ENG 463 Charles Dickens
From WolfWikis
Introduction
Topics
Class, Tradition, and Money
Born Charles John Huffam Dickens in 1812, during the new industrial age, Dickens was the second child of eight children his parents John and Elizabeth raised. He regarded himself as belonging to by right to a comfortable, genteel, lower middleclass stratum of society. He used the pen name "Boz" early on in his career. During his lifetime he saw the vast changes in England. When he was young, people lived and worked on the farming areas. By the time he died, people were living in cities and working in factories. The Industrial Revolution was very prominant for England.
His father was a clerk in the Naval Pay Office, on a salary of £80 a year, but was often always in debt with financial troubles. Since his father had a lot of money issues his family suffered right along with him. With the exception of Charles, who was put to work at Warren's Blacking Factory, everyone else joined him in the Marshalsea Prison. When the family finances were somewhat on track, his father was released.
His mother wanted him to continue working at the factory. Dickens seemed to have gone under psychological issues with this aspect of his life. His mother only intensified it by persisting that he continues to work. His father felt pity and allowed him to become a student at a school in London when he was twelve. His experiences were so traumatizing to him that it is evident in his works such as Great Expectations. Dickens only spoke about these incidents to his wife and his best friend John Foster
One of Dickens major novels that deals with class, tradition, and money,is A Christmas Carol. The English Christmas traditions were in serous termoil. Most of the holiday traditions Dickens recounts in A Christmas Carol have history in the Roman Saturnalia and the Saxon holiday of Yule and are much older than Christianity.
For most of their history, the English lived in rural areas and rarely left the place where they grew up. "Christmas" was a 12 day festival taking place in the manor of the local "lord" and included burning the Yule log, playing traditional games and feasting on traditional foods.
In the mid-seventeenth century, the Cromwellian Revolt abolished Christmas as well as the monarchy. However well the monarchy was subsequently "restored" the traditions of the winter holiday never recovered. But religious prescription was not the only cause of the decline of Christmas. Even by the beginning of the nineteenth Century, the Industrial Revolution especially in the North was changing the communities that still tenuously kept the customs of their ancestors.
"By the time the Carol was written in 1843, the lavish celebrations of the past were a distant, quaint memory, remembered by some. The Cratchit family, in the novel, was very familar to Dickens. It was the typical portrait of the lower middle class families during the time. Their characteristics were based on what Dickesn went through in his own life experiences. Dickens tries to get across the point that even the winter holiday can inspire good will and generosity towards one's neighbors. He shows that the spirit of Christmas was not lost in the race to industrialize, but can live on in our modern world."
Working Life
Dickens worked ten hour days at the age of twelve at Warren's boot- blacking factory. His job was to paste labels on the jars of thick polish. He only made six shillings a week. He was not very fond of the job, but had to pay for his stay at Camden Town and help support his family because of his father's financial problems.
In 1827, he started work at the office of Ellis and Blackmore as a law clerk. He held the title of a junior office position with room to grown into a lawyer. By the age of the 17 he dropped the law clerk job because he did not find content in that as well and became a stenographer.
It is obvious that Dickens passion was in writing. In 1834 he became a journalist reporting on election campaigns for the Morning Chronicle. He did his entries in the form of sketches. These led to his first novel The Pickwick Papers.
Dickens held numerous editing and publishing jobs. His frequent dibbles and dabbles in various print work led him to the countless works he penned. Below is a list of all Charles Dickens works.
