VICTORIAN PROSE

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 1811-1863

The second greatest novelist after Charles Dickens, whom the English-speaking world recognized as a man of genius in the XIX century, was W.M.Thackeray. Dickens and Thackeray were such near contemporaries that their work was often compared, but in educa-tion and social status they were widely separated.

W. M. Thackeray was born in the family of an English civil servant in India. When his father died the boy, aged five, was sent to England where he attended the famous Charterhouse School. Thackeray was disgusted with the educational system there, with the corporal punishment and cramming. He was also disappointed in Cambridge University and left it without taking a degree.

Thackeray began writing satirical verses and drawing cari-catures at school. At Cambridge he edited a students' leaflet Snob which criticised the University life. His favourite writers were D. Defoe, J. Swift and H. Fielding. He travelled much, visited Italy, France and Germany and studied the life and customs of these countries. He wrote satirical and humorous stories and poems which were first published in London magazines. He himself often illustrated his works as he had to earn his own living: he lost his fortune at the age of twenty-two. When the painter Saymour, who illustrated Dickens' novel Pickwick Papers died, Thackeray offered Dickens his help but was rejected.

The first book which attracted attention was The Book of Snobs (1847), followed by his novels Vanity Fair (1847-1848), Pendennis (1850), The History of Henry Esmond (1852), The Newcotnes (1853- 1855), The Virginians (1857-1859).

W. M. Thackeray is also known as an essayist. His essays The English Humorists and The Four Georges are remarkable for their exquisite style, gentle humour and keen literary criticism. Charlotte Bronte wrote that there was a man in her days whose words were not framed to tickle delicate ears, who spoke the truth. The Russian democrat Chernishevsky said that of all European writers of that time Dickens alone could be placed on a level with the author of Vanity Fair. Dickens took his material from the lower classes of England, Thackeray introduced brilliant characters of the upper-middle and aristocratic classes and portrayed their life: engagements, wed­dings, business success and bankruptcy, hunting for inheritance and titles, relations between parents and children, etc. He considered vanity the main force that moved his contemporary society.

Like Dickens Thackeray also delivered two courses of lectures in London and in America. He overworked himself and died suddenly at the age of fifty-two.

The Book of Snobs. Here Thackeray gives a satirical description of the ruling classes of England: the aristocracy, the landed nobili­ty, and the bourgeoisie and military officers. "First the world was made: then as a matter of course, Snobs," writes Thackeray. "Snob­bishness is like death... beating with equal foot at poor men's doors and kicking at the gates of Emperors."

What is a Snob? "He who meanly admires mean things is a Snob," answers Thackeray. A snob is a person who has exaggerated respect for social position and wealth; he is ashamed of socially inferior connections. He is despotic to his inferiors and servile to his superiors.

It seems to the author of the book that all English society is "sneaking and bowing and cringing on the one hand, or bullying and scorning on the other, from the lowest to the highest." Such is English society as seen by W. M. Thackeray. The writer's stress is laid on social inequality and its moral results. He is against British imperialism, defends oppressed Ireland, criticises the monarchy and the bourgeoisie and shows his dislike in scorching satire.

Vanity Fair. The novelist called that society "Vanity Fair" where everything could be sold and bought. He turned his satire against the vanity of the upper classes, the baseness of their aspirations, the power of money, ranks and titles.

He created so varied and so immortal characters: businessmen, landlords, diplomats, dandies, officers, etc. The author of Vanity Fair wished to describe men and women as they really were: good and kind, silly and vain, wicked and heartless. He knew upper-class society and had no illusions about it. Like the writers of the En­lightenment he thought that literature should teach people, but he did not know how to do away with social evils, he could only expose them. Therefore as the subtitle of the boo"A Novel without a Hero" shows Thackeray saw neither positive characters nor heroes in upper-class society. Even those who were kind and good were often limited and stupid. Vanity Fair is notable for its clear-sighted realism, simple style, attractive humour, biting satire and deep in­sight into human heart. It is a classic example of social satire.

