狄更斯《艰难时世》论文正文

Analysis of Love in Hard Times

I. Introduction

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic novels and characters. Charles Dickens has achieved popular recognition to a degree rarely equaled in English men of letter since the publication of his first novel. With regard to his great work-Hard Times,critics both at home and abroad have made much progress on the study of themes and charcters,although Hard Times has not attracted as much attention as Great Expectations or Bleak House.However,the perspectives in those studies on Hard Times ar somewhat limited in the sense that most people think that in a world of indifference, selfishness and dishonesty, people are thrown into a desperate state,feeling lonely and helpless. However, we should learn to look at the bright side of our life.It is not difficult to see that Hard Times is full of truth,beauty and kindness. It is with the intention of providing the readers with a better understanding of Hard Times that I have decided to write the present dissertation.

II. Literary Review

2.1 Charles Dickens

2.1.1 Life

Charles Dickens was born in a little bouse in Landport,Portsea,England,on February 7th 1812.At the age of elven,Dickens was taken out of school and sent to work in a London blacking warehouse,where his job was to paste labels on bottles for six shillings a week.When the family fortunes improved,Charles went back to school,after which he became an office boy a freelance reporter,and finally an author.

His realistic writing style had a great influence on subsequent writers like Herry James,Joseph Conrad and Bemard Shaw,Dickens novels go beyond the social injustice and highlight on the distortion and alienation of human nature.As one of the most realistic writers ,Dickens directs his fictions to a questioning of social injustices and inequalities.

2.1.2 Works

With Pickwic paper(1836-7)Dickens achieved immediate fame: in a few years he was alredy the most popular and respected writer of his time. It has been estimated that one out of every ten people in Victorian Enaland was a Dickens’s reader. Oliver Twist (1837),Nicholas Nickelby (1838-9), and Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) were huge successes: Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4)was less so,but Dickens followed it with his unforgettable A Christmas Carol (18443).Bleak House (1852-3) injustices of British society. A Tale of Two Cities (1859).Great Expectations (1860-61) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-5) complete his major works.

2.1.3 Comments

As the geatest representative of British critical realistic writer of the 19th century. Charles Dickens has been enthusiastically criticized both before and after his death. For instance:

He is both the most imaginative and fantastic and the most topical and documentary of great Novelist

Ralf Waldo Emerson once said: “I’m afraid he has too much talent for his genius: it is a fearful locomotive to which he is bound and never be free from it nor set to rest.

Aprt form the comments abroad,here is one of the comments at home.

Critics have always been challenged by his art,and often analyze Dicken’s works from perspectives such as historical background,his own life experiences and his writing lechniques

From the above,we can see that the critics are ovessive about Charles Dickens himself and his works.