Novels:
- The Pickwick Papers (1836–1837)
- Oliver Twist (1837–1839)
- The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839)
- The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–1841)
- Barnaby Rudge (1841)
- The Christmas books:
- A Christmas Carol (1843)
- The Chimes (1844)
- The Cricket on the Hearth (1845)
- The Battle of Life (1846)
- The Haunted Man (1848)
- Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–1844)
- Dombey and Son (1846–1848)
- David Copperfield (1849–1850)
- Bleak House (1852–1853)
- Hard Times (1854)
- Little Dorrit (1855–1857)
- A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
- Great Expectations (1860–1861)
- Our Mutual Friend (1864–1865)
- The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished) (1870)
Other books
- Sketches by Boz (1836)
- Master Humphrey's Clock (1840–1841)
- American Notes (1842)
- Pictures from Italy (1844–1845)
- The Life of Our Lord (1846, published in 1934)
- A Child's History of England (1851–1853)
- The Uncommercial Traveller (1860–1869)
Short stories
- A Child's Dream of a Star (1850)
- Captain Murderer
- The Christmas stories:
- A Christmas Tree (1850)
- What Christmas is, as We Grow Older (1851)
- The Poor Relation's Story (1852)
- The Child's Story (1852)
- The Schoolboy's Story (1853)
- Nobody's Story (1853)
- The Seven Poor Travellers (1854)
- The Holly-tree Inn (1855)
- The Wreck of the Golden Mary (1856)
- The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857)
- Going into Society (1858)
- The Haunted House (1859)
- A Message from the Sea (1860)
- Tom Tiddler's Ground (1861)
- Somebody's Luggage (1862)
- Mrs Lirriper's Lodgings (1863)
- Mrs Lirriper's Legacy (1864)
- Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions (1865)
- Mugby Junction (1866)
- No Thoroughfare (1867)
- George Silverman's Explanation
- Holiday Romance
- Hunted Down
- The Lamplighter
- The Signal-Man (1866)
- Sunday Under Three Heads
- The Trial for Murder
- A House to Let
- The Long Voyage (1853)
Essays
- In Memoriam W. M. Thackeray the first!
Articles
- A Coal Miner's Evidence
Dickens often used real life situations or people in his life and exaggerated the situation. This aspect helped Dickens' novel become world wide successes because they were relatable and often had a moral to it.
Science and the Urban World
Railways were a very important contribution to society. They were a sign of progression into the future. It was very much a big influence on the way England grew as a country. Railways helped the wealth of the country by opening up new and faster ways to trade. They also kept society together as a whole because now the newspapers could get to everyone.
However in Dombey and Son, Dickens exploits how the Railways that were supposed to bring prosperity to the nation, only scared some. Its loud noises and big appearance was seen as a monstrous terror
Dickens himself was in an accident in Paris in the spring of 1865. He was with Ellen Ternan, his mistress. The driver was given the wrong signal on a line that was being repaired. The train was derailed. His terror for traveling continued from this point on
Government and the Law
Dickens penned Oliver Twist in 1838 and it was his second novel. It tells the story of an orphan that is forced to do hard labor at such a young age. The Poor Law is what took care of Oliver and others during the time. The "Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (4 & 5 Will. 4 c. 76) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Earl Grey that reformed the country's poverty relief system. The existing system was based on England's Poor Law of 1601, and had been largely unchanged since then. The Amendment Act was called for after an investigation by the 1832 Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws made up of Edwin Chadwick, George Nichols and Nassau William Senior. is what". This law was very critical for the Enlgish.
The passage below was taken chapter 2 of Oliver Twist. Dickens writes,
"For the next eight or ten months, Oliver was the victim of a systematic course of
treachery and deception. He was brought up by hand. The hungry and destitute
situation of the infant orphan was duly reported by the workhouse authorities to
the parish authorities. The parish authorities inquired with dignity of the
workhouse authorities, whether there was no female then domiciled in 'the house' who
was in a situation to impart to Oliver Twist, the consolation and nourishment of
which he stood in need. The workhouse authorities replied with humility, that there
was not. Upon this, the parish authorities magnanimously and humanely resolved, that
Oliver should be 'farmed,' or, in other words, that he should be dispatched to a
Branch-workhouse some three miles off, where twenty or thirty other juvenile
offenders against the poor-laws, rolled about the floor all day, without the
inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing, under the parental
superintendence of an elderly female, who received the culprits at and for the
consideration of seven pence-halfpenny per small head per week. Seven pence- halfpenny's
worth per week is a good round diet for a child; a great deal may be got for
seven pence-halfpenny, quite enough to overload its stomach, and make it
uncomfortable. The elderly female was a woman of wisdom and experience; she
knew what was good for children; and she had a very accurate perception of what was
good for herself. So, she appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to her
own use, and consigned the rising parochial generation to even a shorter allowance
than was originally provided for them. Thereby finding in the lowest depth a deeper
still; and proving herself a very great experimental philosopher."
