Beware, this is a long and nerdy post. Hopefully it makes you want to go pick up a Dickens book, or at least watch one of the BBC/Masterpiece Theater movies inspired by his great books.
It is no secret that I am fully in love with the works of
Charles Dickens. He is, in my mind, the
most brilliant writer of all time. In
honor of his 200th birthday today, I thought it would be a great
idea to write an essay. I love to write
essays, and I love Charles Dickens, so why not have some fun and write an essay
about Charles Dickens?
By reading many of Dickens works, I have learned much about
humanity, society, personality traits, kindness, evil, and what I do and do not
want to be like. The vast array of
characters created by Dickens teaches great lessons. Sometimes these examples are taught by major
characters, and sometimes from characters that seem to be a very minor part of
the story.
From Mrs. Jellyby of Bleak House
I learned an important lesson. She suffers from what Dickens called “telescopic
philanthropy.” Mrs. Jellyby had a large
house with numerous children, none of which she ever interacted with our took
care of. She was too busy focusing all
of her energy and efforts trying to raise money for the poor souls of Africa
through various letter-writing campaigns.
The house was a mess, Mrs. Jellyby was a mess, her clothes were a mess,
her kids were a mess, but most of all her family was a mess. She lost sight of what was really important
by ignoring things close to home where she could really make a difference and instead focused on make herself important by helping others thousands of miles
away. I do not want to be Mrs. Jellyby.
In Great Expectations I
learned a number of lessons. From Pip I
learned to always be true to who you are, no matter how others expect you to
act. We must always be grateful to those
who helped us along the way, and never find ourselves too important in social
standing to be kind and gracious. From
Miss Havisham I learned to let things go. When her fiancé left her at the alter many,
many years before, she chose to destroy her own life by living the anger of that day over and
over. She left the wedding cake and feast
set up for mice and spiders to devour over the years, she stayed in her wedding dress and veil, which became as yellowed as her skin, she stopped every clock in the house,
she refused to let any light in or to move past what had happened. She let the embarrassment and anger of her humiliation boil inside of her until she was
so wretched that her only delight was in training her adopted daughter Estella
to be a heartless, sadistic man-hater-heart-breaker so that she could wreak revenge on a
poor, unsuspecting man someday. She
turned a sad situation into something completely tragic and threw her life away
over one bad moment. Get over it!
From Joe, I
learned true humility and love. When Pip’s
expectations changed and he became a gentleman, Pip derided his father figure
Joe and everything that had to do with his former life. In the end, Joe harbors no bad feelings, but
loves Pip completely and fully despite the way Pip had treated him.
Another from Great Expectations is the lesson I learned from Abel Magwitch about not judging someone for what
you think he or she is capable of. He left
his criminal past behind him when his heart was touched when he was shown kindness from the young and
innocent Pip. Throughout the book, Pip
is mistaken about the identity of his mysterious benefactor, and is completely caught
off guard when he learns that the convict he helped as a child has spent his
life amassing a fortune to help out the poor boy. Pip returns this kindness by trying to save
the life of Magwitch. We just never know
who someone is until we give them a chance.
In David Copperfield I learned
that sometimes what you are looking for is right in front of you the whole time
where you least expected it. David
spends forever infatuated with the empty-headed Dora, whom marries and then
discovers she is completely incapable of anything. Lucky for him she dies, and he finds his true
love in best childhood friend Agnes. She
has always loved him, and he realizes that he always had loved her. He was tricked by a pretty face instead of a
true beauty.
In A Christmas Carol, I
learned from Marley’s ghost to never let a chance to do something nice go
by. I do not want to be fettered by
chains as he was, constantly reminded of a little kindness or something “I did
not share, but might have shared and turned to happiness.” I can’t imagine anything worse that the spectral
sight he showed to Scrooge:
"Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his
curiosity. He looked out.
The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and
thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them
wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments)
were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to
Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in
a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried
piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it
saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that
they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power
for ever."
I learned from Scrooge that it is never too late to change,
and to never give up on anyone. Scrooge initially
was characterized by this: “Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the
grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching,
covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever
struck out generous fire.” He said, “"If
I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who
goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own
pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"
Through his
interactions with the ghosts, Scrooge is fully redeemed and spends the rest of
his life making amends for the wrongs he has done, and doing as much good as
possible. The end of the book describes
him thus: "Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more;
and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a
friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any
other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world."
Perhaps the greatest lesson of all is from A Tale of Two Cities, which is my very favorite of
Dickens’s works. While at the same time
this book taught me about pure evil through the character of Mme. Defarge, it
also taught me the meaning of true love through Sidney Carton. It is the best
love story of all time, and the character of Sidney Carton should cause any
woman to swoon. He goes from a man who cared about nothing and
no one to a man who would sacrifice his life for the person he truly
loved. He passed up his chance to
express his interest in Lucie, because past deeds had left him feeling unworthy
of such a perfect girl. But when he
confronts Lucie to let her know that he loves her he says, “O Miss Manette,
when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you
see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet think now and then
that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside
you!"
In the end that is just what he does, giving up his life as
he exchanges places with Lucie’s innocent, but condemned, husband at the
guillotine. "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever
done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."
The beginning of the book is very well known, “It was the
best of times. It was the worst of times.”
However, Sidney Carton’s words from the end are the most beautiful of
the book.
From Little Dorrit I learned
so much about injustice, poverty, prosperity, making the best of a situation, cruelty, kindness, pride, and true love. From Bleak House
I learned that everyone has a secret, true love sometimes means giving up the
thing you love, and every person carries some sort of burden or heartache. It also is an interesting satire blasting the
inefficiencies and injustices of the court system, the greed of some attorneys,
and the blindness of greed, false hopes, and envy.
Most of all, I have learned from
Dickens to not underestimate the part any of us plays in life. Each book is full of many seemingly small
characters in the background whose stories seem completely unrelated to the
plot. In the end, these small characters
end up providing a crucial bit of information, or an integral interaction to
the unfolding of the entire story, bringing everything together into one
wham-bam-bang big finale. We can never
understand how the little things we do or say in life will affect and impact, good or bad, so many
other people. Everyone is important, and
everything we do makes a difference in some way to someone.