The plot of the novel is built around the fates of Amelia Sedley and Rebecca Sharp. Amelia is the daughter of a rich merchant in London. She is sweet, honest and naive. Her friend Rebecca Sharp or Becky is given in contrast to Amelia. She is clever, talented, charming and energetic. The girls meet at the boarding school. Becky's father was a teacher of drawing there. After his death Becky has to earn her own living. She understands that society is split into the rich and the poor. She decides to get to the top of it through marriage. After leaving the boarding school Rebecca is invited to spend a fortnight at the Sadleys. Rebecca tries to entrap Amelia's brother Joseph. He is lazy and foolish, but rich. Her plans are ru­ined by George Osborne, Amelia's fiance. When her plan to marry Joseph fails Becky begins to work at Sir Pit Crawley's as a govern­ess. She secretly marries Sir Pitt's son, Rawdon , who is to inherit his rich aunt's money. But old Miss Crawley cannot forgive her favourite nephew this foolish step and leaves her money to Raw- don's brother. Nevertheless "Rebecca's wit, cleverness and flippan­cy made her speedily the vogue in London among a certain class. You saw demure chariots at her door, out of which stepped great people. You beheld her carriage in the Park, surrounded by dandies of note... but it must be confessed that the ladies held aloof from her, and that their doors were shut to our little adventurer."

The Sedleys go bankrupt. Old Osborne disinherits his son be­cause he has married Amelia, the daughter of his bankrupt friend. Soon after their marriage George is sent to Belgium to fight against Napoleon's army. He is killed on the field of Waterloo. Life is very difficult for Amelia and her son George. Her father in law denied her any financial support. They only receive occasional presents from little George's god-father, Colonel Dobbin. He loves Amelia and little Georgy and after his friend's death proposes to Amelia. But she remains faithful to her husband.

Captain Rawdon Crawley returns a colonel. Rebecca is presented to the court and recognized by upper society. Yet her career soon comes to an end. Her relations with Lord Steyne are disclosed, and her husband leaves her. Her son is adopted by Rawdon's brother. Rebecca becomes an adventuress.

Old Osborne dies leaving his money to his grandson. Dobbin is appointed as Georgy's guardian. In the end Amelia learns that her husband, before he went to the war, wanted to leave her and flee with Becky and she consents to marry Dobbin.

CHARLES DICKENS1812-1870

Charles Dickens is widely considered the greatest English novel­ist. He created characters so vividly alive that they seem as real figures: Oliver Twist, Mr. Micawber, Scrooge, Little Nell, and many more. He became an influential social critic of the troubled society of his age. His vast popularity has never ebbed since the publication of The Pickwick Papers in 1836. His works are warmly humorous, inventive, full of frank sentimentality and humanitarian sympathy.

Dipkens was born at Portsmouth, London, in 1812 in the family of a cheerful but unsuccessful and unbusinesslike navy pay clerk John Dickens, whose mismanagement of the family income caused him to be sent to prison for debt.

Dickens' early life was hard and difficult which he described in the opening pages of David Copperfield in which he immortalized his father half-humourously and half affectionately as Mr. Micaw­ber who propounded the immortal philosophy of life: "Annual in­come twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, re­sult happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty ought and six, result misery", and was himself always "waiting for something to turn up His father soon was transferred to Chatham where Charles Dick­ens spent the happiest years of his boyhood. The family moved to London when the boy was nine.

As the eldest son, Charles had to leave school at the age of twelve. He had to earn his own living and support his family work­ing for six shillings a week in a blacking factory where he tyed blue covers on pots of paste-blacking. Though this episode was short­lived and in a few months Charles returned to school it deeply af­fected the boy. He left school for good when he was fifteen. First he became a clerk in a solicitor's office and then a court reporter, covering Parliamentary speeches from 1831 to 1836.

He began to win success at writing. While working as a reporter he also contributed stories and essays to periodicals, signing him­self "Boz". In 1836 he collected them and published a book titled Sketches by Boz Illustrative of Every day Life and Every day Peo pie. Thus his literary career was launched. Readers enjoyed his hu­morous characters who coped with ludicrous incidents, and they were heartened by the dogged cheerfulness of characters who strug­gled to make merry despite adversity.

