Dickens' father went to prison because he couldn't pay off his debts. In desperation, Dickens, who was over 10, went to a shoeshine workshop as a child laborer. My father is a clerk in the naval accounting office. He is very frivolous. He was heavily in debt and left his hometown because he was extravagant and couldn't afford to support eight children. After moving to London, in order to save money, my mother, brother and sister moved into prison and stayed with my father. Dickens was alone outside. When he got his salary every Sunday, he bought some food to visit his parents and siblings in prison. During this period, he had extensive contacts with the people at the bottom of society and had deep sympathy for their miserable lives and experiences. At the same time, he also had a strong hatred for the ruling class and the dark society, which had an important impact on his later literary creation.
Later, Dickens' father got a small inheritance from a distant relative, paid off his debts and was released from prison. Dickens also left the shoeshine shop and went to a primary school. Two or three years later, the meager legacy was spent, and Dickens had to drop out of school to make a living. In order to support his family, he has worked as a lawyer's clerk, a messenger in a firm and a court shorthand since he was 16 years old. 1832, become an interviewer for a newspaper. During his time as a reporter, he had the opportunity to often go to Congress to record debates, witnessed the dirty inside story of the struggle of bourgeois political parties, learned many evil facts of the upper class exposed in the debates, and collected rich life materials for his later literary creation.
Dickens had an indissoluble bond with literature since he was a child. In his childhood, he read many novels, such as Robinson Crusoe and Arabian Nights. His father likes drama very much. He often asked Dickens to perform plays and taught him to recite poems. Although this kind of education made little Dickens suffer a lot, it also cultivated his literary interest and the spirit of hard study. Dickens started his literary creation when he was interviewed by a reporter. At this time, he often writes for several newspapers in London and studies hard in the reading room of the British Museum in his spare time. In the past three years, under the pseudonym "Boz", he has published two volumes of close-ups describing the local customs of London (1833~ 1836). His satirical techniques, rich language and vivid writing have amazed journalists who have had contacts with him, and also attracted the attention of readers and literary circles.
From 1836 to 1837, Dickens published his 1 novel The Story of Pickwick in stages, which sharply satirized the social system of bourgeois Britain and its pseudo-democracy, and was widely welcomed by readers. From then on, he left the press, entered the British literary world with great fame, and began his career specializing in literary creation. 1842, he visited the United States. From 65438 to 0844, he often lived with his family in Switzerland, France and Italy. From 65438 to 0846, he founded the progressive newspaper Daily News as the editor-in-chief. 1858, as an excellent reciter, made a tour of reciters in China; 1867~ 1868 Visit the United States again.
Dickens wrote tirelessly all his life, which seriously damaged his health. 1on June 9, 870, the "favored son" of the British literary world died suddenly, which caused the mourning of the whole British people. His bones were buried in the "Poet's Corner" in Westminster.
Dickens wrote more than 20 novels, a large number of short stories, essays, letters and speeches, 2 reading notes and 65,438+0 children's books on English history. According to the development of his thought, his creation can be roughly divided into three periods.
Period1(1833 ~1842). At this time, the author has a superficial understanding of the nature and contradictions of capitalist society, still has illusions about the ruling class, and is still optimistic about curing social ills. During this period, besides the biography of Pickwick, there was also a social novel Oliver Twist, which described the life of orphans and brought people into a painful world (translated as Oliver Twist,1837 ~1838); Nicholas Nickelby (1839) created the image of a bourgeois robber and exposed the British education system. Old antique shops (184 1) lamented the closure of small private owners; And the novel Barnaby Lach (184 1) describing the people's uprising in 1780. These works expose the hypocrisy of capitalist British charities and the darkness of school education, satirize the hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy and the corruption of government agencies, describe the tragic fate of teenagers, and reflect the bankruptcy of small and medium-sized private owners and the people's resistance struggle in the society where money is omnipotent in history. However, the criticism of these works on society is mild, and the "little people" in the works are often protected by the "kind" bourgeoisie and get a happy ending after going through hardships.
Phase II (1842~ 1848). The trip to America from 65438 to 0842 broke Dickens' fantasy about America. He saw the evil of the whole capitalist world and its unsolvable contradictions from the dark and dirty social reality in the United States. Therefore, his works in this period strengthened the critical power of capitalism and made his novel creation enter a new era. Dickens wrote "Notes on America" (1842) after returning from his visit to the United States, exposing the false democracy of the US Congress and the news media, and attacking the prison system and dark slavery in the United States. At the same time, he also published the novel Martin Zhu Schuwitt (1843), which exposed and cursed the ugly reality of corruption, speculation, fraud and racial discrimination in American bourgeois society. In this novel with the theme of money, the author created a typical bourgeois image. The education he received from childhood was "money" and "profit", and his life rule was "hit others first, or others will hit you." As an adult, he tried to poison his father in order to inherit property as soon as possible. The author revealed the poison of money to people at that time.
1848, Dickens published Dombey and Son, an important novel criticizing capitalists. The hero of the novel, Mr Dombey, is the manager of Dombey & Son Company, which manages overseas trade. He is a typical bourgeois image of arrogance, callousness and inhumanity. He thinks he is the representative of the social forces that rule the whole world, his enterprise is the center of the world, and the earth, sun and moon exist exclusively for the activities of Dombey & Son Company. He is convinced that the power of money is infinite. He abused his daughter and prevented her from having a happy childhood. After his son died, he bought Edith, a beautiful aristocratic young woman, with the help of money, so that he could remarry, adopt children and inherit the company's business. Later, Edith couldn't stand his indifference, so she eloped with his assistant, and Dombey went bankrupt. The work exposes the ugliness of human nature and lashes the cruelty and ugliness of the bourgeoisie.
