Charles Dickens

LIFE (1812 - 1870)
Charles Dickens was born in Portsmonth in 1812. His father was imprisoned for debt and Dickens was sent out to work in a factory at the age of twelve. From 1832 he became a parliamentary reporter for various papers. In 1836 he married and in the same year he began publishing The Pickwick papers. The novel wasn’t an immediate success, but when he introduced the character of the servant Sam Weller, sales increased, bringing Dickens both fame and money. Dickens combined his work as novelist with a number of other literary activities. From 1858 to 1867 he gave a series of highly popular public readings both in England and America. Dickens died in 1870 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

ACHIEVEMENT
Dickens accepted the publishing conventions of his day. Readers didn’t buy the completed novel, but read it in serial form. The novelist had to hold the reader’s interest and so he often ended an issue on a note of suspense. As a result, Dickens’s novel was full of climaxes, and crowned with superfluous characters and situations. These did not help the structure of the novel. However, no other writer was capable as Dickens of depicting the panorama of social change in Victorian England. This is due to Dickens’s ability to create a host of typical characters, many of whom are caricatures. Dickens’s best known works are:
• Sketches by Boz, journalistic sketches containing episodes of everyday London life;
• The Pickwick Papers, a series of adventures of a club of amateur sportsmen;
• A Christmas Carol, a ghost story with a moral, set in the atmosphere of Christmas;
• David Copperfield; full of autobiographical reminiscences;
• Oliver Twist, in which, through the story of an orphan boy, Dickens attacks the workhouse system and denounces the degradation of poverty;
• The Old Curiosity Shop, a pathetic story about the ill-treatment of children in the industrial age;
• Hard Times, denouncing the wrongs of society and the terrible conditions of industrial workers;
• Great Expectations, about the dramatic experience of a young boy.

Dickens was not blind to the problems of his age and he spoke out with courage against them, protesting against the exploitation of children and the inhumanity of certain institutions. He drew much of the material in his novel from his own experience: he was a member of the lower middle class and he knew the hardship of the poor children, often forced into workhouses, as we can read in Oliver Twist. The novel is set in London in the early 19th century. Oliver is born in an English workhouse. Since his family is unknown, he spends some unhappy years there, starved and brutalized by the members of the Board and especially by Bumble, the parish beadle. Then Oliver runs away to London, where he falls into the hands of a gang of pickpockets. Their master teacher is Fagin who tries to turn Oliver into a thief. The boy is temporarily rescued by Mr Brownlow, bur he his eventually kidnapped by the gang, whose interest in his retention has been increased by the offers of a mysterious person known as Monks. After various adventures, involving a lot of other character, the whole gang is finally brought to justice and punished. Oliver’s parentage is disclosed and he finds he is related to Monks 8his half-brother), who has been trying to rob him of his fortune. In the end Oliver is adopted by Mr Brownlow and starts receiving that education which the workhouse had never provided for him.

