Introduction:
According to David Cecil, Dickens is
"the most representative of Victorian novelists. Some will contend that he
is also the greatest. No doubt he lacks the profundity of George Eliot, the
consuming passion of the Bronte sisters, and the peculiar eclat of Thackeray,
yet he surpasses them all in his basic humanity, a childlike naivete, and an
amazingly fecund imagination.
These qualities place him among the
foremost of all English novelists. Dickens achieved in his lifetime wide
popularity among all sections of readers. Cambell, the famous Lord Chief
Justice, remarked that he would have been prouder of having written Pickwick
Papers than of all the honours he had earned at the Bar. Dickens'
popularity overstepped the frontiers of his country and spread in most
countries of Europe, as also across the Atlantic. While he was in America, he
received a hero's welcome everywhere. Children festooned him as if some sort of
Santa Claus had come. Even in Russia Dickens found a wonderful response. And
when he died, an Italian newspaper bore very characteristically for its
headline the news: "Our Charles Dickens is dead." Indeed, Dickens was
not of his country alone but of all he world. He will be read as long as books
are read. This "forecast" is based on the fact that up to today,
about a century and a quarter after his death (1870), there has been no time
when his popularity suffered any noticeable decline, whereas all these years
too many literary reputations have been made and marred.
Dickens
and Social Reform:
It must be understood at the very
outset that Dickens' art is art with a purpose. In the Victorian age even
poetry-perhaps the most "aesthetic" department of literature-was
approached by many writers as handmaiden of social reform. Tennyson's is
atypical case. The Pre-Raphaelites and some others, no doubt, did not let their
Muse soil her wings by allowing her to fly too close to the earth. But the
Pre-Raphaelites were not typical Victorians. They represented a revolt
rather than a tradition. Dickens did not shut himself up in an ivory tower of
such a kind as "aesthetic culture" or "Gothicism." In his
novels he strikes from first to last a loud and clear note of humanitarianism.
which is the most attractive note in the Dickensian orchestra. He can be called
one of the greatest social reformers of his time. That he works in earnest is
unquestionable-but he does not let himself fly into tantrums or slide into the
quagmire of cynicism of which the work of such social reformers as Ruskin is
not altogether innocent. Many a novel of Dickens seems to have been built
around a particular social theme. For instance, Bleak House attacks
"the law's delays"; Nicholas Nickleby, the abuses of charity
schools and the sadism of school-masters; Hard Times, the pet concepts
of the then current "political economy" which was also attacked by
Ruskin and Carlyle; Little Dornit, the inhumanities to which poor
debtors are often subjected; and so forth. But above all such social criticism
is the basic lesson of humanness and charity which almost all Dickens' novels
teach implicitly or explicitly. And then there is the most ebullient, convivial
optimism of Dickens, which, even though-rrof altogether acceptable as the last
word on the philosophical exploration of life and the universe is yet
acceptable for its basic good humour and throbbing humanity. An opinion runs :
"Despite its many evils—the Hardness of heart and-the selfishness of those
in high places-the greed and hypocrisy which were so prevalent-the wicked class
prejudices which divided man from man-the world was still for Dickens a very
good world to live in." Nowhere does Dickens say that "all is
right with the world," but nowhere does he say either that "al 1 is
wrong with the world." He is a realist no less than an optimist.
Characterisation:
The fertility of Dickens' creative
imagination is simply amazing. His first novel, Pickwick Papers, had a
swarming mass of finely delineated characters, and he kept up the pace of
supply for all the subsequent novels. One very peculiar feature of Dickens'
work as a novelist is that his novels, when joined together, create a world of
their own, somewhat different no doubt from our world and even the real world
of his own day but none-the-less akin to both in many ways. We cannot exactly
talk of the world of Thackeray's or George Eliot's novels, but we can talk of the
world of Dickens' novels which has very recognizable contours and peculiarities
and which is full of characters whom we know better than even bur aunts and
uncles. Take any character from Dickens. He seems every inch a denizen of
Dickens' world. We generally find it difficult to recall to which novel he
belongs, but we do not find it difficult to say to which world he
belongs. Asa painter of the life ofhis day Dickens works on a very crowded
canvas, and very often he uses colours which are too blazing to be compatible
with reality. This brings us to the oft-repeated charge that he gives not
characters but caricatures. There is some substance in the charge. But all his
characters are not caricatures. After Compton-Rickett we can divide Dickens'
characters into various groups as shown below:
Dickens's
Characters
(1) The
normal
(2) The abnormal
(i) Satirical
portraits (ii) The
grotesques (iii)
The villains
(drawn for a special purpose)
The abnormal characters do not embody
"normal" reality, but they are not essentially unrealistic. It is
curious that Dickens succeeds better with the abnormal than with the normal
characters. Normality does not attract him on account of being dull and
"ordinary."
