Life and Literary Work of Charles Dickens

The Life and Literary Work of Charles Dickens

According to Sylvere Monod (46-47), much in Charles Dickens' personal life directly shaped his literary efforts. Indeed, Monod (3) believes that the first 24 years of Dickens' life shaped his later world view and sensitized him to the plight of the poor, the working class, and the marginalized in British society. This report will consider Dickens' life, linking his experiences in childhood, college, and later life to his literary works and also examining the relationship between Dickens and other writers of the era.

The thesis to be explored herein is that for Charles Dickens, as Angus Wilson (16-18) has suggested, all of his personal experiences became the fodder for his literary productions. Many of the events of his childhood, youth, and later life would shape the themes of his stories and serve as the basis for many of his characters.

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in a small house at 387 Mile End Terrace, Landport, Portsea. The house was one in a row of attached brick buildings that had been rented by John Dickens three years prior to the birth of his son and though small and modestly priced, John Dickens found it necessary to move his family to a less expensive home at 18 Hawke Street (Johnson, 12-13).

John Dickens has been described by Johnson (13) as a lively, talkative, energetic male who worked as a clerk in the Navy Pay Office. Charles Dickens was one of severa

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d of his formal education came to an end when financial necessity demanded that Dickens return to work. Dickens' first job after leaving school was with the firm of Ellis and Blackmore, which he began in May 1827 (Johnson, 45). Apprenticing as a law clerk was a responsible and dignified position which, had Dickens been interested in the law, could have led toward prosperity as a solicitor or as a King's Counsel (Johnson, 45). However, many of Dickens' biographers, including Monod (17) have claimed that Dickens disliked the law and found it boring. He was at that time attracted to journalism and had hopes of eventually becoming self-supporting as a novelist. Dickens, says Monod (18-19), did not necessarily resent the fact that he was not able to attend a prestigious British university. However, given that his childhood and adolescence virtually ended when he was only 17 (when he permanently "went to work"), and the childhood and youth of many of his key characters (Pip, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist) also ends early, one suspects that Charles Dickens wished for a longer and more settled (and conventional) youth. Later Life After leaving the law office, Dickens turned first to journalism, in which he served an apprenticesh

Category: Literature - L