Dickens, Charles - Vita e pensiero

-Charles Dickens-

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812.
He had an unhappy childhood, since his father went to prison for debt and he had to work in a factory at the age of 12.
These days inspire much of the content of his novels.
He realised that he had a talent for writing and became a journalist at the Parliament and Law Courts.
He had the pen name ‘Boz’.
One of his first works was ‘The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club’, published in instalments.
Then he wrote some novels, such as ‘Oliver Twist’, ‘David Copperfield’ and ‘Little Dorrit’, which showed his own childhood.
He talked about the exploited lives of children in the factories.
Another novel is ‘Bleak House’.
These novels are set against the background of social issues, showing the conditions of the poor and the working class.
He died in 1870.

-The Plot of Dickens’s Novels-

His novels were influenced by the Bible, fairy tales, fables and nursery rhymes.
London was the setting of most of his novels.
At first, Dickens created middle class characters.
He was aware of the spiritual and material corruption because of industrialism and he became critical of society.
Then, Dickens showed more attention to public abuses, evils and wrongs, like misery and crime in London.

-Characters-

Dickens created characters with exaggerated and ridiculed social characteristics; the characters come from the middle, lower and lowest classes.

-A Didactic Aim-

Children are often the most important characters in Dickens's novels.
Children are the moral teachers.
Inside the novels, the wealthier and more educated classes acquires a knowledge of their poorer neighbours, of which many were ignorant.
Dickens's task was to alleviate undeniable sufferings, to get the common intelligence of the country, in all its different classes.

-Style and Reputation-

Dickens chose carefully adjectives, uses repetition of words, hyperbolic and ironic remarks.