Dickens allows the reader to understand the hardship during the time through Oliver Twist. Dickens often used the rules and laws that governed society and expressed them in his novels.
House, Food, and Clothes
Dickens used housing, food, and clothing interchangeable throughout his stories. In Oliver Twist, Oliver was an orphan and was a product of the Poor Law System. Oliver Twist is an iconic symbol of how the government doesn’t look after everyone. Dickens uses an innocent boy to exploit the problems of housing, food, and clothing.
The Public Health Act of 1875 introduced all newly built dwellings required to have a privy or water closet.
In lodging houses people slept on beds or pallets crammed into open rooms. Hot and cold water didn’t become available until 1880s and 1890s.
Family and Social Rituals
"In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high according to scale, as a big boned Irished hunter. Within myself, I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with in justice." Great Expectations, Chapter 8
Dickens had very strong view on childhood. His child characters faced several different adversities. They were either written to live in an unstable home (whether there was a home or not), mistreated, solitary confinement, beatings, undernourished, or even die. Death was always a good option because it was the easiest. If someone was suffering badly, all of their struggles could be ended shortly.
Dickens himself had a big family. He had nine children altogether. His children were Charles Culliford Boz Mary Kate Macready Walter Landor Francis Jeffrey Alfred D' Orsay Tennyson Sydney Smith Haldimand Henry Fielding Dora Annie Edward Bulwer Lytton
Education
Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts..., facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.
This was the basis of Dickens' belief in the novel’ Hard Times. Dickens attacked the idea of education in British society through the novel. He believed that the children were being ordered to learn things so that they can solely recite them. According to him, education was not being taught to know information of importance. He believed that education was the answer to England's social problems. In a speech Dickens presented in 1857, he felt that the way education was being displayed; children were being trained as "little parrots and small calculating machines". In 1870 Parliament passed and act requiring that schools be available in every part of the country. With this in mind, students were crammed into small classrooms and required to be taught as a large group.
The character M’Choakumchild which was the teacher at the school was one that was new to the field. Like others during the time, once they graduated, they were forced to become teachers. With the minimal knowledge that they had, they were forced to pass it on to others. Thus, the conflict that people were only being taught what was needed to pass for the time.
The education policy’s during the time weren’t very stable. Depending on how the school was funded, it was given a different name. (ie boarding school, district school, parish school etc)There were few elementary schools that were free. They ranged anywhere from one to four pence a week. The term public school and private school had a different meaning then it does today in modern day United States. Public school was owned by more than one person while a private school was owned by just one person. Education varied amongst class and helps to determine class
Health and Medicine
England suffered its first cholera epidemic in 1831. It killed approximately 60,000 people in two years. It spread from India across Europe to England. Dr. Southwood Smith was one of the first in inquire about the outbreak. He states,” All this suffering might have been averted, [he reported]. These poor people are victims that are sacrificed. The effect is the same as if twenty or thirty thousand...were annually taken from their homes and put to death." (Watts 96)
Dickens uses Bleak House to parallel the conditions of the poor to their health. It was easy for them to pass on all types of disease due to the lack of sanitary conditions. Dickens writes,
"Dead, you’re Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day." Taken from Bleak House
Holidays, Sports, and Recreation
Christmas was a very important holiday during the Victorian period. Charles Dickens alone wrote five Christmas books. He wrote A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, and The Crickey on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man. The most famous out of the group is A Christmas Carol. He got his ideas for the stories through fairy tales. He himself felt that he was taking the tales and "giving them a higher form". A Christmas Carol was created solely on the purpose to poke fun at society.
