Charles Dickens

Life and works  He was born in Portsmouth in 1812. He had a very difficult childhood, as at the
age of 12 he was put to work in a factory (his father had been imprisoned for debts).
By 1832 he had become a very important shorthand reporter (he particularly focused on
parliamentary debates).
In 1833 his first story appeared, and in the later years he adopted the pen name of “Boz”,
publishing a series called “Sketches by Boz”.
He started a full-time career as a novelist after his marriage (1836), producing work of an
increasing complexity at incredible rate. However, he also continued his journalistic and editorial
activities.
The protagonists of his autobiographical novels (Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Little Dorrit)
became the symbols of exploited children, and the bitter realities of slums and factories.
Other works like “Hard Times” deal with the conditions of the poor and the working classes in
general. He wrote a series of successful Christmas books, such as “A Christmas Carol”.
He suddenly died in 1870.
Characters  Dicken’s created some caricatures that live immortally in the English imagination,
such as Mr Gradgrind (“Hard Times”).
He aroused the readers’ interest by exaggerating his character’s habits; he was always on the side
of the poor and the outcasts.
Children are often the most important characters in Dicken’s novels; they are usually born in
negative circumstances and rise up at the end of the novel. Children become the moral teachers
instead of the taught, the examples instead of imitators  revers of the natural order of things.
A didactic aim  Thanks to Dicken’s works, the wealthier class became acquainted with the issues
of the poor and the working class. This was exactly his task: to make the ruling classes aware of
social problems without offending his readers.
Style and reputation  He employed the most effective language and accomplished the most
graphic and powerful descriptions of life and characters. He was very careful with the choice of
adjectives, repetitions, juxtapositions of images and ideas, hyperbolic and ironic remarks.
The fact that he was a reporter can be seen in his realistic narration, that follows the reporter’s
style (vivid descriptions, violent actions, dramatic situation, picaresque details, simple similes, and
metaphors). He was also very dramatic, but his analysis is much more external than internal.
He is considered the greatest novelist of the English language.

(Charles Dickens invented nearly 300 words that are still used in today’s vocabulary -> he was
rewarded as he helped in the creation of the Oxford dictionary)

Analysis of Oliver Twist’s extract: “Please sir I want some more”

“Oliver Wants Some More” is an extract from the second chapter of Oliver Twist, by Charles
Dickens.
The scene is situated in a workhouse, in other ways a place where children with no possibilities
were given a work and a poor diet. The tradition in the workhouse is that every boy has only one
bowl of soup a day and only on occasions of great public rejoicing they had two ounces and a
piece of bread besides.
Dickens uses a rhetorical language, indeed he uses irony to describe the situation suggested. The
language is exaggerated (ex. the meal time is called: “festive composition”).
In the story, the children were so hungry and there was such a little food that they eat any drip of
food ( “The bowls never wanted washing”). Dickens uses a humorous strategy to create
caricatures of the characters like the master and his helpers, who need to be even three to give
out such a little portion to each one.
The scene described is all a big exaggeration (ex. “the spoons being as large as the bowls”).
Dickens's aim is to criticize the living condition of the children who were exploited, using a
metaphoric language. as the need to help people in difficulty as the consequence of
industrialization.
The situation can be read as the struggle for democracy: the children decide to act against the
master who behaves as a despotic dictator. The narrator wants to suggest that there is a higher
sense of democracy in children instead than in adults.
Oliver represents the symbol of change, the emblem of standing up for his own rights.
The expression “Please, sir, I want some” is the emblem of the whole extract, indeed he can been
considered as the miniature of contemporary society, where the struggle for democracy brings a
delegate to fight for others.