Charles Dickens: a journey through narrative and social criticism

Charles Dickens: life and career

Charles Dickens is considered the best novelist in English language. He was self-taught and he did many jobs before the writing career. His childhood was unhappy as his father was imprisoned and at the age of twelve years old he was put to work in a factory. He then did several jobs until he became a shorthand reporter of parliamentary debates for newspapers.
In his stories he combined the pathetic with the comic in all of his stories. He published his stories on booklets and installments, with cliffhanger endings that made eagerly waiting his fans for the story to go on. He basically interrupted the story at its most crucial scene. He also employed a very effective language.

• Oliver Twist (1838): it recounts the suffering of an orphan brought up in a workhouse who runs away to London and joins some thieves.
• Hard Times (1854): still based on the sufferings created by the factory system.
• David Copperfield (1850).

Social themes and recurring characters

In general he presented the main social and ethical issues: social injustices like child exploitation, the fate of orphans, legal injustice and the misery. Children are often the most important characters.

His aim was to arouse the reader’s interest by exaggerating his characters’ habits. He wanted to make the ruling class aware of the social problems. He was always on the side of the poor, the outcast and the working class. London is the setting of most of his stories.

Oliver Twist: plot and symbolism

Oliver Twist first appeared n installments in 1837 and later published as a book. The novel fictionalizes the economic issues Dickens experienced as a child. The last name “Twist” symbolizes the changes in his life.

Oliver was born in a workhouse near London, but his mother died right after his birth. Orphan, he is brought up to a workhouse. The most famous episode of the novel is the moment where Oliver asks for more food. He is the only one to have the courage. For his act, terrible for the adults, he is sold to an undertaker but he is badly treated by the undertaker’s wife. This brings him to move away from London.In London he is involved in a gang of pickpockets. Unfortunately he is caught on his first attempt of theft. Mr Brownlawn, the victim, is actually a good-hearted gentleman who decides to take Oliver at his home. Oliver is eventually kidnapped by Fagin’s gang and forced to commit burglary, during which he gets shot. At the end of the story he is safe and gets adopted by Mr Brownlawn, finding out that he actually has noble origins and is rich.

The moral of the story is that good wins over evil.

Setting and social criticism

The setting is once again London, that is depicted at three different social layers: the hypocritical and parochial world of the workhouse is revealed; the criminal world is described (they live in slums and the majority is robbers, murderers). This is the result of the Industrial Revolution; the world of the Victorian middle class is presented (respectability and Victorian values). It is a social novel where the author criticizes the social situation with a bit of irony, too.