Chapter V: The Victorian Age Critical Realism in England

Chapter V: The Victorian Age
Critical Realism in England
The 19th century was characterized by sharp contradictions. In many ways it was an
age of progress: railways and steamships were built, great scientific discoveries were
made, education became more widespread; but at the same time it was an age of profound
social unrest, because there was too much poverty, too much injustice, too much ugliness;
and above all, fierce exploitation of man by man.
The growth of scientific inventions mechanized industry and increased wealth, but
this progress only enriched the few at the expense of the many. Dirty factories,
inhumanly long hours of work, child labor, exploitation of both men and women workers,
low wages, slums and frequent unemployment, - these were the conditions of life for
the workers in the growing industries of England, which became the richest country in
the world towards the middle of the 19th century.
By the thirties of the 19 th century English capitalism had entered a new stage of
development. England had become a classical capitalist country, a country of industrial
capitalism. The Industrial Revolution on gathered force as the 19th century progressed,
and worked profound changes in both the economic and the social life of the country. Quiet
villages, sailing vessels and hand-looms gave way, within a hundred years, to factory
towns, railroads, and steamships. In 1844 Engels wrote as follows about the industrial
progress of England: "Sixty, eighty years ago, England was a country like every other, with
small towns, few and simple industries... Today it is a country like no other, with a capital
of two and a half million inhabitants, with vast manufacturing cities, with an industry that
supplies the world..." With the development of large-scale industry small artisans
were ruined. "History," wrote Karl Marx, "discloses no tragedy more horrible than the
gradual extinction of the English hand-loom weavers, an extinction that was spread
over several decades..."
The population of Manchester, Birmingham and other industrial centres was growing
rapidly as the number of factory workers multiplied, while the number of poor farmers
decreased and many rural districts were depopulated. The basic social classes in
England were no longer the peasants and the landlords but the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie.

Having won the victory over the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie betrayed the
interests of the working class. The reform bill of 1832 gave the vote neither to factory
workers nor to agricultural labourers. It was the merchants, the bankers and the
manufacturers who profited by it.


Trying to justify their policy and to turn aside the people's attention from the
unequal distribution of wealth in the country, bourgeois ideologists began to create
various theories. Such was the doctrine of Utilitarianism taught by the philosopher Jeremy
Bentham. In his opinion private happiness is the measure of all things. Leave things
alone and the situation will improve itself automatically. Wages and profits are fixed
by the automatic law of supply and demand. If a man finds a way to make heaps of
money, nothing can be done about it, if he starves to death in the gutter, nothing can be
done about that either.
Robert Malthus declared that the problem of poverty could only be solved by
artificially limiting the birth rate, as the population of a country increases in
geometrical proportion, while the food supply can increase only in arithmetical
proportion; hence starvation is inevitable.
The inconsistency of all these theories was proved later by Karl Marx's epochmaking Capital which revealed the true nature of the capitalist system, and gave a
new conception of society and of the distribution of wealth.
The attempts of the bourgeoisie to solve social contradictions and to turn aside the
attention of the workers from political struggle ended in failure. The workers fought for
their rights. Their political demands were expressed in the People's Charter in 1833. The
Chartists introduced their own literature, which was the first attempt to create a
literature of the working class. The Chartist writers tried their hand at different genres.
They wrote articles, short stories, songs, epigrams, poems. Their leading genre was
poetry.
Though their verses were not so beautiful as those of their predecessors, the
romantic poets, the Chartists used the motives of folk-poetry and dealt with the burning
problems of life. They described the struggle of the workers for their rights, they

showed the ruthless exploitation and the miserable fate of the poor.
Ernest Jones, a leader and a poet of the Chartist movement, wrote in The Song of
the Lower Classes:
We're low - we're low - we're very, very low,
As low as low can be;
The rich are high - for we make them so And a miserable lot are we!
And a miserable lot are we! are we!
A miserable lot are we!
Our place we know - we're so very low,


'Tis down at the landlord's feet:
We're not too low - the bread to grow,
But too low the bread to eat.
And what we get - and what we give,
We know - and we know our share.
We're not too low the cloth to weave
But too low the cloth to wear!
The same idea is expressed by Thomas Hood, one of the most prominent of the Chartist
poets, in his popular The Song of the Shirt:
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread –
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the "Song of the Shirt".
"Work! work! work!
While the cock is crowing aloof!

And work - work - work,
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It's Oh! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save,
If this is Christian work!
"Oh, Men, with Sisters dear!
Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives!
Stitch - stitch - stitch,
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A Shroud as well as a Shirt!


"Work - work - work!
My labour never flags;
And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread - and rags.
That shatter'd roof - and this naked floor A table - a broken chair And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!
"Work - work - work!
From weary chime to chime,
Work - work - work –
As prisoners work for crime!
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumb'd,
As well as the weary hand

"Work - work - work,
In the dull December light,
And work - work - work,
When the weather is warm and bright . . ."
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, Would that its tone could reach the Rich! She sang this "Song of the Shirt"!

