Written by: Angelia Greiner

Who was Charles Dickens?Who was Charles Dickens?

• Considered by many as greatest Victorian writer

• Prolific author

• Writings: commentary on own life and Victorian society

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, …” — Charles Dickens,

A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

It was the best of times…It was the best of times…

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Life and TimesLife and Times

Best of Times Worst of Times

• New inventions

• Growth of cities

• Opportunity for wealth

• New ideas

• Pollution

• Disease

• Strict social classes

• Conflict within the individual and with others

The Victorian Age 1837-1901The Victorian Age 1837-1901

Daily LifeDaily Life

• Working conditions

• Sanitation and disease

• Social problems

The RainThe Rain“In the country, the rain would leave developed a thousand fresh scents, and every drop would have had its bright association with some beautiful form of growth or life. In the city, it developed only foul stale smells, and was a sickly, lukewarm, dirt-stained, wretched addition to the gutters.”

—Charles Dickens, from Little Dorrit Single click speaker to hear audio clip >>>>

Crime and ConsequencesCrime and Consequences

Common Crimes

• Pickpocketing

• Murder

Common Consequences

• Hanging

• Prison

Jack the RipperJack the Ripper

• Represents classic whodunit

• Ferociousness of murders

• Suddenly disappeared

Science and PhilosophyScience and Philosophy

• The Great Exhibition

• Charles Darwin

• Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

Darwin

Image of the Great ExhibitionImage of the Great Exhibition

The Great ExhibitionThe Great Exhibition“Nobody…who has paid any attention to the peculiar features of our present era will doubt for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end, to which, indeed, all history points—the realization of the unity of mankind… The distances which separated the different nations and parts of the globe are rapidly vanishing before the achievements of modern invention, and we can traverse them with incredible ease…thought is communicated with the rapidity, and even by the power, of lightning.” —Prince Albert, banquet speech, 1850

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Prince Albert

The First World’s FairThe First World’s Fair

• Machinery

• Sciences

• Crystal Palace

ScienceScience

• Electricity

• The telegraph

• Other inventions and “toys”

• Combination of art and industry

The Crystal PalaceThe Crystal Palace

Charles DarwinCharles Darwin

• Born in Shrewsbury, England

• Degree in theology at Cambridge University

Darwin

Survival of the FittestSurvival of the Fittest

• Engaged in research on HMS Beagle

• Developed theory of “natural selection”

• Published Origin of Species

Karl Marx and Frederick EngelsKarl Marx and Frederick Engels

• Philosophers wanting equal access to resources for all

• Capitalism creates class struggle

• Communist Manifesto published in 1848

Marx & Engels

Theoretical Rise of ProletariatTheoretical Rise of Proletariat

• Peaceful solution to change capitalism impossible

• Proletariat must have short term dictatorship

• Would result in equal access to resources for all

Charles DickensCharles Dickens

• Born February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth, England

PortsmouthPortsmouth

Dickens: The ManDickens: The Man

• Born to John and Elizabeth Dickens

John Dickens

Elizabeth Dickens

Early YearsEarly Years

• Educated at William Gile’s school

• Family moved to Camden Town

• Father imprisoned for debt

Defining TimesDefining Times

• Charles worked at factory to support family

• Father rejoined family

• Charles attended academy

Other Defining MomentsOther Defining Moments

• Family evicted from home for non-payment of rent

• Left school and became a clerk for Ellis and Blackmore

• Became a freelance reporter

A Young ManA Young Man

• Became reporter for The Morning Chronicle

• Published first story in 1833

• Met future wife, Catherine Hogarth

HogarthHogarth

1836—A Time of Change1836—A Time of Change

• Published first book Sketches by Boz

• Married Catherine Hogarth

• Began serialization of The Pickwick Papers

• Left The Morning Chronicle

• Became editor of Bentley’s Miscellany

Birth of Works and ChildrenBirth of Works and Children

• Nicholas Nickleby

• Old Curiosity Shop

• Children: Charles, Mary, Kate, and Walter

Dickens visits AmericaDickens visits America

• Dickens travels through United States

• Published American Notes

• Visited New England and western states

Mark TwainMark Twain

A Christmas CarolA Christmas Carol

• Published on December 19, 1843

• Instant success at its publication

• Theme of redemption

Traveling AbroadTraveling Abroad

• Dickens traveled to Italy for a year

• Traveled to Switzerland and Paris

Sydney Dickens

The Prolific Writer at WorkThe Prolific Writer at Work

• 1844: The Chimes

• 1845: The Cricket on the Hearth

• 1846: Dombey and Son

• 1848: The Haunted Man

• 1849: David Copperfield

The Cricket on the Hearth

The Cricket on the Hearth

The 1850sThe 1850s

• Dickens created and edited a new journal

• Dickens family moved to Tavistock House

• Wrote novels emphasizing theme

Final YearsFinal Years

• Dickens sustained injuries in train crash

• Began final tour in America

• Died June 9, 1870

Dickens’ AudienceDickens’ Audience

Middle and lower classes of society

• Had experienced poverty firsthand

• Educated and successful writer

• Lived a middleclass lifestyle

Dickens and His CharactersDickens and His Characters

• Characters semi-autobiographical

• Characters also composites of real people

Early WorksEarly Works

• Two main categories of novels

• Plot

• Theme

List of Early WorksList of Early Works

• Sketches by Boz (1836)

• The Pickwick Papers (1836-1837)

• Oliver Twist (1837-1838)

• Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839)

• The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841)

• Barnaby Rudge (1841)

• Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844)

• Dombey and Son (1846-1847)

• David Copperfield (1849-1850)

CharacterCharacter

• Original

• Composite

• Flat or static

ThemesThemes

• Individual and his or her environment

• Individual morality

Fate or Society’s Rules?Fate or Society’s Rules?

