Dickens' novels deal with universal themes

by W.T.J.S. Kaviratne Ambalangoda Spl Cor.

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth on the South Coast of England. He was the greatest novelist in England during the Victorian period. He compiled 15 novels, five novellas and nearly 100 short stories.

Dickens's works, considered masterpieces of English literature, exposed and analysed all the social issues such as diverse forms of discrimination, child labour, faulty legal systems, injustice, poverty, hunger, crime, violence, flagrant abuse of power, institutional malpractices, corruption, negligence of marginalised members of society and hypocrisy rampant among the members of higher echelons of society in England during the Victorian era.

Novels of Charles Dickens cannot be relegated into oblivion as outdated for the fact that the themes of his novels are of universal significance and of current validity.

The issues identified by Dickens in England during the Victorian period have been dramatically increased globally in the modern world since the era of Dickens and almost daily inhumane activities are on the increase in every nook and corner of the globe in an unprecedented manner.

Unpleasant

Under the prevailing unpleasant scenario the world is in need of literary luminaries of the calibre of Charles Dickens to expose the diversity of sufferings of humanity worldwide.

Dickens has used numerous unique literary devices in his novels to convey his message blended with humour and strong sarcasm.

Dickens was only 24 years and as a parliamentary reporter when he embarked on his first novel Pickwick Papers which culminated in his legendary literary career.

Dickens' qualities such as love of fun, quickness to seize upon oddities of characters and their behaviour, his constant readiness to expose social abuses could be found vividly portrayed in Pickwick Papers. The lower middle-class society of the Victorian era was the setting of this novel.

Humour

The Travel Society of Pickwick Club took part in a journey out of London on a fact finding mission.

The founder of the Pickwick Club, Mr. Samuel Pickwick, Tracy Tupman, Augustus Snodgrass and Nathaniel Winkle were in the group.

It was a journey full of adventures and humour for the participants. Charles Dickens had highlighted the class distinctions and life and manners of lower-middle class society of the era through the behaviour of the characters in the Pickwick Papers.

Drunkenness was then a very common habit of the people and throughout the novel brandy and water are mentioned very frequently and Dickens tried to convey the message that the habit of taking liquor ruins the society.

Ghosts

Dickens made use of even supernatural beings such as ghosts of the dead to warn Ebenezer Scrooge the main character in the novel Christmas Carol to face the consequences unless he lives up to the cherished norms of Christmas Season.

Before the arrival of ghosts, Ebenezer Scrooge was an embodiment of the curses of industrial revolution.

The ghost of Jacob Marlow one of his partners who died seven years ago on the eve of Christmas appeared again on another Christmas evening after seven years.

Ghost Marlow's appearance coincided with Scrooge's refusal to treat his poor relations and employees.

Ghost Marlow reminded him the way he was suffering as the punishment for his behaviour when he was living and the ghost further warned Scrooge to change his ways and reminded that three more ghosts would follow him to show the Christmas Past, the Christmas Present and the Christmas Yet to be.

After the visitation of ghosts, Scrooge was redeemed and transformed to be a man with and humane qualities.

Social critic

Dickens as a social critic frequently highlighted the negligence and the victimisation of abandoned small children and orphans during the Victorian period in London through the plots of his many novels, specially Oliver Twist considered the excellent exposition of child labour at the onset of the Industrial Revolution in England. Dickens in Oliver Twist has exposed the abuse of new ' Poor Law ' systems, evils of the criminality and the abuse of children found rampant in London.

He also portrayed a vivid picture of the negative effects of industrial revolution depicting the disorder, squalor, decay and poverty of London during the Victorian era.

Hypocrisy

Dickens moral theme that every individual has the potential for self-improvement and redemption is vividly explained through the character Pip in Great Expectations.

Pip desired for moral, social and educational improvement in his future.

In addition the qualities of affection, loyalty and conscience have been shown as more important than social advancement, wealth and class of an individual.

Hypocrisy has become one of the very common inherent human traits and Dickens frequently used this theme in portraying this human frailty through the characters in his novels.

Those who praised virtue in actual practice violates all the norms of virtue.

Dickens exposed the flaws of the British judicial system in Bleak House and found some parallelism between the politicians in Parliament and the lawyers in the Court of Chancery in England.

Dickens portrayed that members of both categories lawyers and politicians were equally corrupt and rather than properly executing their duties of their offices they paid much attention on their pecuniary interests.

"The law as represented by Chancery which gives monied might the money of abundantly wearing out the right.. visible symbol behind which lurk the bureaucratization and power of money is attendant vices of greed and self-interest".

In Bleak House, Dickens was critical of the Institutions such as Chancery found during the Victorian period of England.

He highlighted his opinion that England was governed by people who were interested only in their pockets.

Exploitation of the weak is one of the major themes of David Copperfield and Dickens exposed the plight of the weak and the members of the marginalised in the society, orphans, the mentally handicapped and women.

David was made to starve and suffer inhumanely in a wine-bottling factory.

As in his several other novels Dickens stressed in David Copperfield that wealth and class should not be considered as values of a person.

In David Copperfield, Dickens conveys the message that mothers play a key role in shaping the character and their destiny.

Equality should prevail between husband and wife in their relationship is yet another key point portrayed by Dickens in David Copperfield.

Dickens exposes how a father deprives basic moral rights of his children such as creativity and imaginations and how they turned out to be broken and wasted human beings in Hard Times.

Dickens who was critical of the system of education found in England during the Victorian era tried to convince the fact that education was not just classroom practice of memorising facts.

His suggestion was to include emotional component as well in the system of education.

Dickens highlights in Hard Times that generosity, altruism and empathy as the important requirements of humanity.

Observations by Dickens on the shadowy depths of human heart are conveyed in his historical novel Tale of Two Cities.

Shadows are very frequently mentioned in Tale of Two Cities setting a scene of obscurity.

'That every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other, Every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret.'

In addition Dickens believed in human capacity that resurrection and transformation are possible for any individual.

Dickens went to America in 1842 and was shocked at the filthy customs he had observed there.

He was thoroughly disgusted of what prevailed then. American customs of spitting done by tobacco users and another thing Dickens abhorred in America was the widespread slavery of the time. In Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens portrays the greed and selfishness inherent in Chuzzlewit family. The protagonist of the novel Young Martin just as Charles Dickens had encountered similar experiences in America and at the end young Martin Chuzzlewit became a reformed person.