Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Life
He was born in Portsmouth and when he was a child his father was imprisoned for debts and he
was sent to work in a factory. Then he became a parliamentary reporter and those experiences in
childhood and in journalism gave him material for his novels. He wrote: The Pickwick Papers;
Oliver Twist; Other Times; David Copperfield; Great Expectation. He gave also public lectures of
his novels in England and America.

Features
The most part of Dickens novels were published by instalments on magazines. As they were
serials, his novels are full of characters and episodes that he had to invent to keep the interest of
his readers.
In his novels he denounces the social evils and problems of the Victorian society as the problems
of education, child labour, industrial exploitation but he doesnt indicate any solution for these
problems. At the end of his novels there is usually an happy ending which is a paternalistic
solution, given by the intervention of a rich good benefactor who solves the problems of the
protagonist. The characters of his novels are mostly caricatures that is stock characters who are
good or bad, identified by their defects or positive features. The aim of Dickens is to educate his
Victorian public, making them aware of the problems of society. In order to do this he uses both
comicity and pathos. Comicity in the use of caricatures. Pathos because he wants to move the
reader to tear, causing in him a sense of pity for the characters and the situation so as to make the
reader identify with the problems of the characters.

Oliver Twist
Published serially in a magazine between 1847 and 1849, it is a novel of social condemnation of
some issues like the spread of crime, maltreatment of children and the morality of institution like
the Workhouses who were supposed to help the poor. The Workhouses were created by the Poor
Law of 1834, they were houses for poor people without work for abandoned children and orphans.
They were supported by public or parish founds. Actually they were like prisons were people
starved. The bad conditions of living in these places derived by the fact that at that time poverty
was seen as a crime or a sin because they thought that it was caused by laziness and so it could
be punished. So there was the need not to encourage poverty and laziness by rendering the life
impossible in those places.

Plot
The passage
The scene is in the room of the workhouse where the boys eat. Each boy is given a little coup of
gruel, so they boys are always hungry. One day a boy says that he is so hungry that he will eat
one of his companions unless he has more food. So the boys decide to ask more food and Oliver
is chosen for this purpose. After the meal he goes to the Master and asks for more. The reaction is

violent, Oliver is brought in front of the council of the parish and they decide to expel him after
expressing the idea that Oliver is a criminal and he will come to be hunged.

Great Expectations
It is a novel of formation as the title communicates because Pip, the protagonist, is expecting that
his courage, loyalty, capacity, all is good qualities will be recognized and rewarded. The novel
recounts the stages of Pips personal, economical and social growing from childhood to adult age.
The character knows a lot of disillusions especially he changes his mind about wealth, money,
though he makes a lot of experiences he also has got the capacity of reinventing himself and, in
the end, he manages to elevate from his humble social class, earns respect as a gentleman and
conquest the love of Estella.