“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” — Charles Dickens,

David Copperfield (1850)

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Become One’s Own HeroBecome One’s Own Hero

“Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.” — Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843)

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A Christmas Carol VideoA Christmas Carol Video

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List of Later WorksList of Later Works• 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 (1870)

ThemesThemes

• Power of institutionalized evil

• People’s moral obligation to society

Moral DualityMoral Duality

“You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.”

• One character’s moral duality

Miss ProssMiss Pross

Madame DefargeMadame Defarge

Search for IdentitySearch for Identity

“My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name being Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.”

—Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1860)

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Moral DualityMoral Duality

• Moral duality between two characters

“When Carton discovers Darnay, he is bitterly reminded of what he could have been.  Darnay is his better self.”

Sydney CartonCharles Darnay

StyleStyle

• Style: what makes a person’s writing unique

PUNCTUATIONPUNCTUATION

LITERARY DEVICES

LITERARY DEVICES

NARRATIVEVOICE

NARRATIVEVOICEVOCABULARYVOCABULARY

SENTENCE LENGTH

SENTENCE LENGTHTONETONE

Dickens’ StyleDickens’ Style

• Humor

• Language

• Syntax

“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

—Scrooge’s response to the visit of Marley’s ghost in A Christmas Carol

HumorHumor

“Some medical beast had revivedTar-water in those days as a finemedicine, and Mrs.Joe always kept asupply of it in thecupboard; havinga belief in its virtuescorrespondent toits nastiness.” Great Expectations

“Some medical beast had revivedTar-water in those days as a finemedicine, and Mrs.Joe always kept asupply of it in thecupboard; havinga belief in its virtuescorrespondent toits nastiness.” Great Expectations

“A person who can’t pay, gets another person who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs, to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don’t make either of them able to do a walking match.”

Little Dorrit

“A person who can’t pay, gets another person who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs, to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don’t make either of them able to do a walking match.”

Little Dorrit

“Miss Knag still aimed at youth, although she had shot beyond it, years ago…” Nicholas Nickleby

“Miss Knag still aimed at youth, although she had shot beyond it, years ago…” Nicholas Nickleby

“ ... Waiter! raw beef-steak for the gentleman’s eye--nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient--damned odd standing in the open street half an hour, with your eye against a lamp-post . . .” The Pickwick Papers

“ ... Waiter! raw beef-steak for the gentleman’s eye--nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient--damned odd standing in the open street half an hour, with your eye against a lamp-post . . .” The Pickwick Papers

• Exaggeration

• Description

LanguageLanguage

• Imagery

• Colloquial diction

• Personification

“Night, like a giant, fills the church, from pavement to roof, and holds dominion through the silent hours. Pale dawn again comes peeping through the windows: and, giving place to day, sees night withdraw into the vaults, and follows it, and drives it out, and hides among the dead.” Dombey and Son

“Darn me if I couldn’t eat em,” said the man, with a threatening shake of his head, “and if I han’t half a mind to’t!” I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn’t, and held tighter to the tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon it; partly, to keep myself from crying. Great Expectations

More SamplesMore Samples

“From these cities they would go on again, by the roads of vines and olives, through squalid villages, where there was not a hovel without a gap in its filthy walls, not a window with a whole inch of glass or paper; where there seemed to be nothing to support life, nothing to eat, nothing to make, nothing to grow, nothing to hope, nothing to do but die.” Little Dorrit

“From these cities they would go on again, by the roads of vines and olives, through squalid villages, where there was not a hovel without a gap in its filthy walls, not a window with a whole inch of glass or paper; where there seemed to be nothing to support life, nothing to eat, nothing to make, nothing to grow, nothing to hope, nothing to do but die.” Little Dorrit

“If I may so express it,I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through. Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, to drown anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough within me, and all over me, to pervade my entire existence.”

David Copperfield

“If I may so express it,I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through. Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, to drown anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough within me, and all over me, to pervade my entire existence.”

David Copperfield

SyntaxSyntax

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” —A Tale of Two Cities

• Antithesis

• Compound-complex sentences

MarketingMarketing

• Serial writing

• Selling an idea

Dickens’ DreamsDickens’ Dreams

http://charlesdickenspage.com/buss.html

Concluding ThoughtsConcluding Thoughts

• Personal life reflected the times

• Stories focused on the individual and environment

• Writing style met needs of readers

• Emphasized love and redemption

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