One of Dickens' important works in this period is Christmas Tales (1843~ 1848). Representative works include A Christmas Carol (1843), The Bell (1844), The Cricket by the Fireside (1845), The Battle of Life (1846) and Enchanted. These works reflect the author's humanitarian fantasy and sentimental sentiment. "A Christmas Carol" and "Cricket by the Fireside" write that real estate mainly gets along with the lower classes and improves moral standards; The Bell focuses on Malthusian theory, the principle of free competition of Manchester School and bentham's utilitarianism.
The third issue (after 1848). This period is the heyday of Dickens' creation. At this time, the revolutions in Britain and continental Europe suffered setbacks, and the reactionary forces of the bourgeoisie increased sharply. Dickens believes that social evils are caused by an equal social system. Therefore, the works of this period no longer attack isolated people and things, but profoundly expose and criticize the whole capitalist system, government agencies, state machines and the essence of capitalism.
The important works of this period include the novels david copperfield De (1850), Bleak House (1853), Hard Times (1854), Little Dooley (1857) and.
David copperfield is an autobiographical novel. Through the experience of an orphan, it exposes the destruction and exploitation of children in capitalist society, and criticizes the corruption of the judiciary and the oppression of the people by the parliamentary system. Bleak House criticizes the moral depravity of the nobility and the bourgeoisie through the family tragedy of Mrs. Dedlock and the lawsuit of the Zhuangdis family for inheritance, exposes the evil behavior of the British judicial system at the expense of others and satirizes the power struggle between the two parties in the British parliament and the absurdity and decay of government institutions. The novel also hints at the prospect that the dark British society will collapse with the spontaneous combustion of a thrift store near the court and the death of its owner. Little Li Du accuses the British prison system of inhumanity and criticizes the bourgeois egoism and parasitic habits through the experience of the protagonist's whole family being imprisoned for debts. Based on the French Revolution, A Tale of Two Cities reveals the persecution of peasants by feudal nobles through the personal experience of Dr. Magnet. The author also punishes the oppressors through the people's capture of the Bastille, which shows that the revolution is bound to come. However, the author lacks a correct understanding of the meaning and content of the revolution, regards the revolution as a simple means of revenge, and criticizes Jacob's dictatorship as too "cruel". Great Expectations describes the rules of money and criminal behavior in capitalist society. Our Friends criticizes the unreasonable social phenomenon of getting something for nothing and getting something for nothing.
Hard Times is one of Dickens' most noteworthy, successful and immortal works. This work was written under the positive influence of the British constitutional movement. Based on the life in Coking Town, a textile center town, it reflects the contradiction between labor and capital in capitalist society, accuses capitalists of cruel exploitation of workers, describes the bleak life of workers, and shows the continuous improvement of working class consciousness through vivid storylines and various characters. The work successfully depicts the typical images of two bourgeoisie, namely, Congressman and Educator gladys and Textile Factory Capitalist Bounderby. They are in cahoots with each other and work closely together to control the educational institutions and economic lifeline of this town. Gray is just a utilitarian bastard, telling the truth about everything. He regards life as a "cash transaction across the counter". In order to get more money, he forced his 20-year-old daughter Louisa to marry bounderby, a capitalist in her fifties. His daughter's marriage turned out to be a tragedy. He forced his son to accept the "fact" education, hoping that his son would succeed in his career. As a result, it backfired and his son became a fugitive who stole a bank. Bounderby is a typical sinister and inhuman industrial capitalist. While brutally exploiting workers, he boasted that he started from scratch and covered up the crime of exploitation. He married Louisa by the meanest means; When he refused to buy off worker Stephen, he fired him and forced the bank theft on Stephen. He was forced to do nothing, and Stephen died with a grudge. In a word, through a series of typical images and conflicts, this work truly and profoundly reflects the social situation and times of Britain from 65438 to the 1950s. However, the author advocates class harmony, advocates solving contradictions with love, and vilifies the leaders of the Charter Movement.
Dickens' works describe the broad and vivid social picture of Britain in the first half of the19th century with a high degree of art, depict all kinds of characters in the British "upper class" at that time from all angles, and expose the ugly face and dirty soul of the rulers. This is beyond the reach of other novelists before him and his contemporaries. At the same time, he described the lower classes and their miserable lives with vivid and enthusiastic brushstrokes, and gave deep sympathy to their tragic fate, thus setting off a real literary revolution.
Dickens' novels are not only a complaint of blood and tears from the working people, but also a sharp attack on the reactionary class. But Dickens' world view has sharp contradictions. He hates and exposes the evils of capitalism, but he doesn't want to overthrow the capitalist system. He sympathized with the workers and the lower classes, but not with their revolution; He lived in the stormy struggle era of the British working class, but did not see the advanced forces that really promoted social development. He advocated reforming exploiters with morality and education, fantasizing about influencing the bourgeoisie with charity propaganda, urging labor and capital to compromise and eliminating the disparity between the rich and the poor. These thoughts are permeated with strong bourgeois humanitarian factors, which shows that he is basically the spokesman of small private owners.
In art, Dickens pushed the creation of English novels to an unprecedented peak. Create characters with satirical, humorous, exaggerated and comic sketch skills; He is good at displaying colorful life pictures in the form of relief, turning the natural scenery or realistic environment he describes into vivid and concrete images, which are integrated with the emotions and inner world of the characters in his works, thus enhancing the realism of his works and arousing the readers' rich imagination.
Dickens' works had a far-reaching influence at that time. He is not only known as "novelist Shakespeare" and "English novelist Balzac", but also the founder and outstanding representative of British critical realism. Marx once said: "They revealed the future political and social truth to the world in vivid books, more than all professional politicians, political critics and moralists put together."