charles dickens' life

Materie:	Appunti
Categoria:	Letteratura Inglese
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Data:	23.01.2006
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Charles Dickens
LIFE
Dickens is the best representative of the Victorian age. he was born on the South Coast of England in 1812.he is interested to poor people,expecially yo poor children because he had a very bad childhood. in fact At the age of 12 because of debts, his father was imprisoned , and Charles was obliged to go working in a factory. This experience contributed to identificate himself with poors and oppresseds. after he retourned to school and he became a reporter.
He travelled in America, Switzerland, France and Italy, and he wrote accounts of his journeys.
He married Mary Hogarth, but they separated after 22 years. When he was 46 he felt in love with an 18 years old actress. But this fact, for his Victorian mind, was often a source of doubt and depression.
he was interested in London slums and he was very good at describe character.He died in June 1870.

He wrote 14 novels as:
Oliver Twist: It is the story of an orphan boy. By this novel, Dickens makes a critic of the workhouse system and denounces the degradation of slum life.
David Copperfield: It is an autobiographical novel, based on his painful experiences during the hard work in factory.
Hard Times: It is a denunciation of the wrongs of society and the terrible conditions of industrial workers.
A Tale of Two Cities: It takes place in London and Paris during French Revolution.
he wrote also short stories,as A Christmas Carol.
Dickens had a natural sense of humour.
Dickens's characters are not heroes and heroines. He drew most of them from reality.In Dickens's works sets are always richly detailed. He particulary observated the parts of Londons where the poors lived, and he described the British homelife, the school system, the domestic life, the middle-class people, with every detail of manners, appearance and dress.
In many of his novels we find the recreation of Christmas' atmosphere.
Dickens's novels are defined as social or humanitarian novels, because he used the fiction to denounce the injustices if Victorian society. For him the happiness consisted in hard work, romantic love and family life.