Otyrar region

“Timur” secondary school

ESSAY

Charles Dickens: main themes,

works and style

Written by: Seytbekova Ainur

Timur – 2021

“The most important thing in lifeis to stopsaying ‘I wish’

and start saying ‘I will’ ”

Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare are one of the universal and eternal talents in English literature. And I’d like to write about Charles Dickens, who was one of the representative writers of the Victorian age. Charles Dickens was known as anovelist, editor, journalist, social commentator and illustrator who wrote such favorite classic novels as Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield,Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. Charles Dickens opted for a very distant writing style and inspired the generation with his intellectual ideas. Since he started his literary career writing papers and essays for the magazines and newspapers, he successfully tried the same style in most of his stories. Using the cliff hanger technique, he was able to create suspense in his pieces. Dickens is recognized as one of the most important and greatest writers of the 19th century.

Charles Dickens was born in 1812 in a town called Portsmouth wich situated in Southern England.His family was very poor, so at the age of 12 he had to start working in a factory. Also he had to provide his family when his father was imprisoned for death. This suspect of his childhood has influenced in his art and writing a lot. He studied law then he managed to become reporter in a course of law. So he had known the legal system of law extremely well and this also influenced his arts and novels. His fist work was “The Pickwick Papers” which became extremely popular, and we can say it was also recalling some literary traditions and it had a great success at that time. Also he could earn a lot because of that he travelled a lot. He went to the USA, Switzerland, Italy and to France. So he could improve his cultural activity.

He wrote several significant novels after his trip. Some of the most famous ones are Oliver Twist, David Copperfield. David Copperfield is considered really his most autobiographical novel and that hard times. For examplewhich talks a lot about society.He also wrote some short stories. Probably the most famous one is “Christmas Carol”, which was written in 1843. When we talking about Charles Dickens we have to remember that most of his character are inspired by picaresque novel because novel is a genre which was developed down in Spain, and it talks about young characters usually who starts their paths from a very poor condition and then they develop themselves and then can find a real position in society they can improve their social economical situation and most of all they experience an important personal growth and a moral growth. We can find it a lot in Oliver Twist for example in David Copperfield. So in order to understand and analyze Dickens’s works we can also remember that he talked about some very cyclic themes. Some of them are for example the explotation of the working class and the poor people. He always felt for poor people obviously he experienced that kind of life when he was very young. He also wrote about explotation child’s labor another theme he was verycareful of was obviously the condition of children he also talked about the ill treatment of pupils in schools’ this sort of institutions that were extremely very present at that time. Also he talked about greediness and selfishnessof the upper-middle class.

But this is very important final message is always positive. Good triumphs always over evil which is very important. Even the worse situation have a positive outcome. He represented society in general using different tones. And he used some exaggerations in order to create sort of tragic comic vision of the Victorian world an he was a great entertainer. He could mix melodrama on one side and humoron the other side and also some dramatic aspects. Although the final result was extremely various and it was the sort of the mixture of the dark and light elements together. He also had a great talent to manipulate reality in order to convey the message he wants to convey. Dickens described new industrial cities a world which is extremely alienating and gave us a witness of his societybut he never didn’t have revolutionary intent in his works. According to Dickens even if you were born in a bad condition as it was anyway thanks to hard work, honesty and strong character you can achieve success you can improve your economical condition.

FamousQuotes

1. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known. (A TaleofTwoCities)

2. Throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people we most despise. (GreatExpectations)

3. Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine. (OliverTwist)

In a conclusion, Dickens is one of the most famous English novelists, a creator of vivid comic characters and social criticism. The bright pages of the history of English critical realism are opened by the work of Charles Dickens. The development of a whole century of English literature is closely connected with the name of Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens is the pride of English national culture.