The Chartist writers called the toiling people to struggle for their rights and
expressed a firm belief in the final victory of the proletariat. In 1845 Engels wrote
that the Chartist literature, heroic and revolutionary in its character, surpassed in
significance all the literature of bourgeois England of the period.
THE NEW LITERARY TREND AND ITS CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES


The ideas of Chartism attracted the attention of many progressive-minded people of
the time. Many prominent writers became aware of the social injustices around them and
tried to picture them in their works. Thus this period of fierce class struggle was
mirrored in literature by the appearance of a new trend, that of Critical Realism. The
greatest novelists of the age are Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray,
Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell.
These writers used the novel as a means to protest against the evils in contemporary
social and economic life and to picture the world in a realistic way.
Engels said that in his opinion Realism should depict typical characters in typical
circumstances.
The critical realists introduced new characters into literature: they described the
new social force in modern history - the working class. They expressed deep

sympathy for the working people; they described the unbearable conditions of their
life and work; they voiced a passionate protest against exploitation and described
their persistent struggle for their rights.
Hard Times by Charles Dickens and Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell are
among the best works of 19th century Critical Realism in which the Chartist movement is
described.
The greatness of these novelists lies not only in their truthful description of
contemporary life, but also in their profound humanism. Their sympathy lies with the
ordinary labouring people. They believed in the good qualities of the human heart.
CONTRIBUTION OF THE CRITICAL REALISTS TO WORLD LITERATURE

The contribution of the writers belonging to what Karl Marx called the
'present brilliant school of English novelists' to world lit erature is enormous. They
created a broad panorama of social life, exposed and attacked the vices of aristocratic
and bourgeois society, sided with the common people in their passionate protest against
unbearable exploitation, and expressed their hopes for a better future.
The weakness of this literary trend lies in the fact, as Maxim Gorky puts it, that in
spite of their democratism, the English critical realists, not being connected with the
working class movement, could not comprehend the laws of social development and
therefore were unable to show the only correct way of abolishing social slavery.
They wanted to improve the existing social order by means of reforms. Some of them
wanted to reconcile the antagonistic classes - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, to make
the rich share their wealth with the poor, but being great artists they showed social
injustices in capitalist England in such a way that the reader cannot help thinking that


changes in the existing social system as a whole were necessary.
William makepeace Thackeray
(1811-1863)
"Thackeray possesses great tatent. Of all the European writers of the present time

Dickens alone can be placed on a level with the author of Vanity Fair. What a wealth of
art, how precise and thorough are his observations, what a knowledge of life, of the
human heart, what a bright and noble power of love, what a subtle humour, how precise
and distinct are his depictions, how wonderfully charming his narration."
Chernyshevsky
William Makepeace Thackeray and Charles Dickens were the greatest representatives
of Critical Realism in English literature of the 19th century.
In his novels Thackeray gives a vivid description of the upper classes of society, their
mode of life, manners and tastes. He shows their pride and tyranny, their hypocrisy, and
snobbishness, and their selfishness and general wickedness His knowledge of human
nature is broad and his portrayal of it is keenly analytical.
Thackeray's works lack the gentle humour so typical of Dickens's style. His criticism
is strong, his satire is sharp and bitter. He is a genius in portraying negative characters;
his positive characters are less vivid, but all of them are true to life. Thackeray used to
say that he wished to describe men and women as they really are.
The picture of life of the ruling classes of England in the 19th century as drawn by
Thackeray remains a classical example of social satire up to the present day.
William Makepeace Thackeray was born in a prosperous middle-class family. His
father was a well-to-do English official in Calcutta, India. When the boy was six years
old, he was taken from Calcutta, where he was born, to England to be educated. From
Charterhouse school he passed on to Cambridge University.
While a student, William spent much of his time drawing cartoons 1 and writing
verses, chiefly parodies. He did not stay long at the University, for he could not bear the
scholastic atmosphere of the place. Besides, his ambition was to become an artist, so he
left the University without graduating and went to Germany, Italy and France to study art.
In Germany Goethe, and this meeting left a deep impression on him.
Intending to complete his education, Thackeray returned to London and began a law
course in 1833. Meanwhile, the Indian bank, in which the money left to William by his
father was invested, went bankrupt, and Thackeray was left penniless. Therefore he had
to drop his studies to earn a living. For a long time he hesitated whether to take up art or

literature as a profession. Finally he decided to try his hand as a journalist. His humorous


articles, essays, reviews and short stories found a ready market. He himself illustrated
many of these pieces with amusing drawings, which added to the humorous effect.
In 1836 Thackeray married Isabella Shawe, and from this union there came three
daughters. Thackeray's married life was unhappy as his wife became ill after giving birth
to the third child. The illness affected her mind, and Thackeray threw all business aside
and for many months travelled with his wife from one health resort to another hoping that
she would recover, but she never regained her health. In the end she was placed with an
old lady who took care of her. Thackeray did all he could to make her life comfort able.
Isabella outlived her husband by many years.
Thackeray's first notable works was The Book of Snobs 1 (1846-1847) which deals
with the upper classes and their followers in the middle classes, whose vices the author
criticizes with the sharp pen of satire. The book may be regarded as a prelude to the
author's masterpiece Vanity Fair, which can be called the peak of Critical Realism. Vanity
Fair brought great fame to the novelist and remains his most-read work up to the present
day. It first appeared in twenty-four monthly parts which Thackeray illustrated himself. In
1848 it came out as a complete book.
The Book of Snobs is a satirical description of different circles of English society in
the century. The gallery of snobs in the book, Great City Snobs, The University Snobs
and others, convinces the reader that' snobbishness' was one of the most characteristic
features of the ruling classes of England at that time.
"How can we help Snobbishness, with such a prodigious national institution erected
for its worship? How can we help cringing to Lords? Flesh and blood can't do otherwise.
What man can withstand the prodigious temptation? ... whose heart would not throb with
pleasure if he could be seen walking arm-in-arm with a couple of Dukes down Pall Mall?
No; it is impossible, in our condition of society, not to be sometimes a snob."
"The word Snob has taken a place in our honest English vocabulary. We can't define
it, perhaps. “We can't say what it is, any more than we can define wit, or humour, or

