Speech given by Adit:
Whenever we hear about ‘A Christmas Carol’ or ‘David Copperfield’ or ‘Great Expectations’, who comes in our mind??
It’s CHARLES DICKENS.
Charles Dickens born on : 7 February 1812 and died on 9 June 1870.
He lived just 58 years, but he mastered the art of Prose with his endless invention of unique, clever personalities and powerful social sensibilities. Thus we got numerous novels, short stories from his pen. We always remember him as a man, who invented Christmas because we got a great book ‘Christmas Carol’ from him. So as a mark of respect, we call him ‘A man who invented Christmas’.
He portrayed many real life people of his life as a character in his novels.
The popularity of Dickens's novels and short stories has meant that they have never gone out of print. Many of Dickens's novels first appeared in periodicals and magazines in serialized form. Dickens often composed his works in parts, in the order in which they were meant to appear. Such a practice lent his stories a particular rhythm, punctuated by one minor “cliffhanger" after another, to keep the public looking forward to the next installment.
Life:
Early Years: Middle class background
Charles Dickens was born on 7th Feb.’1812 in Portsmouth, in Hampshire as the second of 8 children in a middle-class family to a clerk in Navy Pay Office. When he was ten, the Dickens family moved to Camden Town, London. From childhood onwards he has particular fond for the reading novels.
He talked, later in life, of his extremely poignant memories of childhood, and of his continuing photographic memory of the people and events that helped to bring his fiction to life.
In 1827, Dickens began work in the law office as a clerk. It was a junior position, but as an articled clerk, Dickens would eventually qualify for admission to the Bar, and it was there that he gleaned his detailed knowledge of legal processes of the period. This education informed works such as Nicholas Nickleby, Dombey and Son and especially Bleak House- whose vivid portrayal of the endless machinations, strangling bureaucracy of the legal system of mid-19thcentury Britain did much to enlighten the general public.
At the age of seventeen, he became a court stenographer and in 1830 met his first love, MariaBeadnell. It is believed that she was the model for the character Dora in David Copperfield.
Journalism and early novels:
In 1834, Dickens became a political journalist, reporting on parliamentary debate and travelling across Britain to cover election campaigns for the Morning Chronicle.
His journalism, in the form of sketches which appeared in periodicals from 1833, formed his first collection of pieces Sketches by Boz which were published in 1836 and led to the serialization of his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, in March 1836.
Though he was busy in writing novels, he continued to contribute to and edit journals throughout much of his subsequent literary career.
In 1836, he married Catherine Thomson Hogarth, the daughter of editor of the ‘Evening Chronicle’. They had ten children.
Catherine's sister Mary entered Dickens's Doughty Street household to offer support to her newly married sister and brother-in-law. Dickens became very attached to Mary, and she died after a brief illness in his arms in 1837. She became a character in many of his books, and her death is fictionalized as the death of Little Nell.
In 1836, he accepted the editor of the job of editor of Bentley’s Miscellany and continued in it for 3 years. At the same time, he penned great novels ‘Oliver Twist’, ‘Nicholas Nickleby’.
Dickens made two trips to North America. In 1842, he travelled with his wife to the United States and Canada, a journey which was successful in spite of his support for the abolition of slavery. During his visit to New York city, he gave lectures on copy right laws.
Dickens's work continued to be popular, especially A Christmas Carol written in 1843.
After living briefly abroad in Italy (1844) and Switzerland (1846), Dickens continued his success with Dombey and Son (1848); David Copperfield (1849–50); Bleak House (1852–53); Hard Times (1854); Little Dorrit (1857); A Tale of Two Cities (1859); and Great Expectations (1861). Dickens was also the publisher and editor of, and a major contributor to, the journals Household Words (1850–1859) and All the Year Round (1858–1870).
Literary Style:
Dickens's writing style is florid and poetic, with a strong comic touch. His satires of British aristocratic snobbery—he calls one character the "Noble Refrigerator"—are often popular. Comparing orphans to stocks and shares, people to tug boats, or dinner-party guests to furniture are just some of Dickens's acclaimed flights of fancy. Many of his character's names provide the reader with a hint as to the roles played in advancing the storyline, such as Mr. Murdstone in the novel David Copperfield, which is clearly a combination of "murder" and stony coldness.
