Charles Dickens as I see him

R Liyanage

Charles Dickens lived during the Victorian period and he was the celebrated author whose novels have been read by generation of readers. No other novelist has stood equal to him. Martin Wickremasinghe in a conversation with me at his residence told me that from Walter Scott to Dickens their works have been criticised. Criticism is an art with the literary critics. In most of his novels he was a purveyor of melodrama sensationalism and sudden upheavels of the fortune of the characters. He was using too much pathos for his characters to win the sympathy of the readers. Dickens was most original and inventive genius since Shakespeare. According to literary critics two of his best novels are David Copperfield and Great Expectations. Our mutual friends show too much strain of his mind and wearing away of his natural genius. In his work like Oliver Twist he carries us to a fairyland and fabulous world. According to some critics his works are fictional essays which have no definite cohesion and he depicts the miserable world where poverty reigns. He was attacking all the social evils and called for new reforms.

Charles Dickens

He is a very descriptive writer and painter of London life and he had a modley of characters. He wrote in instalments to the magazines in circulation and each novel took two years to complete and he earned by his pen to bring up a family and while he increased the family he piled up books as a prolific writer. Hard times and Tale of Two Cities are compact novels. His style and the literary merits are more influenced by Hendry Fields, Smolett and Godsmith.

Charles Dickons could not have a formal education due to the indebtness of the father who was imprisoned at Marshalsea. After his release Dickens had his education at Wellington Academy. He rose up as a journalist and established himself as a fine writer, His work, immortal Pickwick Papers made him rich and he earned 10,000 pounds. His early love with Maria Beadnell served as a model for Flora Flinching in Little Dorrit.

In most of his novels, his heroiones are those whom he loved and they stood as models in his novels. Stella in Great Expectations, Roaan in Mystery of Edwin Drood, Miss Manette In Tale of Two Cities and Dora in David Copperfield served as the models. However, he loved Mary Hogarth the younger sister of his wife and Ellen Turner who acted in the drama 'Frozen Deep'. His wife Catherine Hogarth by all means not a beauty or a real match to Dickens who was an intellectual giant. Constant births his wife tired her and she needed rest. Dickens was a passionate man. When Mary Hogarth died in his arms after returning from a theatre, it was a great shock to him and he suspended writing Oliver Twist for some time. In the circulating magazines he contributed articles attacking political and social issues and raised funds for the destitutes by staging plays and he raised funds for the Literary Guild. His humour has no bounds in his novels and most of his novels show melodrama and pathos. He was interested in Parliamentary proceedings and he wrote on a calamity like break of cholera. He constantly changed his residence of living and lavishly arranged parties for his friends. He had international fame because of his writings.

He visited Italy, Venora, Switzerland climbed Vesuviua with his family. He wrote his travel book 'Pictures from Italy' 'Little Dorrit' and the Christmas books for the readers. He went to America in 1842 which was not a great success as he spoke of the publication of his novels by the American publishers. On his return he wrote 'American Notes' which attacked the prison systems and the slavery of the negores. His novel, Martin Chuzzlewit gives vivid pictures of American life and their ways. He started while writing Mystery of Edwin Drood he died of a paralytic stroke and was buried at the Corner of Westminster Abbey, most fitting place for him. He had a restless and worried life when he seperated from his wife. It may be that he fell in love with Ellen Turner.