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CHARLES DICKENS - Coggle Diagram
CHARLES DICKENS
LIFE
Born in 1812
Traumatic childhood
Father imprisoned for debts
Worked in a blacking factory at age 12
Experience inspired his autobiographical novels
Worked as a journalist → pen name Boz
SETTING
London
London = heart of Dickens's novels
Three social levels:
Parochial world
Workhouses
Lower middle class
Indifference to poor people
Criminal world
Pickpockets, thieves, murderers
Slums and poverty
Victorian middle class
Money obsession
Social status
Hypocrisy
CHARACTERS AND DIDACTIC AIM
Characters
Memorable caricatures
Exaggerated physical traits and habits
Focus on poor people, workers, children
Didactic aim
No violent revolution
Wanted to awaken middle-class conscience
Criticized social injustice and Victorian hypocrisy
OLIVER TWIST
Critique of Poor Law (1834) and workhouses
Oliver = orphan
Workhouses → exploitation + hunger
Famous scene: "Please sir, I want some more"
Runs to London
Meets Fagin and gang of pickpockets
Happy ending
Main message: attack on social indifference
HARD TIMES
Critique of:
Industrialization
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism:
Only facts and utility
Rejects imagination and emotions
Coketown
Imaginary industrial city
Smoke, pollution
Monotonous life
"Brick monster"
Mr. Gradgrind
Schoolmaster
Children treated like machines
Motto: "Nothing but Facts"
LEGACY
Dickens = universal writer
Still important today:
"Dickensian"
Extreme poverty/social hardship
Cinema
Influenced modern films
Parallel stories
Close-up techniques