Early in Hard Times, Dickens develops the portrait of Gradgrind in the classroom delivering a lesson centred on horses at his model school to his model students. Dickens carries Gradgrind’s factual theories, utilitarianism and educational system...

The nineteenth century saw the attempt word weavers of all kinds – poets, essayists, journalists, and novelists – to artistically capture the multitude of facets of the ever-changing political, social and economic conditions found in England...

Charles Dickens’ Hard Times is a critique of the issues of 19th-century European industrial capitalism. Dickens uses Coketown and its inhabitants to draw parallels to the real-life experiences of the British during this time period....

Dickens explores the issues of an industrialised society and, a key theme, the capability of the latter to suppress and obstruct human emotion, individuality and imagination. Dickens conveys these themes, primarily, through the characterisation...

Gender roles are a basis for the family structure which supports the larger societal structure, Charles Dickens argues in Hard Times. Women, especially, as the bearers of children carry a large part of the burden of ensuring a balanced society....

I. If there is one word that sums up the pervading atmosphere of Little Dorrit, it is claustrophobic. From the very first chapter, the reader is inducted into a world primarily made up of rigidly enclosed spaces; every level of the novel is in...

This essay will focus on the collapse of William Dorrit (Bk 2, ch 19) and examine William’s imprisonment to self-deception in this passage as a consequence of his moral debts to society and Amy, what effects this has on his character in the novel...

“Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.” This quote, often attributed to Einstein, is actually said by many physicists and writers – the oldest confirmed being Ray Cummings in a short story. However, Dickens’s novels have...

Most characters in Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens have a pretense that they keep up in the novel, both to themselves and to others. Sometimes it is clear that others can see through the person’s actions, and sometimes, people fall for the...

In "David Copperfield", Charles Dickens reveals that discipline is like a weapon: those who misuse it are cruel, unjust, and a danger to everyone around them, while those who fail to use it at all endanger themselves and lower their defenses. Only...

Victorian literature is over-populated with orphans. The Bronte sisters, Trollope, George Elliot, Thackeray and Gaskell all positioned orphans as leading characters in their novels. This trend continued into the Edwardian period, as Frances...

As simplistic and politically impartial as Victorian novels and their common familial themes of love and companionship may seem, there is customarily a greater sociopolitical concern inserted within the narrative for the reader of the time to have...

Created in the Victorian epoch, Charles Dickens’s novel David Copperfield is one of his most famous masterpieces scrutinizing how a person transits from childhood to adulthood. On the example of the protagonist, the author explores different...

“David Copperfield” is an autobiographical novel, a family chronicle, which is written from a child's viewpoint rather than an adult’s. As all things seem to be larger in the eyes of a kid, children tend to be more sensitive to what is happening...

Fate is the development of events beyond a person's control that is determined by a supernatural power. In literature, fate works mysteriously to bring about the rise and fall of characters, love, death, and conflict. This idea is a universal...

Question:

The theme of resurrection ("rebirth," saving or redeeming in one's soul, renewed interest in and zest for life, salvation from death, harm, or "nothingness," etc.) is predominant throughout this novel. Identify two characters whose lives...

Geoffrey Chaucer once wrote, "Trouthe is the hyeste thing that a man may kepe" (The Canterbury Tales ëThe Knight's Tale'). Since before the ancient Greeks, mankind has striven to discern and define truth, a noble if somewhat arduous task. Even...

The chaotic and churning society of the eighteenth century is well-depicted in Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities. As France goes through its intense revolution, England remains in its peaceful state. Dickens compares the two countries and their...

The storming of the Bastille, the death carts with their doomed human cargo, the swift drop of the guillotine blade - this is the French Revolution that Charles Dickens vividly captures in his famous novel, A Tale of Two Cities. With dramatic...

In his masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens strengthens his theme of paired opposites by juxtaposing the characters of Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay. Initially, it seems as though Carton and Darnay are completely bipolar. While...

In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens asserts his belief in the constant possibility of resurrection and transformation, both on a personal level and on a societal level. The narrative suggests that Sydney Carton's death secures a new, peaceful life...

Resurrection is a term that is often used to describe the rebirth of someone, not only after death, but often as a new person in their own lifetime. In A Tale of Two Cities, a novel written by the famous English author Charles Dickens, the idea...

Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities is his first of two historical novels. Published in 1859, the book discusses the themes of resurrection, destiny, and concealment. Dickens’ novel both demonstrates his view of society, and contains historical...

When a man’s road to happiness is cut off by a wrong turn and a person finds themselves lost in an unknown state, a second chance is a miraculous hand that comes out at the person, opening up another path, even at his lowest of stages, to once...