humbug; but we know what it is."
Thackeray's contribution to world literature
Thackeray's contribution to world literature is enormous. Though the class struggle
found no reflection in his works, the novelist truthfully
reproduced the political atmosphere of the century. This period
witnessed the growth of the revolutionary movement of the
English proletariat. Thackeray's attitude towards the ruling
classes of the country coincided with that of the broad

Thackeray's home where
"Vanity Fair" was written


democratic circles of England who struggled for the parliamentary reform of 1832, were
in favour of the People's Charter of 1833 and actively supported the Chartist movement.
Thackeray developed the realistic traditions of his predecessors, the enlighteners,
Jonathan Swift and Henry Fielding in particular, and became one of the most prominent
realists and satirists of his age. The world to him is Vanity Fair where men and women, to
use his own words, "are greedy, pompous, mean, perfectly satisfied and at ease about
their superior virtue. They despise poverty and kindness of heart. They are snobs".
Thackeray loathed snobbishness, and in his works he used satire to expose the
pretensions of the snobs and social climbers whom he depicts in his novels.

vanity fair (a novel without a hero)

The Origin of the Novel
The subtitle of the book shows the author's intention not to describe separate
individuals, but English bourgeois-aristocratic society as a whole.
The title of the book is borrowed from The Pilgrim's Progress, an allegorical novel
written by John Bunyan, one of the greatest writers of the second half of the 17th century.

The hero of Bunyan's novel comes to a great city where there is a fair, where
everything is on sale ...
" ... a fair wherein should be sold all sorts of vanity, and that it should last all the year
long. Therefore at this fair are all such merchandise sold as houses, lands, trades, places,
honours, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures, and delights of all
sorts, as ... wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver,
gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not.
And, moreover, at this fair there are at all times to be
seen jugglings, cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves,
and rogues, and that of every kind."

Vanity Fair-1944

Everybody there thinks only of his own interests.
Such qualities as honour and dignity are of no value. To
achieve his aim a man is ready to kill or devour any
human being, no matter whether he be friend or enemy.
The same idea is expressed by Thackeray in his
masterpiece, Vanity Fair.

Vanity Fair is a social novel which shows not only the bourgeois aristocratic society


as a whole, but the very laws which govern it. Describing the events which took place at
the beginning of the 19th century, the author presents a broad satirical picture of
contemporary England.
The social background of the novel which influences all the characters in their
thoughts and actions, is high society at large. Thackeray attacks the vanity, pretensions,
prejudices and corruption of the aristocracy (the Crawleys, Lord Steyne); the narrowmindedness and greed of the bourgeoisie (the Osbornes, the Sedleys). He mercilessly
exposes the snobbishness, hypocrisy, money-worship and parasitism of all those who

form the bulwark of society.
The interest of the novel centres on the characters rather than on the plot. The author
shows various people, and their thoughts and actions, in different situations. There is no
definite hero in the book. In Thackeray's opinion there can be no hero in a society where
the cult of money rules the world.
Text 11
Vanity Fair
Sir Pitt Crawley
Thackeray's satire reaches its climax when he describes Sir Pitt Crawley, a typical
snob of Vanity Fair.
"Vanity Fair! Vanity Fair! Here was a man, who could not spell, and did not care to
read - who had the habits and the cunning of a boor; whose aim in life was pettifogging;
who never had a taste, or emotion, or enjoyment, but what was sordid and foul; and yet
he had rank, and honours, and power, somehow; and was a dignitary of the land, and a
pillar of the state. He was high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach. Great ministers and
statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair he had a higher place than the most brilliant
genius of spotless virtue."
"Such people there are living and flourishing in the world {aithless, hopeless,
charityless; let us have at them, dear friends, with might and main. Some there are, and
very successful too, mere quacks and fools, and it was to combat and expose such as
those, no doubt, that Laughter was made."
Rebecca (Becky) Sharp
The novel tells of the destiny of two girls with sharply contrasting characters Rebecca (Becky) Sharp and Amelia Sedley. The daughter of a rich city merchant, Amelia
Sedley is a young girl representing 'virtue without wit'. Rebecca Sharp, a poor
adventuress, representing wit without virtue, forces her way after many struggles and
setbacks into the world to which Amelia belongs.


