Charles Dickens and His Oliver Twist狄更斯与《雾都孤儿》 .doc

Charles Dickens and His Oliver Twist查尔斯 狄更斯与雾都孤儿 【关键词】查尔斯 狄更斯；雾都孤儿；批判现实主义者;批判现实主义【摘要】查尔斯 狄更斯是英国文学史上杰出的现实主义作家。雾都孤儿是他的代表作之一。小说描写了伦敦底层社会中贫苦儿童的悲惨生活，揭露了贫民救济所的黑暗。他所塑造的任务，在今天读来仍栩栩如生。Key Words: Charles Dickens; Oliver Twist; critical realist; critical realismAbstract: Charles Dickens was one of the greatest critical realist writers of the Victorian Age. Oliver Twist was one of his masterpieces in reflecting the real and terrible life of the workhouse and underworld in the nineteenth-century London.1. Charles Dickens(1) Historical background of Realism Period (1832-1900)The Realism Period is also called Victorian Period, because it roughly coincides with the reign of Queen Victorian (1837-1901) chronologically. The early years of the Victorian England was a time of rapid economic development as well as serious social problems. The Industrial Revolution geared up. Scientific discoveries and technologic inventions from rail ways to steamships from spinning looms to printing machines quickly brought amazing changes to the country. For a time England was the “workshop of the world.” Large amount of profits were accumulated both from expanding its foreign trade markets and from exploiting its huge-sized colonies. Towards the mid-century, England had reached its highest point of development as a world power. And beneath the great prosperity and richness, there existed widespread poverty and wretchedness among the working class. In the towns and cities where new factories and mines bloomed, population grew at a high rate, which surely resulted in extreme material and mental poverty. Workers and their families, the component of the population, were crowded in the dirty and insanitary slums. The working conditions under which workers toiled were unimaginably brutal, especially in textile factories and coal mines where women and children were widely employed. Then Oliver Twist, Dickenss protest against the workhouses, was appearing in serial form. The worsening living and working conditions, the mass unemployment and the new Poor Law of 1834 with its workhouse system finally gave rise to the Chartist Movement (1836-1848). The English workers got themselves organized in big cities and brought forth the Peoples Charter, in which they demanded basic rights and better living and working conditions. The movement swept over most of the cities in the country. Although the movement followed by riots at Newport and imprisonment of chartists leaders and declined to an end in 1848, it did bring some improvement to the welfare of the working class. This was the first mass movement of the English working class and the early sign of the awakening of the poor, oppressed people.Victorian literature, as a product of its age, naturally took on its quality of magnitude and diversity. It was many-sided and complex, and reflected both romantically and realistically the great changes that were going on in peoples life and thought. Great writers and great works abounded. In this period, the novel become the most widely read and the most vital and challenging expression of progressive thought. Among the most famous novelists of the time were the critical realists, and Charles Dickens was one of the greatest critical realists.(2) Brief introduction of Charles DickensCharles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsea England in a petty navy office clerk, and suffered from terrible financial problem and forced to work at a blacking factory. For heavy debts, all his families except him were put in prison. So he lived by himself in a horrific condition. Pasting labels on blacking bottles twelve hours by day and sleeping under the counter at night, the child always felt hungry, lonely and ignored. The hardship and suffering inflicted upon the sensitive young Charles had left an everlasting bitter remembrance. The experience of orphan hood haunted him, and then appeared the vivid orphan Oliver. After inheriting some money, his father got out of prison and Charles returned to school. In 1827, Charles entered a lawyers office, and two years later he became a Parliamentary reporter for newspapers. The journalistic experience not only enabled him to get acquainted with some inside knowledge of the British legal and political system from which he grew disappointed with the attempts of law makers, and give him a chance to meet people of all kinds, but also laid a good foundation for his coming literary career. The novel Oliver Twist can be so successful may due to his veiled protest against the Poor Law in 1834.From 1833 Dickens began to write occasional sketches of London life, which were later collected and published under the title of Sketches by Boz (1836). Soon The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836-1837) appeared in monthly installments. It at once lifted him into a position of fame and fortune. And since then, his life became one of endless hard work. . Many of his novels, with their recurrent concern for social reform, first appeared in magazines in serialised form, a popular format at the time. Unlike other authors who completed entire novels before serialization, Dickens often created the episodes as they were being serialized. The practice lent his stories a particular rhythm, punctuated by cliffhangers to keep the public looking forward to the next installment. The continuing popularity of his novels and short stories is such that they have never gone out of print.His work has been praised for its mastery of prose and unique personalities by writers such as George Gissing, Leo Tolstoy and G. K. Chesterton, though others, such as Henry James and Virginia Woolf, criticized it for sentimentality and implausibility.2. Oliver Twist Oliver Twist is now one of my favorite books. I love the plot and the way Charles Dickens wrote them, it makes everything vivid. Oliver is an orphan whose mother is died when giving birth to him and dad is unknown. He is brought up in a farm until he is nine, the workhouse decide to take him. He has a terrible life there, no meat is provided, a