Critical realism in england

19Th century

The 19 century was characterized by sharp contradictions. In many ways it was an age of progress: railways and steamships were built, great scientific discoveries were made, education became more widespread; but at the same time it was an age of profound social unrest, because there was too much poverty, too much injustice, too much ugliness; and above all, fierce exploitation of man by man.

The growth of scientific inventions mechanized industry and increased wealth, but this progress only enriched the few at the expense of the many. Dirty factories, inhumanly long hours of work, child labour, exploitation of both men and women workers, low wages, slums and frequent unemployment, - these were the conditions of life for the workers in the growing industries of England, which became the richest country in the world towards the middle of the 19th century.

By the thirties of the 19th century English capitalism had entered a new stage of development. England had become a classical capitalist country, a country of industrial capitalism. The Industrial Revolution gathered force as the 19th century progressed, and worked profound changes in the both the economic and the social life of the country. Quiet villages, sailing vessels and hand-looms gave way within a hundred years, to factory towns, railroads and steamships.

Having won the victory over the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie betrayed the interests of the working class. The reform bill of 1832 gave the vote neither to factory workers nor to agricultural labourers. It was the merchants the bankers and the manufactures who profited by it. The attempts of the bourgeoisie to solve social contradictions and to turn aside the attention of the workers from political struggle ended in failure. The workers fought for their rights. Their political demands were expressed in the People's Charter in 1833. The Chartist movement was a revolutionary movement of the English workers, which lasted till 1848. It shook the foundation of capitalist England.

The Chartist writers called the toiling people to struggle for their rights and expressed a firm belief in the final victory of the proletariat. In 1845 Angels wrote that the Chartist literature, heroic and revolutionary in its character, surpassed in significance all the literature of bourgeois England of the period.

Charles dickens (1812-1870)

There are two distinguished authors who divide the hon­our of being called first novelists of England. Charles Dickens and W.M. Thackeray stand side by side, each with his multitude of admirers.

Though born at Landport, Portsmouth, where his father, John Dickens, who was connected with the Navy Pay Depart­ment happened to be residing at the time, the celebrated novelist is essentially a London man.

When fitting time came, Charles Dickens was placed by his father in an attorney's office; but the occupation was very distasteful to the young man, who soon abandoned it.

In 1835 he published a collection of realistic sketches and stones under the title of Sketches by Boz.

But the beginning of his fame dates from the publication of the unrivalled Pickwick Papers. The adventures and mis­adventures of a party of Cockney sportsmen formed the orig­inal idea of the book. This work at once lifted Dickens into the foremost rank as a popular writer of fiction. He followed up this triumph with a quick succession of outstanding novels in which he masterly depicted the life of contemporary English society.

His Oliver Twist published in 1837-1839 deals with so­cial problems. The destitute boy, kind and honest by nature, eventually finds himself in the environment of thieves and lives through dreadful hardships. Some of the lowest and vilest forms of London life are painted with a startling fullness. As Dickens believed in the inevitable triumph of good over evil, the novel ends in a happy issue which has become a characteristic feature of the greater part of Dickens' works.

With Oliver Twist still in hand, Dickens began to work on his next novel Nicholas Nickleby, which appeared in 1838-1839. The book deals with another burning question of the day—that of the education of children in English private schools.

Dickens' next publication was The Old Curiosity Shop (1841). It is the story of the sufferings and hardships of an old man named Frent, and his granddaughter Nell.

A visit to America supplied material for two new works, —American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit, a novel,—in both of which he deals very severely with some peculiarities of American life and character. In American Notes the author with candid indignation exposes the vaunted American de­mocracy.

After twelve months in Italy, Dickens came home to es­tablish and edit a morning paper The Daily News, to which he contributed sketches entitled Pictures from Italy. But from this heavy, and to some extent thankless task, he soon returned to the more congenial field of fiction. Dombey and Son (1847) is the tale of a starched and purse-proud merchants, whose every thought is centered in the House of business. Haughty, prime and selfish to the core, he bends down only before the power of gold, and looks upon the natural relations between men from a business view only.

The revolutionary events of 1848 gave a new impetus to Dickens work. In the fifties and sixties his most profound novels were written — David Copper field, Bleak House, Hard Times and others.

David Copper field (1850) is, to a great extent, an auto­biographical novel. In the character of David Copperfield, Dickens discloses many features of his own life.

In 1852-1853 Dickens writes Bleak House. This novel is a bitter criticism of England's courts of justice and the aris­tocracy.

In 1854 Dickens publishes Hard Times—a novel depicting the conditions of the working class in England. The author presents a truthful account of the hardships borne by the workers and stigmatizes the callousness and predatoriness of their exploiters.

Little Dorrit (1855-1857) is the story of a little girl whose parents are thrown into a debtors' prison.

Dickens' next novel, A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is dedicated to the events of the French Revolution of 1789-1794. The beginning of the sixties saw the publication of Great Expectations (1860-1861) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865).

We should not forget, in reviewing the fruits of Dickens's busy pen, the charming series of Christmas Tales, which commenced in 1843 with A Christmas Carol. The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth are deservedly the most popular of those minor works. Dickens showed that we must not forget that the plainest face and the homeliest manner may cover a noble intellect and a heart beating with tenderest pity and love for mankind.

Dickens died in 1870, leaving his last work The Mystery Edwin Drood unfinished.

Dickens's genius has created novels and tales which have won a standing in the treasury of world literature. His knowledge and portrayal of humanity born and reared in poverty and ease, his appealing stories of helpless childhood reach the heart of any reader.

Dickens believed in the moral self-perfection of the cal­ls propertied classes and ignored the necessity of a bitter struggle of the masses against their oppressors. But despite these drawbacks, Dickens remains a great humanist and castigator of the vices of the capitalist world.