Charles Dickens, the inimitable
Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870) is a great creative writer considered by many as second in importance and influence only to the great William Shakespeare. He is an author whose vision of life in Victorian England has marked the imagination of the British people. Everyone knows the story of Oliver Twist (1837-8), and knows the phrase ‘Please sir, I want some more’ said by a hungry young boy (Oliver) in a workhouse* who has not had enough to eat. Many of our abiding national images come from his novels – the fog of London (Bleak House 1852-3), gangs of pickpockets and streetchildren (Oliver Twist), while the miser Scrooge, the ‘spirit of Christmas’, and our image of a ‘traditional English Christmas’ originate to a considerable extent from his novel The Christmas Carol (1843), again, a story known by virtually all Britons. Often our Christmas cards still re-create the image of Christmas which we see and read about in Dickens’ novels – the Victorian clothes, the carol-singers, the snow, the bleak winter weather, family conviviality, Christmas feasting, the spirit of goodwill and generosity all stem from these novels written over a hundred and fifty years ago.
Images too of what constitute a good man, a happy childhood, a good life, an awareness of the dangers of wealth and comfort, and how these can blind people to the problems of the poor; how success can narrow a person’s outlook instead of doing the reverse, insights into the causes and effects of social injustice and poverty and the link between the two – all of this and more comes to us through Charles Dickens. He attacked the slowness of the law (in Bleak House) the cruelty and harsh utilitarianism of the industrial class (in Hard Times (1854)), the corrupting effect of money and status (in Great Expectations).
His novels were widely read, and intended to be both entertaining and forceful in what they described – the Christmas Carol, for instance, was initially entitled "The Sledgehammer" and was illustrated by John Leech, a politically radical artist who drew the cartoons. Abandoned children and orphans like Pip – the hero of Great Expectations (1860-61) – are everywhere in his work, and good people are as likely to be found (sometimes more so!) among the poor and ignorant as among the rich and intelligent.
Every year on June 9th, there is a service in Westminster Abbey in London to honour the memory of Charles Dickens as an author who, in the nineteenth century, used his energy and genius to rouse the nation to conscience and reform. Some of the people who attend dress up in Dickensian costumes, as characters from Dickens’ novels, and there are often members of clergy who come from the very area where Dickens himself lived and worked in poverty as a child when his father was in prison for debt.
In his last will before his death, Dickens was very clear that he wanted to be buried inexpensively, in private, and without any ostentatiousness, and in June 1870 his burial service took place in the presence of a mere eight to twelve mourners. But that same day word got round and thousands of ordinary citizens of London went to the Abbey to show their affection, admiration and respect for ‘the great inimitable’.
(*an early form of a children’s home)
Synonyms exercise
Which of the words below could replace those in bold in the text in this context?
depicted
quotation
same
almost
ministers of the Christian church
originally
opposite
relationship
only a
long-lasting, enduring
each
originate
Answers for the synonyms exercise above!