Rebecca Sharp and Joseph Sedley
(From the play Vanity Fair produced by the Moscow Maly Theatre)

Becky's character is depicted with great skill. She is pleasant to look at, clever and
gifted. She possesses a keen sense of humour, and a deep understanding of human nature.
At the same time she embodies the very spirit of Vanity Fair, since her only aim in life is
at all costs to worm her way into high society. She will go to any length to achieve her
aim.
She was almost mistress of the house when Mrs. Crawley was absent, but conducted
herself in her new ... situation with such ... modesty as not to offend the authorities of the
kitchen and stable, among whom her behaviour was always exceedingly modest ... She
was quite a different person from the haughty, shy, dissatisfied little girl whom we have
known previously ... Whether it was the heart which dictated this new system of
complaisance and humility adopted by our Rebecca, is to be proved by her after-history.
A system of hypocrisy, which lasts through whole years, is one seldom satisfactorily
practised by a person of one-and-twenty; however, our readers will recollect that, though
young in years, our heroine was old in life and experience ... "
Becky believes neither in love nor in friendship. She is ready to marry any man who
can give her wealth and a title ...
Finally she marries Captain Rawdon Crawley, the younger son of Sir Pitt Crawley,
whose daughters she had been engaged to teach. Rawdon was not rich, but Becky hoped
that some day he would inherit a good deal of money from his wealthy aunt, Miss
Crawley, who possessed seventy thousand pounds, and had almost adopted Rawdon.
However, Becky's hopes did not come true. She almost lost her presence of mind when
she realized how wrong her calculations had been. She would never have married
Rawdon if she had known that Sir Pitt Crawley himself would propose to her. The fact
that Sir Pitt was old and that she despised him did not count with her.
Becky's opinion of Sir Pitt is clearly expressed in her letter to Amelia.
"Sir Pitt is not what we silly girls ... imagined a baronet must have been ... Fancy an
old, stumpy, short, vulgar, and very dirty man, in old clothes and shabby old gaiters, who
smokes a horrid pipe, and cooks his own horrid supper in a saucepan. He speaks with a
country accent, and swore a great deal at the old charwoman, at the hackney coachman

who drove us to the inn where the coach went from, and on which I made the journey
outside for the greater part of the way.
I was awakened at daybreak by the charwoman, and having arrived at the inn, was at


first placed inside the coach. But when we got to a place called Leakington, where the
rain began to fall very heavily - will you believe it? - I was forced to come outside; for
Sir Pitt is a proprietor of the coach, and as a passenger came at Mudbury, who wanted an
inside place, I was obliged to go outside in the rain, where, however, a young gentleman
from Cambridge College
sheltered me very kindly in one
of his several great-coats.
This gentleman and the
very well, and laughed at
agreed in calling him an old
stingy, avaricious person. He
anybody, they said (and this

guard seemed to know Sir Pitt
him a great deal. They both
screw; which means a very
never gives any money to
meanness I hate) ... "

Jane Octavia Brookfield, the wife of Thackeray's friend
who was the inspiration for the character of Amelia.

"Here, my dear, I was interrupted last night by a dreadful thumping at my door:
and who do you think it was? Sir Pitt Crawley in his nightcap and dressing-gown such a figure! As I shrank away from such a visitor, he came forward and seized my
candle. 'No candles, after eleven 0' clock, Miss Becky,' said he. 'Go to bed in the

dark, you pretty little hussy (that is what he called me), and unless you wish me to
come for the candle every night, mind and be in bed at eleven.' And with this, he and
Mr. Horrocks the butler went off laughing. You may be sure I shall not encourage any
more of their visits."
Sir Pitt was the owner of Queen's Crawley, he possessed money and a title and
these were the only things Becky's ambitious nature desired.
Flattery, hypocrisy, lies and other mean and disloyal actions help Becky to enter
the upper ranks of society, but no happiness is in store for her. Becky's whole life is
nothing but Vanitas Vanitatum. She has neither real sacred feelings, nor honest aims
in view.


Amelia Sedley
In contrast to Rebecca, Amelia is honest, generous and kind to all the people she
comes in touch with and is loved by all.
"... she could not only sing like a lark ... and embroider beautifully, and spell as
well as a Dixonary itself, but she had such a kindly, smiling, tender, gentle, generous
heart of her own as won the love of everybody who came near her ..."
But for all that Amelia cannot be regarded as the heroine of the novel.
"As she is not a heroine, there is no need to describe· her person; indeed I am
afraid that her nose was rather short than otherwise, and her cheeks a great deal too
round and red for a heroine; but her face blushed with rosy health, and her lips with
the freshest of smiles, and she had a pair of eyes which sparkled with the brightest and
honestest good-humour, except, indeed, when they filled with tears, and that was a great
deal too often; for the silly thing would cry over a dead canary-bird, or over a mouse that
the cat haply had seized upon; or over the end of a novel, were it ever so stupid ..."
Amelia is not clever enough to understand the real
qualities of the people who surround her. She is too
unintelligent, naive and simple-hearted to understand
all the dirty machinations of the clever and sly

Rebecca. She even tries to help Becky to marry hor
brother Joseph Sedley, and is unhappy when her plan
fails.

Amelia and George. (From the play
“Vanity Fair”) produced by the
Moscow Maly Theatre.

