7th February 2012, marked British writer Charles Dickens 200th birthday. His characters, his words continue to inspire generations across the world, in the text below we will learn a little more about him. The source is from Wikipedia.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) enjoyed a wider popularity than any previous author during his lifetime and remains popular, his work has been praised for its realism, comedy, unique personalities, by writers such as: Tolstoy and George Orwell. He is famed for his depiction of the hardship of the working class and for the characters he created. All authors might be said to incorporate autobiographical elements in their fiction, but with Dickens, this is very noticeable, specially in David Copperfield (1850).
He was a fierce critic of the poverty. In Oliver Twist (1839), he shocked readers with its image of poverty and crime. In addition, with the character of the tragic prostitute Nancy. he ¨humanised¨ such women, regarded as ¨unfortunate¨ second-class citizens with no rights at all. The prejudice toward their activity shown ignorance and was indeed used to discriminate and to try to do they accept their subhuman conditions.
He elaborated expansive critiques of the Victorian institutions apparatus: the interminable lawsuits and the inefficient corrupt offices. His idealism serves to highlight his social commentary. Many of his novels are concerned with social realism, focusing on mechanisms of social control that direct people`s lives, for instance, the hypocritical exclusionary class code in ¨Our mutual friend¨ (1865).
As Karl Marx said ¨ Dickens issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all moralists and others put together.
¨A tale of two cities¨ is his best-selling novel, the novel has sold over 200 million, since its publication in 1859.
