The tradition of critical realism by Charles Dickens
The presintation includes: introduction to the history of critical realism,its development and the main features of this movement; the brief account of Charles Dickens' life and creative work stages; pecularities of his masterpieces.
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HISTORY. In the 1830s, as the capitalist system had established and consolidated in Europe , the drawbacks, atrocities of the capitalist society appeared , and the class contradictions also sharpened day by day . In many ways it was an age of progress: railways and ships were built, great scientific discoveries were made, education became more widespread; but all the same time it was an age of profound social unrest, because there was too much poverty, too much injustice.
From the 1830s, THE POWER OF CAPITALISM in both France and Britain got success in their countries. The capitalist regime increasingly got consolidated and developed. So, the 30-40 s of the 19 century in England were the years of violent social struggle. The working-class movement for adopting the People’s Charter of political liberties got the name of Chartism. The class of workers (the Chartists) was formed after the industrial revolution and the exploitation became even harder.
Then, additionally, the development of natural science and the victory in objecting to the religion and idealism struggle of materialism impelled the writers to break the traditional concept and illusion , and to watch the world and research the social realistic problems with the relatively objective even scientific eyes , so that Realism replaced Romanticism to become the principal school of European literary circles .
The most peculiar feature of the new literary trend called “critical realism” was its satirical character in depicting the reality. Most of the English writers of that period sympathized with it. The critical realism literature in nineteenth century, is a splendid page in the bourgeois literary history and also an important heritage in the treasure trove of the world literature . Since that time the realistic literature was good at ferreting out to capitalist society and criticism, Maxim Gorky called it as "the criticized realism".
FEATURES • shows all aspects of social life and reveals the contradiction of reality in considerable depth. • the collapse of the feudal society and the rise of capitalism. • expose the capitalist system, which is widely involved in various fields; • criticize profoundly the reality, showing the strong dissatisfaction. •to deal with imaginary events and characters and with the hypothetical formulation of possibilities •against the evils of capitalist society and atrocities, ugly money relations and degradation characters in the society and the hypocritical morality. •plays a huge role in the progress of the society and the development of contemporary world literature.
Early Ages He was born in 1812 near Portsmouth, in a poor family of a clerk. The father was often transferred from place to place and his parents were always talking about money, bills and debts. Charles and his elder sister went to school, and after classes he was in the habit of running to the docks and watching ships and people at work. In 1822 the family moved to London. His father made no plans about the education of his children. He spent more money than he could afford, so soon he lost his job and was imprisoned for debts. Little Charles had to start work hard washing bottles for shoe-polish and putting labels on them while the rest of the family lived in the Marshal-sea debtor's prison, because they had nothing to eat and the authorities were to feed the families of prisoners
THE BOY COULD NEVER FORGET THE LONG WORKING HOURS AT THE FACTORY, THE POOR FOOD, THE ROUGH BOYS WHO MOCKED AT HIM. MANY PICTURES WERE STORED AWAY IN HIS MEMORY, WHICH THE WRITER USED LATER IN HIS NOVELS, DESCRIBING CHILDREN’S LABOR AND THE DANGEROUS CONDITIONS OF WORK. HE SPOKE WITH SYMPATHY OF THE CHILDREN FROM POOR FAMILIES WHO HAD TO EARN THEIR LIVING AT ANY EARLY AGE
A YEAR PASSED AND THE FAMILY’S DISTANT RELATIVE DIED AND LEFT MR. DICKENS A LEGACY, A LITTLE SUM OF MONEY. IT CHANGED HIS LIFE FOR THE BETTER. HIS FATHER'S DEBTS WERE PAID OFF AND CHARLES WAS SENT TO A PRIVATE SCHOOL, BUT HE DIDN'T STAY THERE LONG AS THE CLASS STUDIED NOTHING BUT LATIN. ACTUALLY, CHARLES DIDN’T OBTAIN ANY SYSTEMATIC EDUCATION. DESPITE THAT FACT, LATELY HE FELT AN INTEREST IN PROBLEMS OF SCHOOL EDUCATION. HE CREATED THE CHARACTERS OF TEACHERS IN HIS BOOKS SHOWING THEM AS IGNORANT PEOPLE WHO TORTURED THEIR PUPILS.
At the age of 15 he became an office boy at a lawyer's office and in his spare time studied shorthand. At the age of 19 he found a job as a newspaper reporter. life brought him in contact with various people, representing different social classes, it taught him many moral lessons and gave much material for his future work. He taught himself and by 1828 he became a reporter for courts of doctors’s common . the dull routine of the legal profession never interested him, so he became a newspaper reporter for the mirror of parliament , the true sun , and finally for the morning chronicle . by the age of twenty, dickens was one of the best parliamentary reporters in all England.