Amelia is absolutely blind to all the faults of
George Osborne, her light-minded and selfish husband,
and even after his death she is determined to remain
faithful to him. The best years of her life are ruined by
this unhappy love. Amelia is no longer young when she
realizes how unworthy of her love her idol was. Subtle
irony is characteristic of Thackeray's style when he
describes Amelia's character.

Captain Dobbin
The most virtuous person in the novel is Captain William Dobbin. He worships
Amelia, and his only aim in life is to see her happy. He does not think of his own
happiness. His sense of self-sacrifice is extreme. Knowing that Amelia loves George
Osborne, Dobbin persuades him to marry the girl. He knows that his own life will be


a complete disappointment, but he does not care. His personal feelings are ()f no
importance in comparison with those of Amelia, as the following quotation shows.
"The party was landed at the Royal Gardens in due time. As the majestic Jos
stepped out of the creaking vehicle the crowd gave a cheer for the fat gentleman, who
blushed and looked very big and mighty, as he walked away with Rebecca under his
arm. George, of course, took charge of Amelia. She looked as happy as a rose-tree in

sunshine.
"I say, Dobbin," says George, "just look to the shawls and things, there's a good
fellow." And so while he paired off with Miss Sedley, and Jos squeezed through the
gate into the Gardens with Rebecca at his side, honest Dobbin contented himself by
giving an arm to the shawls, and by paying at the door for the whole party.
He walked very modestly behind them. He was not willing to spoil sport. About
Rebecca and Jos he did not care a fig. But he thought Amelia worthy even of the
brilliant George Osborne, and as he saw that good-looking couple threading the
walks, to the girl's delight and wonder, he watched her artless happiness with a sort
of fatherly pleasure. Perhaps he felt that he would have liked to have something on
his own arm besides a shawl (the people laughed at seeing the gawky young officer
carrying this female burden); but William Dobbin was very little addicted to selfish
calculations at all, and so long as his friend was enjoying himself, how should he be
discontented ?"
Though Dobbin, like Amelia, is an exception in Vanity Fair, he is too simpleminded and one-sided to be admired by the author.
Thackeray on Society at Large
Thackeray divides society into 'rogues' and 'dupes'. The characters are different, but
their fates have much in common. They are victims of a society where evil rules the
world. Shallow people ... shallow lives ... shallow interests ... The author compares his
characters to puppets, and society as a whole to a puppet show.
"Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his
desire? or, having it, is satisfied ? - come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets,
for our play is played out."
Thackeray’s Style
A notable characteristic of Thackeray's style is the frequent interruption of the
narrative in order that he might, as he himself says, talk to the reader about the characters.
"And as we bring our characters forward, I will ask leave, as a man and a brother, not


only to introduce them, but occasionally to step down from the platform, and talk about

them if they are good and kindly, to love them and shake them by the hand; if they are
silly, to laugh at them confidentially in the reader's sleeve; if they are wicked and
heartless, to abuse them in the strongest terms which politeness admits of."
"If Miss Rebecca Sharp had determined in her heart, upon making the conquest of
this big beau, I don't think, ladies, we have any right to blame her; for though the task of
husband-hunting is generally, and with becoming modesty, intrusted by young persons to
their mammas, recollect that Miss Sharp had no kind parent to arrange these delicate
matters for her, and that if she did not get a husband for herself, there was no one else in
the wide world who would take the dancing till five o'clock in the morning through a
whole mortal season? ... What causes respectable parents to take up their carpets, set their
houses topsy-turvy, and spend a fifth of their year's income in ball suppers and iced
champagne? Is it sheer love of their species, and an unadulterated wish to see young
people happy and dancing? Psha! they want to marry their daughters; and as honest Mrs.
Sedley has, in the depth of her kind heart, already arranged a score of little schemes for
the settlement of her Amelia, so also had our beloved but unprotected Rebecca
determined to do her very best to secure the husband who was even more necessary for
her than for her friend."
Thackeray seldom tells the reader what he thinks of this or that character directly, he
does it indirectly: his attitude is usually expressed either by different personages in the
novel (see Becky's letter to Amelia), or by means of vivid and graphic descriptions which
invite the reader to share the author's opinion.
"Miss Crawley was ... an object of great respect when she came to Queen's Crawley
for she had a balance at her banker's which would have made her beloved anywhere.
What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the banker's!
How tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative (and may every reader have a
score of such), what a kind, good-natured old creature we find her! ... How, when she
comes to pay us a visit, we generally find an opportunity to let our friends know her
station in the world!"
Vanity Fair is one of the greatest examples of 19th century Critical Realism. It is an
exceedingly rich novel. The action is carried forward by a series of plots and subplots; the

setting is detailed and varied, the characters are real individuals, puzzling combinations
of good and bad, who have been remembered and talked about from Thackeray's days to
our own. Towering over all is Thackeray's ability to expose in his novel the cruel laws of
capitalism which rule the capitalist world up to now.


