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CHARLES DICKENS - Coggle Diagram
CHARLES DICKENS
Life and Works
- Born in Portsmouth, 1812. Unhappy childhood.
- Father imprisoned for debt; worked in a factory at age 12.
- Became a very successful shorthand reporter.
- Adopted the pen name 'Boz'.
- Started a full-time career as a novelist after The Pickwick Papers.
- Protagonists of autobiographical novels (Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit) became symbols of exploited childhood.
- Works deal with conditions of the poor and the working class.
Characters
Shifted social frontiers: 18th-century realistic, upper-middle-class world was replaced by the one of the lower orders.
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Didactic Aim
- Aim was to arouse reader's interest by exaggerating characters' habits/language of the London middle and lower classes.
- Always on the side of the poor, the outcast, and the working class.
- Children are often the most important characters (moral teachers).
- Effective stance: wealthier classes acquired knowledge about their poorer neighbours.
- Task: make ruling classes aware of the social problems without offending middle-class readers.
Style and Reputation
- Employed the most effective language and accomplished the most graphic and powerful descriptions.
- Considered the greatest novelist in the English language
Oliver Twist
setting
- London is the most important setting.
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- Depicted at three social levels.
characters
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- Live in dirty slums, with fear, and die a miserable death.
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- Middle-class: Respectable people who show a regard for moral values and believe in human dignity.
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