Characters:
Dickensian characters—especially their typically whimsical names—are among the most memorable in English literature. The likes of Ebenezer Scrooge, Fagin, Mrs. Gamp, CharlesDarnay, Oliver Twist, Micawber, Abel Magwitch, Samuel Pickwick, Miss Havisham, WackfordSqueers, and many others are so well known and can be believed to be living a life outside the novels that their stories have been continued by other authors.
Episodic Writing:
Most of Dickens's major novels were first written in monthly or weekly instalments in journals such as Master Humphrey's Clock and Household Words, later reprinted in book form. These instalments made the stories cheap, accessible and the series of regular cliff-hangers made each new episode widely anticipated. American fans even waited at the docks in New York, shouting out to the crew of an incoming ship, "Is Little Nell dead?" Part of Dickens's great talent was to incorporate this episodic writing style but still end up with a coherent novel at the end.
So many authors followed later Dickens's technique of writing in monthly or weekly instalments.
Social Commentary:
Dickens's novels were, among other things, works of social commentary. He was a fierce critic of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. Dickens's second novel, Oliver Twist(1839), shocked readers with its images of poverty and crime and was responsible for the clearing of the actual London slum tha t was the basis of the story's Jacob's Island. In addition, with the character of the tragic prostitute, Nancy, Dickens "humanised" such women for the reading public; women who were regarded as "unfortunates," inherently immoral casualties of the Victorian class/economic system.
Literary Techniques:
Dickens is often described as using 'idealised' characters and highly sentimental scenes to contrast with his caricatures and the ugly social truths he reveals. The story of Nell Trent in The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) was received as incredibly moving by contemporary readers but viewed as ludicrously sentimental by Oscar Wilde:"You would need to have a heart of stone”.
Autobiographical Elements:
All authors might be said to incorporate autobiographical elements in their fiction, but with Dickens this is very noticeable, even though he took pains to mask what he considered his shameful, lowly past. David Copperfield is one of the most clearly autobiographical but the scenes from Bleak House of interminable court cases and legal arguments are drawn from the author's brief career as a court reporter. Dickens's own family was sent to prison for poverty, a common theme in many of his books, and the detailed depiction of life in the Marshalsea prison in Little Dorrit resulted from Dickens's own experiences of the institution. Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop is thought to represent Dickens's sister-in-law,[citation needed] NicholasNickleby's father and Wilkins Micawber are certainly Dickens's own father, just as Mrs. Nicklebyand Mrs. Micawber are similar to his mother.
Notable Works by Charles Dickens:
Charles Dickens published over a dozen major novels, a large number of short stories, a handful of plays and several non-fiction books. Dicken’s novels were initially serialized in weekly and monthly magazines, then reprinted in standard book formats.
Novels:
- The Pickwick Papers
- The Adventures of Oliver Twist
- The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
- The Old Curiosity Shop
- Bamaby Rudge (A Tale of the Riots of ‘Eighty
- The Christmas Books
- A Christmas Carol
- The Chimes
- The Cricket on the Hearth
- The Battle of Life
- The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain
- The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit
- Dombey and Son
- David Copperfield
- Bleak House
- Hard Times: For These Times
- Little Dorrit
- A Tale of Two Cities
- Great Expectations
- Our Mutual Friend
- The Mystery of Edwin Drood
- The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
Short Stories:
- Sketches by Boz
- The Mudfog Papers
- Reprinted Pieces
- What Christmas Is, as We Grow Older
- A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire
- Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire
- The Seven Poor Travellers
- The Holly-Tree Inn
- The Wreck of the “Golden Mary”
- The Perils of Certain English Prisoners
- A House to Let
- The Haunted House
- A Message From the Sea
- Tom Tiddler’s Ground
- Somebody’s Luggage
- Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
- Mrs. Lirriper’s Legacy
- Doctor Marigold’s Prescriptions
- Mugby Junction
- No Thoroughfare
Selected non-fiction, poetry and plays:
Conclusion: In the world of literature, Charles Dickens regarded and ranked as number 1 in the prose who didn’t shy away to write his own early life past and depicted many of his own experiences into characters of his novels, which is missing in the writings of present day authors. Based upon the interests, we and the present day authors should take inspiration and a leaf from this great man, the master of prose. Written by: Adit |