Dickens is magnificently successful in depicting common people, but he is ill
acquainted with the upper classes, while Thackeray is the penetrating analyst of both
middle class and aristocratic society.
Thackeray's realism is different from that of Dickens; it is less combined with
fantasy and lyricism, it is more exact and objective. While Dickens idealizes his
positive characters (sometimes they are too good to be true and the author's attitude
towards them is somewhat sentimental), Thackeray portrays his characters more
realistically. They are not static; his women characters, in particular, develop as the
story progresses. Thackeray tries to describe things and human beings as existing
outside his mind, they are shown as natural results of their environment and the
society which bred them. He depicts his characters as if viewing them from afar. This
was a new feature in literature which was followed by many other writers, and was
later called objective realism in literature.
Dickens was more optimistic than Thackeray. He tried to reform people and
thought that that was the way to make them happy. In Thackeray's opinion the
existing stale of things could not be changed, though he saw that bourgeois morals
had fallen into decay, and he subjected these morals to severe criticism, which is the
chief merit of his works.
Unlike Dickens, Thackeray is unable to see man reformed in the future.
Chernyshevsky blamed him for this failure in his article on The Newcomes (Russian
magazine Sovremennik, 1857).
Thackeray's pessimism marks the beginning of the crisis of bourgeois humanism
which began in the middle of the 19th century and found its full expression in the
literature of the second half of the age.

Taken together, the novels of Dickens and Thackeray give us a remarkably
realistic picture of all classes of English society up to the middle of the 19th century.

Questions and Tasks
1. What are the greatest merits of Thackeray's works?
2. What classes of society does he show in his novels?
3. Which work of the author is considered to be a prelude to his masterpiece
Vanity Fair?
4. Explain the meaning of the subtitle of Vanity Fair. Where is the idea of
the novel borrowed from?
5. What vices of bourgeois-aristocratic society are mercilessly exposed by
Thackeray in the book?


Charles Dickens
(1812-1870)
Charles Dickens began to write at a time when the labour movement, known as the
Chartist movement, was at its height. Continuous demonstrations in defence of workers'
rights took place in many manufacturing towns and in London as well. The actions of the
Chartists had considerable effect on Dickens. Though he did not believe in revolutionary
action, he was on the side of the people with all his heart. He wanted what the people
wanted.
Dickens wrote about the poorest, the most unprivileged sections of the population.
He looked into the darkest corners of the large cities and there found the victims of
capitalism. Thus Dickens's immortal works became an accusation of the bourgeois
system as a whole.
LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS
Charles Dickens was born in 1812 near Portsmouth on the southern coast of
England. His father was a clerk at the office of a large naval station there, and the
family lived on his small salary. They belonged to the lower middle class. The father

was often transferred from place to place and there was always talk between the
parents about money, bills and debts.
Charles was very young when the family moved to the naval port of Chatham,
which is near the ancient town of Rochester, where pilgrims used to stop on their way to
Canterbury. There Charles and his eldest sister first went to school.
After school Charles loved to run to the docks where ships went for repairs. He
liked to watch people at work. There he saw sailors and brave old sea-captains; and
farther out were the ships, and among them the black prison-ships on which convicts
with clanking chains moved heavily about the decks. Many pictures were stored
away in his memory, which the writer used later in his novels.
Charles's first teacher was a kind young man from Oxford, under whose
influence Charles grew fond of books. At ten he read Defoe, Fielding. Smollett,
Goldsmith and translations of some European and other authors. His favourite
books were Don Quixote and the Arabian Nights. The great comfort he found in
the world of books was later described in the novel David Copperfield.
Charles had a nurse called Mary Yeller, who used to say about him that 'he was
a terrible boy to read' and that he and his sister were fond of singing, reciting poems
and acting.


The happy days at Chatham came to an end in 1822 when the fa ther was moved
to London. The Dickenses rented a house in one of the poorest parts of London.
Charles loved to walk about the busy streets and watch the lively street scenes.
Charles was the eldest son, but he was not sent to school again. The father made no
plans for the education of his children. He was an easy-going man who always
spent more money than he could afford. Soon he lost his job and was imprisoned for
debt.
All the property the family had was sold, even Charles's favourite books, and the
boy was put to work in a blacking factory. He worked hard washing bottles for shoepolish and putting labels on them, while his father, mother, sisters and brothers all
lived in the Marshalsea debtors' prison.

The long working hours at the factory, the poor food, the rough boys and their
treatment of him he could never forget. He later described this unhappy time in
David Copperfield.
Dickens visited his parents in the prison on Sundays. There he saw many other
prisoners, and learned their stories. The debtors' prison is described in the
Pickwick Papers and in the novel Little Dorrit.
In about a year the Dickenses received a small sum of money after the death of a
relative, so all the debts were paid.
Charles got a chance to go to school again. This time he was sent to a very oldfashioned school called Wellington House Academy. The master was a rough,
ignorant man. He knew nothing about children or teaching except the art of beating
them regularly with a cane. The class studied nothing but Latin.
To make their lessons more cheerful the boys kept small pet ani mals in their
desks. White mice ran about everywhere and Charles remembered the regret of
the pupils when the cleverest mouse, who lived on the cover of a Latin book, one
day drowned itself in an inkpot.
THE YOUNG JOURNALIST
Dickens left school when he was twelve. He had to continue his education by
himself. His father sent him to a lawyer's office to study law. He did not stay
there long, but he learned the ways and manners of lawyers, as many of his
books show. Bleak House in particular shows how legal decisions were made and
delayed. Instead of law he studied shorthand and found a job as a newspaper reporter.
He also went regularly to the British Museum reading-room to continue his general


education. In 1832 Dickens became a parliamentary reporter. Soon he came to
understand that the house of Commons had nothing to do with true democracy. The
parties the members belonged to were all bourgeois parties though they lost no
opportunity of quarrelling with each other. It was in the Pickwick Papers that Dickens
later described the so-called par y struggle. He himself never went in for politics.
Dickens's first efforts at writing were little stories about the ordinary

Londoners he saw. The stories were funny street sketches. One day he dropped a
sketch he had written in the letter-box of a publishing house. It was printed, and the
young author followed it up with other ketches which he signed Boz (the nickname
given him by his youngest brother). Sketches by Boz appeared in various
magazines.
At the age of twenty-four Dickens married Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of
his editor at the Evening Chronicle.

