Dickens There was a communion of interests and opinions between writers and their readers.

One reason for this close relationship was the enormous growth of middle classes who were avid consumers of literature. Writers shared the same frame of mind and referred to the same code of values: optimism, conformism, philanthropy. The novelists felt they had a moral and social responsibility to fulfil: they aimed at reflecting the social changes that had been in progress for a long time. The voice of the omniscient narrator provided a comment on the plot and erected a rigid barrier between right and wrong. The setting was the city which was the main symbol of the industrial civilisation. Victorian writers concentrated on the creation of characters and achieved deeper analysis of the characters inner life. VITA: Dickens was born in portsmouth. He had an unhappy childhood, since his father went to prison for debt and he had to work in a factory at the age of twelve. These days of sufferings inspired much of the content of his novels. He adopted the pen name boz. Dickens success continued with his autobiographical novels, oliver twist and david copperfield. All their protagonists were the symbols of an exploited childhood confronted with the grim and bitter realities of slums and factories. Other works dealt with social issues, such as the conditions of the poor and the problems connected to the working class. THE PLOTS OF DICKENS NOVELS: He was a storyteller. His novels were influenced by the bible, fables etc Dickens plots are well-planned. London was the setting of most of his novels. In oliver twist for example depicted at 3 different social levels: the parochial world of the workhouses, the criminal world of pickpockets and murderers. They live in dirty, squallid slums with fear and die a miserable death. The world of victorian middle-class with respectable people who show a regard for moral values and believe in the principle of human dignity. The workhouses were established to give relief to the poor. Their residents had hard regulations: labour was required, families were separated and the rations of food and clothing were meager. He was aware of the spiritual and material corruption of present-day reality under the impact of industrialism; the result was an increasingly critical attitude towards his society. In fact, in his mature works Dickens succeeded in drawing popular attention to public abuses, evil and wrongs with terrible descriptions of london misery and crime. The readers of his novels belonged to two categories: 1. Lower-middle class readers who found their lives and problems mirrored by his novels. They imagined to be protagonist of stories and they hoped to read things they wanted in their real life that is a happy ending. 2. Well-off readers of upper classes who began to develope a humanitarian feeling towards the less fortunate (philantropism). Dickens created caricatures, he exaggerated and ridiculed the peculiar social characteristics of the middle , lower and lowest class, using their own voices and dialogue. He was always on the side of the poor, the outcast, and also the working class. STYLE: his style consisted in a gloomiest humour and an absolutely original use of the language and of the capacity to see the most improbable relationships between different things or persons. He uses the repetitions of words, a careful choice of adjective and hyperbolic and ironic remarks. A DIDACTIC AIM: Dickens wanted to illustrate the reversing of the natural order of things: wise children so were opposed to worthless parents infact the children represented the moral teachers and they were the examples to follow. The didactic purpose of Dickens was to make his people love his children, and put them forward as models. Anyway Dickens' aim was not to stimulate the poor to rebel, and he did not want to encourage discontent among the most suffering, but he tried to alleviate the sufferings of the society by getting the common intelligence of the country.