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A project work by Cosimo Cannata, 2007-2008
CHARLES DICKENS AND THE
VICTORIAN NOVEL
Charles Dickens’ Biography
(1812-1870)
 Born in Portsmouth, 7
February 1812
 1824, Dickens worked at
Warren’s Blacking
Warehouse
 1824, Mr. Dickens (Charles’
father) taken to debtors’
prison; family goes with
him
 Imprisoned from February –
May 1824
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More Bio
 1827 - Dickens family evicted from (= cacciata
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via) home for not paying rent
Charles is pulled out of private school
Charles, now 15, becomes law clerk and freelance writer
1834 - Charles takes Boz as pen name
1834 - Charles’ Dad re-arrested for debts
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Dickens starts Publishing!
 1836 -
Sketches by
Boz
 1837 - The
Pickwick Papers
 and on a
personal note...
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“Here Comes the Bride…”
 1836 (Dickens is 24) he
and Catherine Hogarth
get married
 and… one year later,
the first “little Dickens”
is born
 and one year after that,
baby n. 2 is born...
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But, back to business!
 1837 - Oliver Twist is serially published
(appears in periodical magazines)
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Some other Dickens’ novels…
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1838 -- Nicholas Nickleby
1840 -- The Old Curiosity Shop
1841 -- Barnaby Rudge
1842 -- American Notes
1843 -- A Christmas Carol
1844 -- Martin Chuzzlewit
1844 -- The Chimes
1845 -- The Cricket on the Hearth
1846 -- The Battle of Life
1846 -- Dombey and Son
And so writing goes on...
 1850 -- David Copperfield
 1853 -- Bleak House
 1853 -- A Child’s History of England and... a
near nervous breakdown
 1854 -- Hard Times
 1857 -- Little Dorrit
 1859 -- A Tale of Two Cities
 1861 -- Great Expectations
 1865 -- Our Mutual Friends
 1869 -- The Mystery of Edwin Drood
(unfinished)
What was happening in 1837?
 King William IV of
England dies
 Victoria becomes
queen of England
 Benjamin Disraeli
delivers his first
speech in the
House of
Commons
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And in the arts?
 Nathaniel Hawthorne publishes Twice Told
Tales – it becomes a best seller
 William H. Prescott publishes The History of
the Reign of Isabella and Ferdinand
 John Constable died (English landscape
painter)
 Berlioz completes “Grande Messe des Morts,”
Opus 5
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In the sciences
 Industrialist August Borsig opens iron foundry
and engine-building factory in Berlin
 Wheatstone and Cooke patent electric
telegraph
 Samuel Morse exhibits his electric telegraph
 Dutchman Johannes Diderik born (Nobel
Prize in physics in 1910)
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Themes in Dickens’ novels
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The powerlessness of children
Good’s ability to triumph over evil
Man’s humanity to man
Man’s inhumanity to man
The outcast’s search for status and
identity
• The heinous (= hateful) nature of
crime and criminals
Hard life for
English
teenagers in
XIXth century
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Cruelty and
inhumanity
in daily life
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Dickens' style of writing
 1. Dickens’ descriptions show a wonderful eye for
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DETAIL.
2. Dickens’ style of writing is filled spaces, and
included lots of REPETITION and long LISTS.
3. Dickens loved words. He included lots of powerful
ADJECTIVES, and is famous for his use of
METAPHORS and SIMILES.
4. From the early 1850s, Dickens gave public
readings of his novels. His writing is RHYTHMIC and
designed to be read out loud.
5. The effect is COMIC or heart-breakingly
6. The tone becomes SENTIMENTAL.
7. D. used DIALECT and brilliant sections of
DIALOGUE and EXAGGERATION.
Techniques for characterization - 1
Physical description — telling us what the
character looks like dialogue — what the
character says
• Physical actions — what the character
does (particularly in relation to what he or
she says or thinks.)
• Thoughts, or mental actions — the
character's inner life, what the character
thinks
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Techniques for
characterization – 2
• Judgment by others — what other characters
say and think about this fictional person
• The narrator's judgement — what narrator
tells us about the character
• The author's judgement — what the author
thinks of the character (sometines difficult to
determine until late in the narrative)
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Children and city (very
hard) life
Children from low
class suffered
abuses, long
working hours
and were the
weakest (= più
deboli) members
of London society
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Not children from upper
class…:easy life, dance, food
and facilities…
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Exercise of moral
conscience…
 He exercised his social conscience
 He crusaded for children’s rights.
 He was an advocate of child labour
laws to protect children.
 He opposed cruelty, deprivation, and
corporal punishment of children.
 He believed in and lobbied for just
treatment of criminals.
What to watch (out) for...
 Use of irony
 Use of
coincidence
 Use of humour