Title: The scriptures of Charles Dickens
Description: "This study focuses on Dickens's response to questions of identity, conduct, and social organization that emerged in an era of major cultural unsettlement and change, not least with the decline of religious certainty and the rise of materialism. An analysis of A Christmas Carol as a paradigm of his concerns and strategies in these fields is followed by close readings of novels from different stages of his career, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend. These, and other works by Dickens, are seen to reflect ideologies currently at work in his society but also, more importantly, to participate in the construction of needful value systems and codes for regulating behaviour. Liberal humanism and middle-class hegemony feature largely in this process of culture formation, where Dickens played a crucial role in formulating and promulgating such salient guiding principles as those of sympathy, marriage and the family, economic responsibility, and hierarchy within and between groups."--Jacket.
Subjects: Religion in literature, Criticism and interpretation, Social problems in literature, Ideology in literature, Self in literature, Identity (Psychology) in literature, English literature, history and criticism, 19th century, Critique et interprétation, Identité (Psychologie) dans la littérature, Problèmes sociaux dans la littérature, Idéologie dans la littérature, Religion dans la littérature, Moi (Psychologie) dans la littérature, LITERARY CRITICISM, European, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Identität, Gesellschaft, Thème littéraire, Identité (Psychologie), Moi, Problèmes sociaux, Religion, Roman
People: Charles Dickens (1812-1870)