DICKENS THE NOVELIST

The publishing house of Chapman and Hall were planning to bring out a
series of humorous pictures on sport events. Dickens was asked to write
short comic episodes to accompany the pictures about a certain Mr.
Pickwick whose efforts in sport always ended in failure. But the artist died
suddenly, leaving Dickens to develop the series as he would.
Dickens introduced new episodes and the characters grew in depth. When
all the series were put together, they formed a novel. Later they were printed
in one volume under the title The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick
Club, or the Pickwick Papers for short.
Having discovered, almost accidentally, his ability as a novelist, Dickens
devoted himself to literary work. His next novel was Oliver Twist. It


appeared first in series in a new monthly magazine of which Dickens
himself was editor. Readers expected to see a new humorous story, and they
were much surprised to find a nightmare novel instead.
Oliver Twist was written as a protest against the Poor Law. The Poor
Law did not allow homeless people to live in the streets; they were put into
workhouses where they were only a little bit better off than in prison. Oliver
Twist was not simply a novel but a social tract as well.

Dickens visited many schools in various towns of England, and he came
across some where life was worse than anything he had been through in his
childhood in Nicholas Nickleby Dickens exposes the boarding-schools for
unwanted children.
Not yet thirty, Dickens was the most popular writer in England. In 1842
he and his wife paid a visit to the United State. They spent nearly five
months travelling from town to town, and everywhere Dickens received a
very hearty welcome.
Like most Europeans, Dickens had idealized American democracy, and
he became extremely disappointed when he heard of the false elections and
saw the awful greed of the money-makers, the discrimination against foreign
immigrants and worst of all, Negro slavery.
Dickens expressed his opinion of what he saw in his American Notes,
where he condemned these crimes with his usual humorously satirical
exaggeration of facts. But the book roused bitter anger in America.
American Notes was followed by Martin Chuzzlewit, a novel in part of
which American life is also described.
The years between 1844 and 1848 Dickens travelled in Italy, France and
Switzerland, because he found it easier to concentrate on English problems
from afar. There he worked hard at the novel Dombey and Son. In Paris
Dickens met the writer Victor Hugo.
When back in England, Dickens organized an amateur theatrical
company, and for the next five years they put on performances for charity,
giving all the money they collected to the poor. Dickens was manager and
actor. He also conducted a weekly magazine for popular reading called
Household Words (later its name was changed to All the Year Round).


Though engaged in these activities, Dickens continued writing novels
without a break. His genius was at its height his best novels were written at

this time. Dickens was very emotional: he lived with the characters he
created; he suffered with them in their tragic moments, he laughed at the
humorous side of their lives.
With great energy he began to give dramatic readings from his own
works in various towns all over Britain. His reading was so wonderful that
people came in thousands to hear the warm-hearted beloved writer.
Dickens read some of his Christmas stories exceptionally well. These
were The Cricket on the Hearth and A Christmas Carol.
Dickens is remembered for having invented the theatre for one actor. In
1867-1868 Dickens was made a triumphant reading tour in the United
States, which was a great strain on him and undermined his health. He died
sudden on June 9 1870.
Dickens was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Text 12
Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist has been sent to the workhouse. What kind of food and
atmosphere do you think he finds there? What attitude do you think that the
authorities in the workhouse take to poor children who have nowhere else to
go?

Oliver Twist - 1997

Oliver Twist - 1999

Oliver Twist -

2005
The room in which the boys were fed was a large stone hall, with a
copper at one end, out of which the master, dressed in an apron for the
purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at meal-times;

of which composition each boy had one porringer and no more - except on
festive occasions, and then he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides.
The bowls never wanted washing.
The boys polished them with
their spoons till they shone again;
and when they had performed this
operation (which never took very
long, the spoons being nearly as
large as the bowls), they would sit
staring at the copper with such
eager eyes as if they could have
devoured the very bricks of which it
was
composed;
employing
themselves, meanwhile, in sucking
their fingers most assiduously, with
the view of catching up any stray

The children is waiting for lunch

Oliver Twist – 2005

splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon. Boys have generally excellent
appetites.
Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three
months: at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall for
his age, and hadn't been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small

cookshop), hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he had another basin of gruel per
diem, he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next him, who
happened to be a weakly youth of tender age. He had a wild hungry eye; and they
implicitly believed him. A council was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the
master after supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to Oliver Twist.