Encouraged by the success of Sketches by Boz, Charles Dickens started a serial publication of The Pickwick Papers which sky-rock­eted Charles Dickens to fame. First Dickens was asked by a London publishing firm to write suitable descriptive and narrative matter to accompany certain pictures of sport and open-air life by the art­ist James Saymour. After the death of the artist Charles Dickens struck out on a line of his own. The result was the publication in monthly parts during 1836 and 1837 of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. The readers immediately plunge into the fantas­tic, yet strangely real, world of Dickens. The time is the early nine­teenth century. We travel with the Pickwickians from London to Rochester, where we meet Mr. Jingle, who talks volubly with his mere suggestions of sentences; we spend Christmas at Mr. Wardle's farm, Dingley Dell, and are introduced to the Fat Boy in one of the rare intervals when he is not asleep; we go shooting and sliding with Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle; we have the unspeakable joy of meeting Mr. Tony Weller, lately the driver of a stage-coach and now proprietor of the "Markis o' Grandy" in Dorking, and his son Samuel; and we are present at the famous case of Bardell versus Pickwick. It is a vision of the Dickens's world - a maze of white roads, fantastic towns, thundering coaches, market-places, inns, strange and swaggering figures.

As the authors of the book Realm of Gold said, "Whenever we read in Dickens we shall enjoy the splendid gusto of his writing. Above all, he could picture lowly characters and describe with real understanding the humour and pathos of their life. He often exag­gerated, so that he drew (as somebody has said) caricatures rather than characters. But if we want to gaze upon the pageant of humble life, especially in London, during the nineteenth century, we cannot do better than go to Dickens. We may be puzzled by his rather confused and melodramatic plots, but we shall never forget the people - great and small - who throng his pages. With all their strange eccentricities they are real and living to us still. He was like Shakespeare in imagining and creating a world of his own - a world that remains, a little old-fashioned perhaps, yet unspoilt and beau­tiful for our delight."

Dickens continued his steady and ambitious production through­out his life. After the appearance of The Pickwick Papers he wrote Oliver Twist (1837) which was followed by Nicholas Nickleby (1839). The Old Curiosity Shop came out in 1840 and 1841.

Dickens also gave us examples of the historical novel in Barna- by Rudge (1841), which has as its background the Gordon riots of 1780, and The Tale of Two Cities (1859), the stirring and moving story of the French Revolution. They were published before his visit to America in 1841.

His American experience found reflection in the books Ameri­can Notes (1842) and Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844). They were social satires of the American way of life and created a sensation in America. In the USA Dickens was warmly welcomed by great American writers James Fenimore Cooper and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

In 1846 he visited Switzeland and Italy. There he started Dombey and Son, which was published in 1847. His favourite novel, the partly autobiographical David Copperfield, appeared in 1849 and 1850. It was followed by such masterpieces as Bleak House (1853), Hard Times (1854), Little Dorrit (1857). He attacks the social con­ditions, the system of education and the workhouse system of his time, shows exploitation of the poor people, and contradictions be­tween workers and manufacturers. Above all, he could picture lowly characters and describe with real understanding the humour and pathos of their life. Dickens often exaggerates, but he tells us of the suffering of the poor in such a way that our hearts are touched to help them.

Between 1843 and 1848 Dickens published his Christmas Books.

Charles Dickens was also a good actor and the producer of the amateur group. He got infatuated by a young actress Ellen Terner whom he hired for the company. This love romance was one of the reasons of his separation with his wife Catherine after she brought him the tenth child.

Charles Dickens was a social reformer. The system of education appears to be an important theme of his novels. Reading his novels, people discovered what they thought and felt of the great social problems which confronted them - the wrong way of upbringing and educating children in English private schools for poor children. The scenes of the children's life were so realistic and true to life that a school reform was carried out in England after the publica­tion of the novel Nicholas Nickleby.

Among the novels of the last decade of Dickens's life are Great Expectations (1861) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-65). His novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood remained unfinished.

