Charles Dickens: appunto in inglese

Life and works, focus on the text: Hard Times, Oliver Twist: appunto in lingua inglesedi Charles Dickens (2 pagine formato doc)

Appunto di robj5
Dickens was born in Portsmouth, on the south coast of England Charles DICKENS (1812-70) Life and works Dickens was born in Portsmouth.
He had an unhappy childhood, since his father went to prison for debt and he had to work in a factory at the age of twelve. These days of sufferings were to inspire much of the content of his novel. When he realized that he had a talent for writing, he taught himself short and became a newspaper reporter. His autobiographical novels are Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit; their protagonist all became the symbols of an exploited childhood confronted with the grim and bitter realities of slums and factories. Other work includes Bleak House, Hard times and Great Expectations, dealing with social issues, such as the conditions of the poor and the working class in general.
These entire novels gave him wealth and fame. He also had a busy life as a magazine editor. He spent his last years travelling round giving readings of his own work. In the novels “David Copperfield” and “Oliver Twist”, Dickens attacks one or more social evils: debtor's prisons, workhouses, repressive education, capital punishment and conformism masked by religion and justice. In all these novels, the greatest victims are the children either individually or in groups, often ill-treated, exploited in the hardest jobs (mining, textile industry), starved or beaten to death. Another important topic is his criticism of the top role of money in the Victorian materialistic society. Focus on the text: Hard Times Hard Times is the only novel not set in London, in fact it is set in an imaginary industrial town. One of the main characters is Mr Gradgrind, the owner of a typical Victorian school. He has two children, Tom and Louisa, and he brings them up teaching them the principles which are taught in his school. He marries his daughter to a ruthless manufacturer, but she is nearly seduced by a politician, James. Tom has become unscrupulous and calculating. Sissy, was father works in a circus, is found ineducable by Mr Gradrind. Later she became one of his depandants, and she finds the force to help his daughter Louisa because she faces James and compels him to leave the town. Tom takes some money from the bank where he works, he decides to confess his crime to his father, who makes him go abroad. Gradrind has to admit that he is a failure both as father and as a teacher. Features Limitation of Dickens: Lack of organic unity (that's natural because his works were published in serial forms); Lack of real psychological insight; Excessive pathos and sentimentalism; Exaggerated comic scenes, which become grotesque. A didactic aim The novelist's ability lay both in making his readers love his children, and putting them forward as models of the way people ought to behave to one another. This didactic stance was very effective, since the result was that the more educated, the wealthier classes throughout England acquired a knowledg