In A Christmas Carol, Dickens uses the supernatural, ghost, and spirits to bring the characters together through the plot line. It was originally subtitled A Ghost Story of Christmas. The three ghosts that he uses are allegorical figures in the book. The Ghost of Christmas Past resembles childhood, age, forgetfulness and memory. The Ghost of Christmas Present resembles ease, plenty, and joy, while The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come is death.
The main character Ebenezer Scrooge is the epitome of all selfish men. He is a personification of a economic man. Scrooge feels that he has given back to society through him paying his taxes to pay for the workhouses, prisons and everything else under the poor laws. He does not like the fact that he has to give his money up anyway. He views the people who are unemployed or sick and handicapped as idle and useless. To him, them dying would benefit society instead of trying to keep them alive where they can not contribute anything to society only take. Scrooge is very much against Christmas and the idea of it. He states,” every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart." to the man who "knew how to keep Christmas well"
Dicken uses all of his own personal experience to create A Christmas Carol. The theme is related to a serial publication short story titled Martin Chuzzlewit.
Religion and Reform
Dickens himself was not very religious or as it appeared to be he wasn’t. He didn’t write a lot of religious text like other authors. However there are some minor occurrences in his novels that relate to religion.
England had a number of different denominations. There was The Church of England which was also known as the Anglican Church, The High Church also known as the Tractarians, and The Evangelicals, The Broad Church also know as the Liberal Anglicanism, and the Roman Catholicism. There were also the Dissenters who were all protestants that did not follow the 39 ways if faith.
In Dickens works he touches base with limited religious aspects. Works, such as Great Expectations, Hard Times, Pickwick Papers, and Little Dorrit all posed religious influences. For example in Pickwick Papers Dickens pokes fun at the effects of the Evangelical church clergymen. He purposely makes Pickwick half Christian and in the end wants to restore faith in him.
Victorian Morality
Bender writes,
"Certain elements persist through [Dickens's] work. Among the most important of these are
the general situations of the protagonist at the beginning of the story and the general
nature of the world he lives in. Each protagonist confronts, from moment to moment, a
certain kind of world, a world in which inanimate objects, space and time, other people,
and his own inner life have certain given modes of existence". (Bender 59)
In all of Dickens' novels he sets a sense or morale that society should follow. All of his character have deep rooted characteristics that are relatable even to society today. Dickens is aware that to each character, the end means something different. It seems as if he is knowledgeable as what the characters need to do to uplift themselves.
Through reading Dickens' novels it is evident that the situtations the characters are put through are realistic and personal. Bender writes, "The situations become cosmic and human rather than social. Steerforth dies, Ham dies, Estella suffers, Pip learns, Mrs. Clenman festers, Wrayburn is nearly murdered, not because of bad institutions or inhumane laws".(Bender 35) Dickens has an unique craft in the way he constructs his characters. For instance Oliver Twist did not have anything growing up. It doesn't seem the reader would be totally against Oliver once he steals the food. Each of his characters are reprentations of what society is.
England and Empire
"I have not the least belief in the Noble Savage," Charles Dickens famously wrote in his 1853 Household Words article on the subject: "I call him a savage, and I call a savage a something highly desirable to be civilized off the face of the earth" (7 [11 June 1853] 337)." (Victorian Studies 48.2 (2005) 331-333)
Dickens wrote "The Perils of Certain English Prisoners" in 1857. It is a story about imperialism on two continents Asia and South America. Dickens had strong views about governing other countries that would be considered savaged and weaker
England grew rapidly through imperialism. England was in control of more than 70 territories.
Links
Sources
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