Dickens is more successful with
characters drawn from the middle and lower classes of his society. As a child
and young man he had seen and even experienced the life of these classes. It
was in his blood even after he had become a high-hat with his thumping success
in the field of fiction. He is much less successful with the bigwigs and
aristocracy. There ate some set types which make their appearance much too
often in Dickens' novels. Some of them, according to a critic, are:
(i)
"the innocent little child, like Oliver, Joe, Paul, Tiny Tim, and little
Nell, appealing powerfully to the child love in every human heart";
(ii)
"the horrible or grotesque foil, like Squeer, Fagin, Quilp, Uriah Heep,
and Bill Sykes";
(iii)
"the grandiloquent or broadly humorous fellow, the fun master, like
Micawber and Sam
Walter";
(iv)
"and fourth, a tenderly or powerfully drawn figure like Lady Dedlock of
Bleak House, and Sydney Carton of A Tale of Two Cities, which rise
to the dignity of true characters."
Applying E. M. Forster's distinction
between "flat" and "round" characters to the characters of
Dickens' novels, we find that almost all of them are flat, not round. A Dickens
character is usually built, like a Jonsonian "humour," around a
single quality, and is incapable of surprising us in a convincing way. Dickens'
characters do not "develop," and they do not surprise. But in spite
of their lack of development and their numerous oddities, they are
"living" beings, being the effusions of a tremendously vital
imagination.
Plot-Construction:
On the strictly structural side of his
art, Dickens can boast only of modest success. Several of his novels mock the
very ideal of structure, or even any other principle of pattern. It was only in
his latest novels-Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, and Our Mutual
Friend-thai he was able to offer somewhat coherent plots. For the rest,
they all exhibit a gross neglect of all architectonic principles. For one
thing, he is always more interested in individual episodes and individual
characters than in the job of integrating them into a well-proportioned
pattern. Many characters—and, some of them, most interesting-serve no
structural function; but they are there all the same, and we too wish them to
be there in spite of their egregious structural irrelevance. Among such
characters may be mentioned Mrs. Gamp, Mr. Micawber, Mr. Crummels, and Flora
Pinching. As a novelist, Dickens is a traditionalist, as he accepts the formal
pattern of the novel handed over to him by Richardson, Fielding, and
Smollett-his love from childhood. Some of his novels depict the career of the
hero from his infancy till manhood. This naturally involves him in the handling
of a mass of vicissitudes as variegated as life itself. To impose even a
passable unity on the sprawling episodes representing these vicissitudes is
definitely beyond him.
One of the very important reasons for
the weakness of the structural unity of Dickens' novels is to be sought in the
mode of their original publication: they were published serially in newspapers.
Now, the serial mode of publication asks for a particular kind of discipline on
the part of the author, but it is also excessively detrimental to the
structural pattern of the novels so published. From month to month or week to
week or fortnight to fortnight (as the case may be) the author goes on and on
without having a clear idea as to what he is heading for. He receives letters
from fans asking him to give this or that turn to the events-to kill a
character, to make someone rich or poor, to arrange a marriage, and so on. And
he obliges some. In every instalment there has to be some "kick."
Between one instalment and the next, organic development naturally suffers,
because the author sends one instalment and goes about whistling till the time
for the next compels him to take pen in hand once again. It is natural,
therefore, for Dickens' novels to be ill-constructed. "Very often",
observes David Cecil, "he leaves a great many threads loose till the last
chapter; and then finds there is not enough time.to tie them up neatly. The
main strands are knotted roughly together the minor wisps are left hanging
forlornly."