little bit porridge is a way not enough for the children. At length, when no more starvation can be borne, Oliver asks for second, he says cautiously " Can I have some more, please." And this question, changes his life completely. Oliver is taken by a benevolent gentleman as a result. The gentleman treats Oliver well, but his wife and other to apprentices don't like him at all. After a fight between Oliver and Noah, Oliver becomes even quieter and more miserable. Finally, he runs away, and reaches the big and dangerous city, London, thinking at least he can find a way to survive. However, he is taken by a gang, who teach Oliver how to steal. When Oliver realizes they are thieves, he runs away again. Fortunately, a kind-hearted gentleman takes him. Oliver spends the happiest time in his life in this gentleman's house.Maybe God doesn't want Oliver to find his happiness so soon, there are much more difficulties waiting for him to conquer. One day, on his way to a bookshop, Oliver is caught by the gang again. They force him to rob. One of the robberies fails, leaves poor wounded Oliver, lying next to the house, which they tried to rob. Funny enough, people in that house take care of him, he even starts learning how to read and write. In the end, every member of the gang's life goes horribly wrong. Oliver's life history is revealed and found out that Rose is his aunt and Monks is his half-brother. Old gentleman adopts him as his son. I think, everything ends up in a nice way! I am so happy for little Oliver, he finally found his felicity. He is an optimistic, not scared of difficulties, polite and appreciative boy. He deserves what he gets in the end. The plot is intricate, and every character is masterly linked together.The story of Oliver Twist reflects the darkness of the society. At that time, everyone was intrigued in factory revolution, the whole society looked prosperous. But there were still many people lived poorly, or even struggled to survive. The book displays all the problems of Britain at that time - workhouses, hunger, gangs, stealing, etc. That is one of the reasons why this book caused such a great impression and effect. The effort Oliver put in for a better life is very positive; it shows the optimistic of some people, although they didn't live in a good situation.3. Values and defectsThe novel gives strikingly vivid descriptions of the thieves den and the London underworld. Here the author succeeds in calling forth the readers sympathy for the social environment of the time; either climbs up to be parasites or oppressors of fall victims of who emerges happy and successful in the end. The happy issue which Dickenss novel usually ends in comes about as a result of his optimistic belief in the inevitable triumph of good and evil.In his works, Dickens sets out a full map and a large-scale criticism of the nineteenth century England, particularly London. Most of the chapters , even if they may be chapters of bursting fantasy, are deeply rooted in his knowledge of that petty-bourgeois urban world which he knows under the skin, from its prestigious absurdity to its most sordid squalor. A combination of optimism about people and realism about het society is presented from the very beginning. In his early novels (up to 1850), he attacks one or more specific social evils in each: the dehumanizing workhouse system and the dark, criminal underworld, the famous scene in Chapter 2, in which Oliver was beaten up and punished merely because he ventured to ask for a extra portion of gruel to alleviate his gnawing hunger, is only one of the many details to show the extreme brutality and corruption of the oppressors and their agents under the mask of philanthropy. It is in scenes like this that we see the great critical realist voicing the helpless sufferings of the poor and oppressed.Dickens works are also characterized by a mingling of humor and pathos. He seems to believe that life is itself a mixture of joy and grief. Life is delightful because it is at once comic and tragic. He is a humorist. Whether he exaggerates a persons physical traits to achieve a dramatic effect or to ridicule his personal defects, whether he means to be light-heartedly jocular or bitterly satirical, he is sure to produce roaring laughter or understanding smiles. The pain strikes people to the heart. Tears are shed unashamedly by men, literate or illiterate. The chief defects of the novel include the improbability of the plot and the unreality of some of the characters. Towards the end of the novel, the novel, the plot gets to be very intricate and the reader is simply mystified, and when the mystery is finally revealed to him, he is faced with impossible coincidences which lead to the happy ending. At critical moments Oliver has been once and again saved by kindly gentlefolk who. As luck would have it, happen to be his parents kith and kin. As for improbable characters, Oliver himself is a pale figure who seems to be ever the helpless victim of fate. Fagin and Bill Sikes are too benevolent and good/Here we may see that Dickens, while sympathizing with the miseries of the people, did not know what or who was responsible for such miseries and even cherished illusions about rich, idle but benevolent people like Mr. Brownlow and Miss Maylie. The whole social question, Dickens believed, would be solved if only every employer followed the example set by good gentlemen like Pickwick and Brownlow. And sometimes Dickens seems so anxious to wring an extra tear from the audience that he indulges himself in excessive sentimental melodrama and spoils the story. However, in spite of these defects, the novel is a powerful exposure of bourgeois society. Oliver Twist is one of the best works of Dickens. The merit of the novel is in its truth to reality, sometimes arousing indignation; always full of energy and humor, its fault is in the ending which is in the manner of the sentimental novels of the past century. It is said that the publication of Oliver Twist brought about some bettering of conditions in the English workhouse during the authors day.