From Oliver Twist, PLEASE, SIR, I WANT SOME MORE

Traduzione

La stanza in cui ai ragazzi veniva dato da mangiare era una grande sala di pietra, con un calderone all’estremità, dal quale il padrone, vestito con un grembiule per l’occasione, e assistito da una o due donne, versava la zuppa di avena alle ore dei pasti. Di questo composto da festa ciascun ragazzo aveva una scodella, e nulla più – tranne che in occasione di grandi festeggiamenti pubblici, quando aveva due once e un quarto di pane in aggiunta. Non c’era bisogno di lavare le scodelle. I ragazzi le lustravano con i loro cucchiai finché luccicavano di nuovo, e quando avevano eseguito questa operazione (che non durava mai molto a lungo, i cucchiai essendo quasi grandi quanto le scodelle), stavano seduti fissando il calderone, con occhi così famelici, come se avessero potuto divorare gli stessi mattoni dei quali era fatto, impegnandosi, nel frattempo, a succhiarsi le dita assiduamente, allo scopo di recuperare ogni schizzo perso di zuppa che avrebbe potuto essere colato dopo. I ragazzi hanno generalmente un eccellente appetito. Oliver Twist e i suoi compagni soffrivano le torture della fame lenta da tre mesi. Alla fine divennero così ingordi e sconvolti dalla fame, che un ragazzo che era alto per la sua età e non era abituato a quel tipo di cosa (poiché suo padre aveva gestito un piccolo ristorante), accennò biecamente ai suoi compagni che a meno che non avesse avuta un’altra scodella di zuppa al giorno, temeva che qualche notte gli potesse capitare di mangiare il ragazzo che gli dormiva vicino, che si dava il caso fosse un gracile giovanetto di tenera età. Aveva un occhio sconvolto e famelico, e tacitamente gli credettero. Una riunione fu tenuta; fu estratto a sorte chi sarebbe dovuto andare dal padrone dopo cena quella sera e chiederne ancora, e toccò a Oliver Twist.
La sera arrivò, i ragazzi presero i loro posti. Il padrone, nella sua uniforme da cuoco, si piazzò presso il calderone; i suoi poveri aiutanti si schierarono dietro di lui; la zuppa fu servita; e una lunga preghiera di ringraziamento fu recitata sopra le piccole porzioni. La zuppa scomparve, i ragazzi bisbigliarono tra di loro, e ammiccarono a Oliver, mentre il suo vicino gli diede un colpetto con il gomito. Era così bambino, che era disperato per la fame, e temerario per l’infelicità. Si alzò dalla tavola, e avanzando verso il padrone, con la scodella e il cucchiaio in mano, disse, piuttosto spaventato per la propria temerarietà:
“Per favore, signore, ne voglio ancora”.
Il padrone era un uomo grasso e florido, ma divenne molto pallido. Fissò con sbalordita meraviglia il piccolo ribelle per qualche secondo, e poi si aggrappò appoggiandosi al calderone. Gli assistenti erano paralizzati dallo stupore, i ragazzi dalla paura.
“Come!” disse il padrone alla fine, con voce fievole. “Per favore, signore” ripeté Oliver, “ne voglio ancora”.
Il padrone indirizzò un colpo alla testa di Oliver con il mestolo, lo immobilizzò con le sue braccia, e gridò forte per chiamare il sagrestano.
Il consiglio era riunito in solenne conclave, quando Mr Bumble si precipitò nella stanza con grande agitazione, e rivolgendosi al gentiluomo nel seggio alto disse, “Mr Limbkins, chiedo scusa, signore! Oliver Twist ne ha chiesta ancora”.
Ci fu un generale sobbalzo. Orrore era dipinto in ogni espressione.
“Ancora!” disse Mr Limbkins. “Si calmi, Bumble, e mi risponda chiaramente. Ho capito bene che ne ha chiesto ancora dopo aver mangiato la cena prescritta come razione?”
“Lo ha fatto, signore”, rispose Bumble.
“Quel ragazzo sarà impiccato”, disse il gentiluomo con il gilè bianco. “So che quel ragazzo sarà impiccato”.
Nessuno discusse la profetica opinione del gentiluomo.
Un’animata discussione ebbe luogo. A Oliver fu ordinata l’immediata reclusione, e un manifesto fu la mattina successiva attaccato fuori dal cancello, che offriva una ricompensa di cinque sterline a chiunque avesse tolto Oliver Twist dalle mani della parrocchia. In altre parole, cinque sterline e Oliver veniva offerto a qualsiasi uomo o donna che avesse bisogno di un apprendista per qualsiasi mestiere, affare o occupazione.
“Non sono mai stato più convinto di qualcosa nella mia vita”, disse il gentiluomo con il gilè bianco, mentre bussava al cancello e leggeva il manifesto il mattino successivo – “Non sono mai stato più convinto di qualcosa nella mia vita, di quanto sia che quel ragazzo finirà per essere impiccato”.

Great Expectations charts the stages of formation and the changing social and personal influences acting on a young boy, Pip, as he grows to manhood and tries to rise above his humble social class, earn respect as a gentleman, and win the love of a young woman he has adored since his childhood. Philip Pirrip (Pip) as a boy has great expectations of becoming a gentleman. He is an orphan living in a village with his severe sister and her husband. He also frequents the house of Miss Havisham. Jilted by her lover on her wedding day, the woman has stopped all the clocks in the house, shut out all light from it and replaced it with candle light, and gone on wearing her by now yellowed bridal dress. In her house Pip meets Estella who disregards him as “common”. Pip’s great expectations come true when he is given a fortune by an unknown benefactor for him to receive a gentleman’s education. He then moves to London, where he spends a life of idleness. On the day of his twenty-third birthday he receives the visit of Abel Magwitch. He learns from him that he is his benefactor and that the money used to finance his education was made in a penal colony. He also learns that Magwitch is Estella’s father and the man whom Miss Havisham was supposed to marry. Knowing the true origin of his fortune and learning that Estella is going to marry a brutal man, Pip feels miserable. His dreams are fading away. He now tries to help Magwitch escape the death penalty, but fails. The man will eventually die in prison assisted by Pip. Eleven years later, he meets  Estella, now a widow, and he is finally re-united with her.