Humour:
But we readily excuse Dickens
architectonic deficiency the moment we take congnizance of his humour. Humour
is the very soul of his work. It presents his novels from becoming tiresome and
itself is not tiresome. He is never a bore, as Thackeray is sometimes, and
George Eliot not unoften. Dickens' humour arises from a deep human sympathy and
is ever fresh and refreshing. It is customary to compare him with such great
humorists before him as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Fielding. Sometimes his
humour is corrective and satiric-but it always has the quality of geniality,
charity, and tolerance. Humour with him is not only an occasional mood but a
consistent point of view, and even a "philosophy of life." His comic
fertility is indeed amazing. We have above referred to Dickens "world."
This world is peopled by a vast number of humorous characters. Dickens is at
his best in what is called the humour of character. We meet with few Falstaffs
in his novels, but his "comic fecundity" is greater than
Shakespeare's.
It must be admitted that Dickens'
humour is not very subtle. As a humorist he does not rise to the subtlety even
of Fielding and Thackeray. Fielding was often as coarse and farcical as
Dickens-and sometimes even surpassed him; however, that profundity of sustained
ironical attitude which we find in his Jonathan Wilde lies obviously
beyond the capability of Dickens. Dickens' humour is superficial rather than
profound. Very often it is of the nature of full-blooded farce or caricature.
In most of his characters we find a persistent reiteration of one particular
note which becomes comic simply because of the number of times it is flaunted
for our attention-very like the comic snatch of a circus buffoon, which is
greeted with uproarious laughter when it comes after, say, the third time. Mr.
Micawber always waiting for something to "turn up", Barkis who is
always "willing", Mrs. Gummidge always complaining that things are
going contrary with her-all are abundantly comic figures; but they lack any
subtle or profound touch.
Pathos:
But in one way, at least, Dickens'
humour rises above being a flashy, superficial affair, and that is its
prorximity to pathos. Like Lamb's, Dickens' laughter is never far from tears.
He makes us smile sometimes through our tears. It will be unfair to say that he
is entirely superficial, even though splendidly superficial, and ignorant of
the tragic facets of life. Life he views as a tragi-comedy, and if he laughs
and laughs, he does so not because he is unaware of the tragic part of it, but
because his attitude is "healthy" and untainted by morbidity. In such
novels as Hard Times he manifests a surprisingly profound nowledge of
and concern for some fundamental problems of the machine age which his England
had begun to take congnizance of. And his treatment of these problems is far
from frivolous.
Dickens was as considerably influenced
by Goldsmith and Steme as by Fielding and Smollet. Sterne's sentimentalism and
rather hypersensitive human sympathy as also Goldsmith's fundamental sweetness
and fellow-feeling often make themselves felt in Dickens' work. The earliest
attempt made by Dickens at the delineation of the pathetic is to be found in
his very first novel Pickwick Papers-the death of the Chancery
prisoners. He is wonderfully successful in delineating the pathos of child
life. As a child, he himself had suffered much, and his accounts of such life
are always redolent of his personal experiences. Little Dorrit, Great
Expectations, David Copperfield, and many more novels are rich in pathetic
accounts of the lives of their heroes in childhood. What is more, pathos in
them mingles and merges with humour, creating very peculiar effects.
Autobiographic
Touches:
A peculiar feature of Dickens' art as
novelist is his tendency to be autobiographic. He constantly draws upon his own
experience, and the sympathies and antipathies which we find so persistenly
manifested by him in his work very often have their origin in the years of his
adolescence. Many of his novels are the records of his own life-though modified
by subjection to the canons of art. Thus David Copperfield is, in
essentials, Dickens' autobiography. Oliver Twist uses a lot of material
supplied by his own experience of the low life of London in his tender years.
In Bleak House he draws substantially upon his early knowledge of law
courts and legal affairs. He recollects his school days in Nicholas
Nickleby. And so forth.
Conclusion:
In spite of the formidable number of
flaws and limitations from which Dickens' art as a novelist suffers, he is a
great novelist. His humour, basic human sympathy, and his rich, vitalising
imagination are his basic assets, even though he is deficient in the
architectural skill as well as other formal and "technical"
qualifications as a novelist. He may be coarse and superficial, but we must
remember that he is never a bore. And when that is said, much is!
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