Nineteenth-century Novel and

Charles Dickens

The Victorian Novel

The Victorian Age is marked roughly by the reign of Queen Victoria of England from 1837-1901.The Victorian reading public firmly established the novel as the dominant literary form of the era. The novel is the most distinctive and lasting literary achievement of Victorian literature. Earlier in the century Sir Walter Scott had created a large novel-reading public and had made the novel respectable. He had also strengthened the tradition of the 3-volume novel. The publication of novels in monthly installments enabled even the poor to purchase them

The novelists of the Victorian era:

accepted middle class values

treated the problem of the individual's adjustment to his society

emphasized well-rounded middle-class characters

portrayed the hero as a rational man of virtue

believed that human nature is fundamentally good and lapses are errors of judgment corrected by maturation

The Victorian novel appealed to readers because of its:

realism impulse to describe the everyday world the reader could recognize

introduction of characters who were blends of virtue and vice

attempts to display the natural growth of personality

expressions of emotion: love, humor, suspense, melodrama, pathos (deathbed scenes)

moral earnestness and wholesomeness, including crusades against social evils and self-censorship to acknowledge the standard morality of the times.

The Victorian novel featured several developments in narrative technique:

full description and exposition

authorial essays

multiplotting featuring several central characters

The 19th-century social, historical and cultural setting

The key social and cultural influences of the time were:

Ambition: in 1859, Samuel Smiles published his book Self-Help, which told people that if they worked hard they could improve their station in life. The 19th century was the age of the 'self-made man'.

Social class: in Victorian times, society was strictly layered - not only into rich and poor, or even upper, middle and lower class, but hundreds of 'grades'. People were expected to 'know their place', and the Church taught them to be content in their 'station'. Dickens did not like the effects of social class.

Social problems: at the time, many people were becoming aware of the need to improve the condition in which the poor found themselves. Dickens was a great supporter of social reform - especially in education and prisons.

Church and religion: in Victorian times, Britain was overwhelmingly Christian. The Church dominated religion and the morals of the time. Dickens, however, disapproved of the power the Church had over people's lives.

Family: family was at the centre of Victorian society. People had large, extended families - although Dickens was aware that not all families were happy families.

Five main kinds of novel were popular in the mid-19th century:

The 'Silver Fork' novel - stories about rich people fascinated poor people.

The 'Newgate' novel - people were enthralled by stories about jail, crime, the criminal underworld and gruesome murders.

The 'Gothic' novel - horror stories, such as Frankenstein, set in bleak locations or scary mansions.

The 'Romantic' novel - love stories such as Jane Eyre (especially where the lovers were socially mismatched).

The 'Social-purpose' novel - stories such as Oliver Twist, written to bring social issues to the notice of the general public.

Charles Dickens’ Biography (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870)

Charles John Huffam Dickens is an English writer who created some of the world's most memorable fictional characters and is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. He is the 19th century superstar and beloved author of his age. He was known as “the Inimitable” because of his writing style.

He was born in a very important time, ( the decline of the Napoleon Empire and the horizon of Victorian era – the rise of middle class and the Industrial Revolution ).

He has created a whole gallery full of vivid wonderful characters.

When Charles was 12, his father was imprisoned for debt. John Dickens was imprisoned in the Marshalsea debtors’ prison in Southwark London in 1824. shortly afterwards, his wife and the youngest children joined him there but Charles was not allowed to join them because he was the eldest.

Charles was seen as an economic resource to the family. He was sent to work in a shoe polish factory. Even when his father came out of prison, Charles' mother made him continue working in the factory - for which he never forgave her. It was a disaster to Charles that all his fantasies and dreams suddenly crushed. Charles was ashamed of this period of time and he kept it as a secret and didn’t tell anybody about it except his close friend, but he wrote about that experience all the time in a way or another.

“Crime, sending to jail, losing money, and having guilty secret,”: these issues are close to the heart of Charles’ novels.

Charles wanted to be an actor but destiny sent him to another direction. He worked as a reporter in political elections. During that work in elections, he learnt a lot of things about speech, personality, social conditions, government, and all aspects of life. The only aspect of life which he was not prepared for was love. In 1830, he fell in love with Maria Beadnell, but she rejected him

He started the writing process by writing sketches about London daily life in a newspaper. Then, they were published in a book entitled Sketches by Boz. And this book put him in the line to be a writer.

His serialized works helped him to be famous because the series were affordable and this allowed even the poor to buy them.

He wrote his Pickwick Papers under the name Boz and he continued using this name until he finished writing Nicholas Nickleby which he published it using his real name along with the penname Boz.

The death of his wife was the tragedy which appeared in most of his works.

David Copperfield is considered as Dickens’ ambitious and autobiographical work.

After the fame and great achievement of his writings, he started a new thing which was ‘public reading of his works.’ These readings brought him a good amount of money.

Being sick and exhausted, he stopped reading on public and started writing a new book entitled Edwin Droob but he died before completing it.

Though he was born in a poor low class family, Dickens was buried in one of London’s most honorable places.

Dickens thinks that he was pushed by daemons. They are “lacks of his childhood, loneliness, disappointment, anger about political directions the country was taken.”

He believed that these daemons made him what he was.

His notable works are:

The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard Times, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations.

Dickens' style of writing

As you work on a particular section of text from Great Expectations, look for the following characteristics of Dickens' writing:

Dickens was once a newspaper reporter; his descriptions show a wonderful eye for detail.

Great Expectations had to fill ten columns of All Year Round each week, for 36 weeks. Dickens' style of writing therefore 'filled space', and included lots of repetition and long lists.

Dickens loved words, and liked to produce a 'pretty piece of writing' in different styles. He included lots of powerful adjectives, and is famous for his use of metaphors and similes. His descriptions often present people, their surroundings, and even the weather, in ways which reinforce each other, so that a certain 'feel' is built up through the passage.

From the early 1850s, Dickens gave public readings of his novels. His writing is rhythmic and designed to be read out loud. He loved to make young women in his audience laugh or weep, so many of his characters are either hilariously comic or heart-breakingly sentimental.

Dickens was a master of dialect and used what is called 'substandard' speech to add to the picture of a character he was building up. In 1857, Dickens wrote and acted in a play called The Frozen Deep. Critics believe this helped him to write the brilliant sections of dialogue in Great Expectations. Dickens is famous for his exaggeration, which critics have linked to his love of the stage.