At the age of 24 Charles married Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of his editor. Dickens fell in love with actress Ellen Ternan , and this passion was to last the rest of his life. Dickens was 45 and Ternan 18 when he made the decision to separate from his wife, Catherine, in 1858 At the age of 30 Ch. Dickens became the most popular writer in England.
ALL THE BITTERNESS AND ALL KINDS OF HARDSHIPS IN THE CHILDHOOD LIFE HE EXPERIENCED LEFT A PERMANENT RECORD IN HIS HEART AND INDELIBLE MARK ON HIS SOUL. HIS ATTENTION TO “LITTLE PEOPLE” IN THE BOTTOM OF SOCIETY IS TO START FROM HIS CHILDHOOD. WE HAVE ALREADY ADMITTED THAT LIFE EXPERIENCE OF DICKENS HAS A FAR-REACHING IMPACT OF LITERARY CREATION. THESE BITTER DAYS REMAINED IN HIS MEMORY AND LATER TOOK TOLL ON HIS WORKS. HE HAS A LOT OF WORKS WHICH THROUGH THE “SMALL CHARACTER” TO SHOW THE REALITY OF LIFE.
Dickens wrote a tremendous number of works. He created a new type of novel - the social novel, brilliantly approved himself as a master of satire. He gave many humor details that soften the tragical collisions of the plot. The author showed a broad panorama of the 19th century English life, describing offices, factories, prisons. The realistic pictures of the life in London slums touch out heart. He portrayed people of all types seen in the streets of great cities in his time. While reading, we meet commercial agents, political adventurers, scoundrels of all sorts, lawyers, clerks, newspaper reporters, schoolmasters, factory workers, homeless children, priggish aristocrats, pickpockets and convicts. Dickens developed in his readers love for men; he never lost his warmth and sympathy for them, because he had a rare gift of comparison and tolerance for his personages.
1833- 1841 "Sketches by Boz" (1833 -1836) "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" (1837) "Oliver Twist" (1838) "Nickolas Nickleby" (1839) "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1841) 1842 – 1848 "American Notes" (1842) "The Christmas Books" (1843-48) "Dombey and Son" (1846-48) 1849 – 1859 "David Copperfield"(1850) "Bleak House" (1853) "Hard Times" (1854) "Little Dorrit " (1857) 1860-s "Great Expectations (1861) "Our Mutual Friend" (1864-65)
#1 Dickens creates a whole gallery of bearers of social evil, who have a particular images of representatives of the bourgeois class.
The author believes that bad people can improve themselves by education, good examples or by twists of fate. The writer also believes in self perfection of people; that’s why most of his books have a traditional happy end.
Dickens also creates a number of eccentric characters having special natural features – a type of English queer fish.
#2 CONSIDERED THAT THE GREAT CONTRAST BETWEEN THE RICH UND THE POOR WAS ABNORMAL IN A CIVILIZED SOCIETY One of his best novels «Great Expectations» where the writer manages to show that there are close ties between some people from high society and the criminal world, and that a person can suddenly drop away from one social group to the other and vice-versa.
HE DEALS WITH THE LIFE AND STRUGGLE OF THE WORKING CLASS IN HIS NOVELS. HE DEPICTS THE POSITION OF THE PROLETARIAT IN THE NOVEL "THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP" (1841). THE WRITER DEEPLY SYMPATHIZES WITH THE HARD LIFE OF THE WORKER, BUT HE DOES NOT BELIEVE IN HIS REVOLUTIONARY POSSIBILITIES, AND EVEN IN THE NOVEL "HARD TIMES" (1854) HE MOCKINGLY PORTRAYS THE CHARTIST AGITATOR.
#3 SATIRE AND HUMOR. Dickens has a special talent for evoking strong emotions that result in laughter, terror, and/or pathos. These emotions are used to support his dominant themes. James Kincaid said, “Generally speaking, as Dickens progressed he used humor for perhaps more serious purposes, attacking and persuading the reader more and more subtly”. Dickens novels can be seen as ironic tragi-comedies of deception.
#3 SATIRE AND HUMOR. Targets of Dickens’ Satire the injustices of the 19th century , namely, poor houses, boys’ boarding schools, the lack of education for women, the tyrannies of family life, the over reliance on alcohol, and the effects of poverty. Dickens has two types of humors characters, the genial, generous, and lovable ones, and the absurd or sinister ones.
Resources : 1. Lectures on English Literature and Culture: учебно-методическое пособие/ Новосельцева Л.А. - Елец, 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens http://www.bookrags.com/essay-2003/5/15/115120/819/#gsc.tab=0