Oliver Twist -

The evening arrived; the boys took their places.
The master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at
the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves
behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long
grace was said over the short commons. The gruel
disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and
winked at Oliver, while his next neighbour nudged
him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger,
and reckless with misery. He rose from the table, and,
advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand,


2005
said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity.
The evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his cook's
uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged
themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said
over the short commons. 4 The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each
other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as
he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose
from the table, and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said:
somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:

'Please, sir, I want some more.'
The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in
stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds; and then clung
for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the
boys with fear. 'What!' said the master at length, in a faint voice. 'Please, sir,'
replied Oliver, 'I want some more.'
The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in
his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.
The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble 5 rushed
into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high
chair, said, 'Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for
more!' There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance.
'For more!' said Mr. Limbkins. 'Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer
me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the
supper allotted by the dietary?'
'He did, sir,' replied Bumble.
'That boy will be hung,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. 'I
know that boy will be hung.'


Oliver Twist – 2005
Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opinion. An animated
discussion took place. Oliver was ordered into instant confinement; and a
bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of
five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of the
parish. In other words, five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any
man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling.

Oliver Twist - 1997
'I never was more convinced of anything in my life,' said the gentleman

in the white-waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate and read the bill next
morning: 'I never was more convinced of anything in my life, than I am, that
that boy will come to be hung.'
As I purpose to show in the sequel whether the white waistcoated
gentleman was right or not, I should perhaps mar the interest of this
narrative (supposing it to possess any at all), if I ventured to hint, just yet,
whether the life of Oliver Twist had this violent termination or no.
remarks

In 1838, Dickens created this story of powerful emotional appeal and
social criticism perhaps at the inspiration of the Poor Law passed in 1834.
The law stopped government aid to the poor unless they entered workhouses
where more miseries awaited them. The novel is significant in its truthful
presentation of the miseries of the poor and the description of the thieves'
den and of the underworld in London. With his realistic art, Dickens startled
the public into a new consciousness of the poor and the oppressed and the
criminal level of society, and shows how the social system and the
institutions were held responsible for the miseries and crimes.


The first two chapters of the book deal with the young hero Oliver Twist's
birth and adventures in the workhouse. Chapter I describes his birth. In order
to appreciate the humour in this chapter, one needs to recognize the ironic
tone in which the scene is presented. Many words are used in an ironic way;
for instance, the pun on "gruel" when the surgeon says: "It's very likely it
will be troublesome. Give it a little gruel if it is." Chapter II is famous for the
scene in which Oliver asks for more. Driven by hunger Oliver ventures one
day to ask for a second serving of porridge.The scandalized authorities beat
him, put him in solitary confinement, and give him away along with five
pounds. This scene strips the philanthropy mask of the ruling class and

highlights their extreme brutality and corruption. It is in scenes like this that
we see the great critical realist voicing the helplessness of the poor and the
oppressed.
questions and tasks
1. Charles Dickens was a critical realist who gave a satirical portrayal of the society
with profound sympathy for the common people. Find evidences to prove this point
of view.
2. Find examples from the selection to show that Dickens was a humourist.
3. Describe the boy’s hunger (the bowls, their fingers, the bricks of the copper...).
4. How do you interpret the line “A long grace (prayer) was said over the short
commons”? What does this tell us about the authorities?

Dombey and Son - 1978
Text 13
DOMBEY AND SON

The full title of the novel is Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son,
Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation. It tells the story of a rich bourgeois
family, the Dombeys, and shows how their policy decides the destiny of the
poor people dependent on them.


Mr. Dombey is a merchant, a capitalist. His only interest in life lies in the
prosperity of his family firm. He is a man with a heart of stone. His character
has its roots in his love of money. The firm casts its shadow upon the life of
certain common people and ruins them.
The 'honour' of the firm is the only thing that matters. For Mr. Dombey
everything in the world exists only for Dombey and Son. Dickens brings out
this idea in the following passage: "The earth was made for Dombey and
Son to trade in, and the sun and 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."
Mr. Dombey has a family, but his worship of property makes him a
stranger to all natural human feeling: affection is killed for the sake of good
business. Mr. Dombey considers every human being in the light of his
relation to the firm. To Mr. Dombey everybody either has, or may have, or
will have, or must have something to do with Dombey and Son.
The vital problem for Mr. Dombey is the problem of getting an heir to the
firm; for there must be a son. A daughter is born to him, but a girl cannot be
made partner in the firm, so she is not wanted. Dombey hates her from the
very moment of her birth. She is a false coin that cannot be invested. His
gentle wife is treated with more contempt and coldness than ever. Six years
later she brings a son into the world, but dies in child-birth. This is how
Dickens describes Mr. Dombey's regret:
"... he would find something gone from among his plate and furniture,
and other household possessions, which was well worth the having, and
could not be lost without sincere regret. Though it would be a cool,
business-like, gentlemanly, self-possessed regret, no doubt."
Dombey 'forgives' his wife, he is so glad to have an heir. But Dombeys'
love for his son is no better than his hatred of his daughter. The boy is part of
his property, and he wants to have him for himself only. Dombey is alarmed
at seeing how his daughter Florence loves her brother. He is much worried at
little Paul's fondness for his nurse, Polly Toodle, who feeds him. He cannot
allow a member of his family to be on friendly terms with anyone who
comes from a lower class.