly important in one’s life, but one’s family is a... ... middle of paper ... ...ecoming a reporter and he had to work strictly for it if he wanted to reach his goal. Even though he had passed on, he is still alive within the pages of his books. Works Cited http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens/family_friends.html http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRdickens.htm > http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens/family_friends.html > > http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRdickens.htm > http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/bioov.html http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/charlesdickens.html >http://www.online-literature.com/dickens/ http://charlesdickenspage.com/fast-facts.html http://www.dickens.co.uk/education/ http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/dickens/ http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/dickens/ http://www.dickens-literature.com/l_biography.html

Show More
Related

  • Scrooge's Transformation in Dickens' A Christmas Carol

    2180 Words  | 5 Pages

    Charles Dickens born February 7th 1812 – 9th June 1870 is a highly remarkable novelist who had a vision to change wealthy people’s scrutiny on the underprivileged and by fulfilling the dream he writes novels. Furthermore, I think that Dickens wrote about poverty as he had experiences this awful incident in his upbringings.

    Read More

  • The Lives of Dickens' Characters

    1346 Words  | 3 Pages

    Charles Dickens' literary works are comparable to one another in many ways; plot, setting, and even experiences. His novels remain captivating to his audiences and he draws them in to teach the readers lessons of life. Although each work exists separate from all of the rest, many similarities remain. Throughout the novels, Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, the process of growing up, described by the author, includes the themes of the character's ability to alienate themselves, charity given to the characters and what the money does to their lives, and the differences of good and evil individuals and the effects of their influences.

    Read More

  • Examining Techniques Used by Dickens' to Present Pip and the Convict in Chapters One and Thirty-Nine

    1382 Words  | 3 Pages

    Charles Dickens’ novels criticize the injustices of his time, especially the brutal treatment of the poor in a society sharply divided by differences of wealth. He lived through that world at an early age; he saw the bitter side of the social class system and had wanted it to be exposed, so people could see the exploitation that the system rests on. But he presents these criticisms through the lives of characters, Pip and Magwitch.

    Read More

  • Dickens, Thurber, Andersen, London and Perseus

    884 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Life Of Charles Dickens

    1442 Words  | 3 Pages

    Charles Dickens did not begin his life as a humble middle class child. In fact it was quite the oppisite. He was born in Portsmouth, England in 1812. He was the second child of John and Elizabeth Dickens. John Dickens was a clerk in the Navy pay office, In 1817 Charlews got the first taste of the life he would so strongly desire latter in his life. His family moved to Chatham a small portown in England. Charles enjoyed all the comforts of a humble middle class life. Fresh country air, decent schooling, and books to read on sunny afternoons. It was a short idyll, John Dickens money supply was lacking. He was recalled to London and forced to put his family of 6 in a small, smelly, bleak house in the ugly suburb of Camden town. Then in 1824 a event that shaped Charles Dickens view’s on the world occurred. His family increasingly needing of money, sent there second born child to work in a Warren’s Blackening factory . He worked beside ragged urchins, where paserby’s could see him working through the window. The factory was a foul rat infested palace next to the Thames river. Charles was then abandoned by his parents, John Dickens was arrested for debt, and moved himself and his family into the Marshalsea prison, exceppt for charles who was forced to survive on his own on the streets of London. A place where only have the children raised on them would survive to adulthood. Charles proved to be quite adept at surving for a few months when his father was released thanks to an inheritance, but much to Charles dissappointment his mother forced him to remain at the blackening factory.

    Read More

  • What Makes Charles Dickens A Good Leader

    1028 Words  | 3 Pages

    Charles Dickens is considered a great leader for, not just for the novels or short stories he wrote, but for the emotion he put into them. Dickens held an amazing talent for creativity and self expression. He was optimistic and mastered the resilience to overcome many setbacks. His gift for self expression could be a great inspiration force in the world. Dickens didn’t have the easiest life and he put his raw emotion into his articles and that is what made him a potential leader for most.

    Read More

  • The Fiction and Journalism of Charles Dickens

    4560 Words  | 10 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Sissy Jupe

    1303 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. Ed. Fred Kaplan and Sylvere Monod. A Norton Critical Edition. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 2001. 5-222

    Read More

  • Dickens and his Stucture Of Hard Times

    875 Words  | 2 Pages

    “On every page Hard Times manifests its identity as a polemical work, a critique of Mid-Victorian

    Read More

  • Charles Dickens' Exploration of the Victorian Society's Awful Treatment Of The Children Of The Poor

    612 Words  | 2 Pages

    Charles Dickens' Exploration of the Victorian Society's Awful Treatment Of The Children Of The Poor

    Read More

  • The Role of Women in Great Expectations

    2281 Words  | 5 Pages

    For the first nine years of Dickens’s life, he was living in the coastal regions of Kent, however when Dickens was twelve his family moved to London. He lived with his mother, father and his seven brothers and sisters. His father, John Dickens was a pleasant man, but was very incompetent with money, and had enormous debt throughout his life. As a consequence of this, John Dickens was arrested and sent to debtors’ prison.

    Read More

  • Charles Dickens Criticism

    1013 Words  | 3 Pages

    Charles Dickens is the author of many well-known classics such as A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, Great Expectations, and David Copperfield, but he was a man of humble beginnings. Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth, England as the second of eight children. Though they had high aspirations for success, Dickens’ family remained poor, and his father was even imprisoned for debt. When Dickens’ entire family was sent to work in a downshodden boot-blacking factory, he felt that he had lost “his youthful innocence… betrayed by the adults who were supposed to take care of him. These sentiments would later become a recurring theme in his writing”(biography.com). This life did not last long, as he was soon able to return home, after

    Read More

  • The Life of Charles Dickens Reflected in Great Expectations

    2656 Words  | 6 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Social Aspects Of Charles Dickens Great Expectations

    1086 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dickens’s Great Expectations could be considered by some to be semi-autobiographical, since, like the main character of the novel, Pip, Dickens had a very humble beginning. While he and his character bear many similarities, Dickens’s main focus in the novel is addressing the social aspects of his time, rather than telling the story of his life. Charles Dickens was the second of eight children born to Elizabeth and John Dickens in Portsmouth, England in 1812. His father worked as a clerk in the pay office of the royal dockyard in London with little pay. As a result of the family’s rising expenses and small income, John Dickens was sent to debtor’s prison in 1824, forcing twelve-year-old Charles to work in a blacking factory to pay off his father’s debt.

    Read More

  • Crime and Punishment in Great Expectations

    2220 Words  | 5 Pages

    Dickens knew how hard-pressed life was for thousands of English families in mid-ninteenth century England, and he knew the legal side of such desperation--a jungle of suspicion and fear and hate. He was especially attentive [if] . . . hungry, jobless men, women, children with few if any prospects became reduced to a fate not only marginal with respect to its "socioeconomic" character but also with respect to its very humanity. (575)

    Read More

More about The Life of Charles Dickens

Open Document