Characterization In Dickens's Early Works

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Two hundred years after his birth, Charles Dickens is remembered for the characters and stories he created during his life. Through his novels, Dickens revealed the troubles of the weak and the powerless of his time to greater English society. Specifically in three of his novels, The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and David Copperfield, Dickens separates his characters into haves and have nots: those who have affluence, but no empathy and the weak, but kind-hearted. Although there are notable exceptions to this generalization, Dickens the social critic often assigned the qualities of greed and malice with the powerful members of society. Alternately, the weak members of Dickens’ London were frequently unalterably good. However, the genius in Dickens’ characterization lies not in these dichotomies, but rather the exceptions to his established standards. Dickens uses not only his characters, but also the narrative voice to inform his readers of the plight of the poor and weak in Victorian society. Dickens’ use of both characterization and narrative description evoke compassion for those powerless individuals about whom Dickens wrote. Dickens’ first novel, The Pickwick Papers, does not focus on social criticism in the overt way that Oliver Twist and David Copperfield do. Rather, The Pickwick Papers follows the adventures of Mr. Pickwick and his ever loyal serving man, Sam Weller. Although this is a story of humor and happenstance, it would be a mistake to claim that Dickens foregoes social commentary for the sake of a comic tale. Most notably, Dickens’ extended description of life in a debtor’s prison is a moving and startling departure from the lively adventures of Mr. Pickwick and friends. In this passage, a new narrative voice is introduced to the reader. The voice decries the “miserable and destitute condition” of the debtors forced to beg from a cage in order to
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