Dickens, Charles - Works

Charles Dickens (realistic and social novel)

Coketown

This novel is an image of an industrial town. There are ore brick and they are black. The face of the town explain what he sees, chimneys of factories make interminable serpents which polluting the air. It’s a strong and visual image.
Looking at the windows you notice the readom of the city, there’s a terrible sound, typical of industrial cities. There’s a sort of moral intention. He judge a situation, he writes about working and city. He writes about moral aspects to condemning the terrible situation. Dickens is a denouncer but not a reformer.
Workers are presented with a passive role because they are subdued by the city, they are not free. Every buildings are the same, school, church, prison. They are all the same. Everything is fact (something concreate) stress importance of utilitarianism. The lower classes are excluded from everything, nobody is able to help them.
The Victorians were similar to puritans, hard work could satisfy what workers need. An époque of contrast. British consider themselves supreme, they were the leaders of the empire. They found all other inferior for the physical and intellectual difference. A sort of patriotism.
In novel there’s criticism because the utilitarian philosophy makes only the middle class happy and rich while workers are unhappy, they are dominate by this idea of the utilitarian philosophy. Happiness is linked to real fact. The power is in who belong the middle class. Not only noble were rich but also the middle class.