Dickens can be said to have worked himself to death. Trou­bled by gout and the effects of a train accident in 1865 in which he behaved bravely saving wounded people and extricating dead from the wreckage, Dickens nonetheless continued a hard sched­ule of writings and dramatic readings of his novels in England and America. He was a brilliant reader and the job was profitable but he overworked, suffered from severe chest pains and soaring blood pressure. Advised to slow down, Dickens instead increased his pace. He suffered a stroke at dinner on June 8, 1870 and died the next day at the age of fifty-eight. He was buried in Westmin­ster Abbey.

Dombey and Son. The main subject of the novel is money and the things that go with it - power, position, and relationships. In Dombey and Son the symbol of money-power is Mr.Dombey to whose pride of position as the British merchant everything must be sacri­ficed - wife, children, love. Sitting by the bedside of his sick wife after she had given birth to a little boy who was christened Paul, he didn't think much of Mrs.Dombey. "He was not a man of whom it could properly be said that he was ever startled or shocked; but he certainly had a sense within him, that if his wife should sicken and decay, he would be very sorry, and that he would find a something gone from among his plate and furniture, and other household pos­sessions, which was well worth having, and could not be lost with­out sincere regret. Though it would be a cool, business-like, gentle­manly, self-possessed regret, no doubt." For him the main thing was that now, when he finally got an heir and a partner of his business it would flourish even more successfully.

"And again he said 'Dombey and Son,' in exactly the same tone as before. Those three words conveyed the one idea of Mr.Dombey's life. The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and the moon were made to give them light. Rivers and seas were formed to float their ships; rainbows gave them promise of fair weather; winds blew for or against their enterprises; stars and planets circled in their orbits, to preserve inviolate a system of which they were the centre."

Money was above anything else for Mr.Dombey. But he could not find a proper answer to his little son when Paul asked him:

"Papa! What's money?"

"... Mr. Dombey was in a difficulty. He would have liked to give him some explanation involving the terms circulating-medium, cur­rency, depreciation of currency, paper, bullion, rates of exchange, value of precious metals in the market, and so forth; but looking down at the little chair, and seeing what a long way down it was, he answered: 'Gold, and silver, and copper. Guineas, shillings, half­pence. You know what they are?'

'Oh yes, I know what they are,' said Paul. 'I don't mean that, Papa. I mean what's money after all?"

When little Paul heard that money was 'anything' he was puz­zled, and then said: "Why didn't money save me my Mama?" re­turned the child. "It isn't cruel, is it?"

Charles Dickens did not show open struggle of the poor against the rich. But being the realist he could not dismiss the problem as such, though he showed this as the fight between the good and the evil. And according to the aesthetic principles of the author good should win in this fight. Evil must be punished. Mr.Dombey is the embodiment of evil, and Dickens punishes him: Little Paul, the life hope of Mr.Dombey, dies; his wife Edith leaves him running away with Mr.Carker; Dombey's business is ruined. Mr. Carker is another evil force and Dickens punishes him too - he dies under the wheels of the train.

Mr.Dombey, who has always been a House, is left at the novel's last crisis, in his house. Once he wanted to barricade himself with his son behind 'a double door of gold'. Now the world has invaded and trampled all over him and the building which is an extension of his self. Brilliantly Dickens describes the gradual disassociation of his consciousness as his old identity, as Mr.Dombey of Dombey and Son, disintegrates. He sees the mess left by the auctioneers 'and thought, with absolute dread and wonder, how much he must have suffered during that trial'. His subjectivity splits. He sees himself in the mirror. He knows what his reflection is thinking, about the blood which might trickle under the door, but he is detached from it. 'He glanced at it occasionally, very curious to watch its motions, and he marked how wicked and murderous that hand looked.' This is the nadir. Dombey has become something to be referred to as 'it'. Seconds later in bursts Florence, his redemption, and his humaniza- tion can at last begin.

Dickens seems to fail to remain realistic to the end. He is an unrealistic realist. Mr.Dombey at the end of the novel is a kind person, a loving father and grandfather. To explain this happy end­ing one should realize that Dickens described positively the poor characters. He believed that only poor people possessed good human qualities. When Mr.Dombey was rich, he was described as cruel and stone-hearted, when he becomes poor after all the blows that had fallen upon his head, he is portrayed as positively as other poor characters.

Date: 2014-12-22; view: 1359