Assignment 2 1

Assignment 2

Komal Mohammad Moosa

Bachelor’s student

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities

Rise of the novel 18th and 19th century

Sir Sohail Ahmad Solangi

Assignment 2 2

Q: Discuss: Dickens' all novels revolve around money whereas Austen's all novels
revolve around marriages. 

Charles Dickens
The reason that all of his novels revolve around money is his background of life and family.
On having an eye on his family background he at first belonged to a rich family. His father
was a well-off person but wanted to make more out of it. So in the consequences of greed and
bad decisions he became a debater of bank. He was bearable of the loan of 40 pounds. When
unable to pay that loan he was imprisoned. Charles Dickens was 10 years of age at that time
and his family was then dependent on him. After which the tough part of his life became
which was no less than a nightmare for him as we can feel from his biographic novel Oliver
twist. So it could be the intense suffering which he could never forget and that led him to
write and tell everyone how much and in what way he had confronted.
Money is an important thing for him because it swallowed his childhood and even influenced
his adult age as his family was always in economic crisis when he finally became
internationally famous with his work Pickwick paper. So this could be because of the
astonishment at his own life that suddenly became so much generous for him.
Dickens concentrated on performing one of the most profound 19 century social
commentaries denouncing poverty and social stratification using works such as Oliver twist
and hard times. Through social commentary he brought up a strong case of poverty, crime,
misfortunes of being poor, class stratification, a bleak economic system, treatment of poor,
and condemnation of inconsiderate public institutions. Nevertheless his most profound
political commentary is his disapproval of the new poor law of 1834 that came into effect to
relieve the society of the burden of taking care of the poor and made poverty almost a crime.

Jane Austen:
In spite of being a romantic writer she was quite different from other romantics. Other
romantics, realists and naturalist wrote about different major themes including wars, deaths,
nature and many other problems of society but the major subjects of Jane Austen’s novels are
love and Marriage. The main reason behind this is autobiographical touch that we mainly get
from her novels. We can see that touch in her characters, setting, and the main story of the
novel. Similarly, from the biography passed by her sister we are able to acknowledge that she
never married although once fell in love with an Irish guy. The reason for not marrying may
be that the guy was not well established and met her when he was under the guardianship of
his uncle. As we found in her most of the novels that the young beautiful ladies wait for the
eligible young guys who are of similar standard as they want them. So now we are in a
condition to state that most of her novels involve theme of marriage because they are inspired
by her own love life. Langdon Elsberry observes that dancing provides a primary source for
action and speech in Jane Austen’s fictional world and dramatize the theme of courtship and
marriage.
Assignment 2 3

The other reason is her writing style that pertains to her limited world and the era she lived in.
It was the time in England when families were known by their social status. Only families of
similar social status were supposed to tie an acceptable knot of marriage otherwise it was a
matter of great deal if someone from higher social class married with someone of inferior
class. This point is raised by her in many of her novels. Austen wrote optimistically about
marriage rather than putting it down. Else that she always confined herself to the problems
that were minor ones for rest of the writers and too common regarding the era of wars and
revolutions. According to Audrey Hawk ridge for a women who never married Jane Austen’s
mind dealt frequently on the subject of wedlock. The women in Austen’s novels saw
marriage differently than today’s society see it.