英美文學課程essay：狄更斯小說的藝術手法研究

I. The Background of Dickens’ Creation

Charles Dickens, who exposes and criticizes in his works all the poverty, injustice, hypocrisy and corruptness he saw all around him. His creations as an epitome of 19th century of England are connected firmly with the times he lived and his own personal experience.

1.1 Social Background in Victorian Age

The Victorian Age runs from 1837-1901 and represents the longest reign of any British monarch. For the most part it was an age of prosperity, of booming economic expansion, which was marked by optimism and self-assurance. At that time Britain leads the world in manufacturing. Factory towns grew into large cities. Banks, retail shops, and other businesses expanded along with the factories. Economy and trade growth resulted in an expansion of the fleet of merchant ships and a powerful navy. Britain once acquired the title“the sun never sets on the British empire”.

Actually, there is still much darkness that seldom talked by others. The Reform Bill of 1832 extended the right to vote to all men owning property worth ten pounds or more. This Bill extended the right to vote to the industrial capitalists and the lower middle class, but not the workers. With the introduction of the steam engine, it was possible for the capitalists to hire unskilled workers, such as women and children. It was not unusual that children of five years of age were dragging heavy loads of coal for 16 hours a day. Many skilled workers were unemployed, and what made the situation worse was the enforcement of the Corn Laws, which forbade importing any grain from foreign countries, this measure kept wheat at a high price, which benefits to the landed class. In that period, child labor should have played an important role in the Industrial Revolution. The displaced working classes, from the seventeenth century on, took it for granted that a family would not be able to support itself if the children were not employed.

In 1840 perhaps only twenty percent of the children of London had any schooling, a number that had risen by 1860, when perhaps half of the children between 5 and 15 were in some sort of school, if only a day school or a Sunday school, the others were working. Many of the fortunate found employment as apprentices or as general servants. The children of the poor were forced by economic conditions to work. Most prostitutes were between 15 and 22 years of age.                                                   

        1.2 Dickens’ Personal Experience

Charles Dickens was born in Land port, Hampshire, who generally considered as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. Dickens’ works are characterized by attacks on social evils, injustice, and hypocrisy, which are related to his youth oppression.

His father was a clerk in the Naval Pay Office, who was well paid but often ended in financial troubles. He was forced to end school in early teens and worked in a factory, where he would never willing to say in his later life.

 Soon, his father was sent into debt prison for the financial problems, his mother couldn’t support the family, simply together with other children removed to the prison and lived with his father. Although it was not a long period, it made him shamed and never willing to say. Later in 1824-1827, Dickens studied at Willington House Academy, London, and at Mr. Dawson’s school in 1827. From 1827 to 1828, he was a law office clerk, and then worked as a shorthand reporter at Commons and started his creation. These biographies made great effect on his later creations.

 

II. The Artistic Techniques of Dickens’ Novels

Dickens has a real talent for creating children characters in his works and very empathetic toward children. Dickens wished to show, in Oliver Twist, the principle of good triumphing evil, which expressed his own psychological want in childhood. In David Copperfield, Dickens described in detail the experience of orphaned David worked as a child laborer, which was his own painful memory. The way of Pip’s growth from a boy to a man is also Dickens’ growing awareness to the darkness of bourgeois. Dickens portrayed many deserted children to show either his own experience or the attitude toward his times through children’s point of view. When the characteristics of human being mixed with other species, the combination between inharmonious factors must bring about grotesque. Deviation occurs when it is different from what the readers expect. A rich variety of deviant techniques were used in his novel to intensify melodramatic impact and artistic effect, and the deviation which occurred in speech or other conversations can enrich his creations. In addition, Dickens is good at conveying his intense love and hate by means of exaggeration. The most important feature which people would not ignored is that the transformation between animateness and inanimateness. Also, Dickens’ Christmas Tales reflected his view of Christmas spirit. The effects of Christmas spirit embodied the enlightenment to Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. However, the changes come true just by illusion.

2.1 The Employment of Children Images

Dickens is considered as one of the most popular and beloved writers in the history of English Literature. His works can stand the test of time. More than just an entertainer, Dickens used his enormous popularity to attack injustice and strengthen the sympathies of his readers for the poor and the helpless, for orphans and outcast persons. Among them the characters of children play the most important role in Dickens’ creation. In the history of world literature, perhaps Dickens is the first one who threw tremendous energy into his creations of children. “Reflecting life through children’s point of view is a main characteristic of Dickens’ art of fiction.”(Andrews Malcolm. Dickens and the Grown-up Child Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1994, P43.)#p#分頁標題#e#

2.1.1 Oliver Twist: Dickens’ Psychological Want in Childhood

Oliver Twist, published in 1838, is one of Charles Dickens’ best-known and well-loved works. In Oliver’s life he endured all varied hardships. He was unloved and unwanted from the beginning of the novel. He was born of a dying mothering in a parish workhouse and sent to an infant farm, run by Mrs. Mann, until he was 9 years old, when he was returned to the workhouse. In this novel, Dickens not only recalled his child labor’s life but also expressed his childhood want. Dickens wished to show, in little Oliver, the principle of good surviving through every adverse circumstance, and triumphing at last. Although tortured and mistreated in the workhouse, even later was thrown together with the band of thieves, Oliver’s kind nature remained unchanged. As the novel progressed, Oliver found that his honest and kind disposition won him a variety of friends in high places. Although Fagin and the other street urchins continually sought to ruin Oliver’s connections, Oliver’s faithful heart found a home in the end. Oliver did not present a complex picture of a person torn between good and evil, instead, he was goodness incarnate. Oliver’s merits carried him through life and away from the poverty that captured those with weaker morals. In the conclusion of the tale, Oliver found himself among those with equally good manners and morals. His situation was only improved through the inevitable triumph of good over evil. In Oliver Twist, Dickens created happy encounters in which a penniless, hopeless child was offered help from benefactors who freed Oliver from sufferings and dangers many times. From these plots, people seem to see Dickens himself is like a lonely and deserted child who is eagerly expecting happy encounter with good -hearted men by whom he will be offered help. Oliver Twist, as one of Dickens’ masterpieces, is his psychological want in his childhood. Throughout the novel, Dickens used Oliver’s character to challenge the Victorian idea that paupers and criminals are already evil at birth, arguing instead that a corrupt environment is the source of vice.