miércoles, 3 de octubre de 2012

Episodic writing and Social commentary


 Episodic writing
Most of Dickens's major novels were first written in monthly or weekly instalments in journals such as Master Humphrey's Clock and Household Words, later reprinted in book form. These instalments made the stories cheap, accessible and the series of regular cliff-hangers made each new episode widely anticipated. When The Old Curiosity Shop was being serialized, American fans even waited at the docks in New York, shouting out to the crew of an incoming ship, "Is little Nell dead?" Part of Dickens's great talent was to incorporate this episodic writing style but still end up with a coherent novel at the end.
File:Charles Dickens, public reading, 1867.jpg
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"Charles Dickens as he appears when reading." Wood engraving from Harper's Weekly, 7 December 1867
Another important impact of Dickens's episodic writing style resulted from his exposure to the opinions of his readers and friends. His friend Forster had a significant hand, reviewing his drafts, that went beyond matters of punctation. He toned down melodramatic and sensationalist exaggerations, cut long passages, (such as the episode of Quilp's drowning in The Old Curiosity Shop), and made suggestions about plot and character. It was he who suggested that Charley Bates should be redeemed in Oliver Twist. Dickens had not thought of killing Little Nell, and it was Forster who advised him to entertain this possibility as necessary to his conception of the heroine.
Social commentary
Dickens's novels were, among other things, works of social commentary. He was a fierce critic of the poverty and social stratification ofVictorian society. In a New York address, he expressed his belief that, "Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen".Dickens's second novel, Oliver Twist (1839), shocked readers with its images of poverty and crime: it destroyed middle class polemics about criminals, making any pretence to ignorance about what poverty entailed impossible.

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