A study of aspects of reform in certain novels of Charles Dickens.

This is a study of Charles Dickens's conceptions of America as a result of his trips to America from January to July, 1842, and from November, 1867 to April, 1868.

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Charles Dickens é um autor cujos méritos literários são, muitas vezes, obscurecidos por sua enorme popularidade, sendo seus livros relegados por muitos à categoria de mero entretenimento. O propósito deste trabalho é analisar na forma do romance como - apesar de temas e estilo que se apresentam como populares - o texto de Hard Times pode revelar um interessante e profundo diálogo entre literatura e sociedade. Sentimentalismo e melodrama são estudados como formas tipicamente dickensianas de representação dos conflitos e transformações sociais que afetaram o século XIX. / Charles Dickens has sometimes had his literary qualities darkened by his enormous popularity, and his books have been considered by many critics as nothing but entertainment. The objective of this work is to analyse how the form of the novel - in spite of its popular style and theme- promotes in Hard Times an interesting and profound dialogue between literature and society. Sentimentalism and melodrama are studied as typically Dickensian forms of representation of social changes and conflicts in the 19th Century.

Né en 1812 et mort en 1870, Charles Dickens assiste tout au long du XIXe siècle au développement de l’ère industrielle, de la société de consommation et de nouvelles pratiques de lecture qui transforment les usages du document. Ce sont ces nouveaux usages que Dickens commente continuellement dans ses romans ainsi que dans ses essais, en ne cessant d’en exposer toute l’ambivalence. Le romancier manifeste une inquiétude permanente quant au pouvoir de l’instance auctoriale qui n’est jamais pris pour acquis. Ce travail s’inscrit donc dans une réflexion sur le lecteur et la réception tels qu’ils se présentent dans les textes dickensiens. Le personnage dickensien est présenté comme un lecteur concret et un herméneute imparfait. Sa réception des textes écrits dépend de sa subjectivité d’une part, et d’autre part de la matérialité du support qui s’interpose entre lui et le texte. Ainsi, le sens construit ultérieurement par les lecteurs dickensiens peut se distinguer de l’intention originelle de l’auteur : contrairement à l’oral, l’écrit s’inscrit dans une communication différée et crée un écart dans lequel la subjectivité et la matérialité s’insère. En considérant ces deux paramètres dans le processus de la communication écrite, ce travail adopte les perspectives d’étude de ce que la critique anglo-saxonne nomme Book History. L’analyse de l’objet textuel qu’est le document rejoint également les constructions théoriques du courant Thing Theory. Dans la continuité de ces courants, nous nous intéresserons à “l’imagination matérielle” de l’œuvre dickensienne qui pense, rêve et vit dans la matière du document. Il s’agira de voir pourquoi et comment Dickens cherche paradoxalement à se défaire des matières inertes que sont le papier, la plaque et la pierre comme supports de l’écriture, pour ensuite examiner son rêve de textes vivants qui trouvent leur possibilité en l’homme, dans un au-delà de la matière. / From his birth in 1812 until his death in 1870, Charles Dickens was part of the industrial development era of the 19th century which brought about the consumer society and new forms of reading that transformed the use of documents. Dickens comments on these different forms and uses throughout his work, both in his novels and in his essays, in which he demonstrates a persistent uncertainty concerning the power of the author. This dissertation aims at reflecting on the role of the reader and the act of reading as they are presented in Dickens’s novels. Dickens’s characters are presented as concrete readers who imperfectly interpret the various texts they are presented with. The reception of written texts is subject on the one hand to the character’s subjectivity and on the other hand the materiality of the document which comes between the reader and the text. Thus whatever sense is construed by a Dickensien reader can differ from the original intent of the text’s author. Contrary to an orally delivered message, a written text is part of a differed communication into which subjectivity and matter irrupt. Considering these two parameters within the process of written communication, this work adopts the perspectives of the Anglo-Saxon critical study called Book History. The analysis of the textual object which is the document is connected with the theoretical reflections on objects as considered in Thing Theory. Together with these theories, this work is interested in “the material imagination” in Dickens’s work which thinks and dreams about the materiality of the document. We set out to understand why and how Dickens paradoxically attempts to deconstruct inert materials such as paper, signboards, stones as media for writing to then examine his dream of living texts which find its answer in man, beyond matter.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:39:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1393278 bytes, checksum: f5810eed2958fe92dc999bb3bf9d5833 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-01 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The aim of this thesis is to conduct a comparative study between the works Oliver Twist (1837) of the English novelist Charles Dickens, and Capitães da Areia (1937), a narrative of the Brazilian writer Jorge Amado, in which we highlight the representations of the child - more specifically that one in state of neglecting and poverty in urban middles of Europe and Brazil, as well as its role as hero in the environment of the two novels. Even considering the differences between these two narratives, in relation to the historical and social contexts and to the writing models the first one coming from the English universe in the early nineteenth century, affiliated to the British realist aesthetics, and the second developed in the northeastern of Brazil in the beginning of the twentieth century, which is clearly based on the tendency of the 30 s modernist novel. These two narratives are approached through a common theme: the abandonment and violence against the helpless and abandoned child left to its own destiny. In these two novels child is highlighted as central character, which justify our attempt of approach between the two authors. In this sense we believe we have succeeded in confirming our hypothesis that both narrators while revealing the contradictions of their societies, English Victorian and Brazilian of 30 s, try (through their literary texts) to point aesthetic routes to denounce the existing contradictions in their realities. / O objetivo desta tese é proceder a um estudo de caráter comparativo entre as obras Oliver Twist (1837), do romancista inglês, Charles Dickens e a narrativa Capitães da Areia (1937), do escritor brasileiro Jorge Amado, no qual destacamos as representações da criança - mais especificamente, daquela em estado de abandono e de pobreza, nos ambientes citadinos da Europa e do Brasil -, e o papel desta como herói, no meio em que vive, nas duas obras. Mesmo considerando as diferenças entre as duas narrativas, no que tange aos contextos histórico-sociais e aos modelos escriturais - a primeira oriunda do universo inglês, no início do século XIX, filiada à estética realística inglesa; a segunda elaborada no nordeste do Brasil no início do século XX, alimentada, claramente pela vertente modernista do romance de Trinta - as duas narrativas se aproximam pela temática comum: a do abandono e da violência contra a criança desamparada e entregue à própria sorte, configurada, nos dois romances, como personagem central, justificando, assim, a nossa tentativa de aproximação entre os dois autores. Nesse sentido, acreditamos ter conseguido confirmar nossa hipótese de que ambos narradores, ao revelarem as contradições das sociedades, inglesa vitoriana e brasileira dos anos 30, buscam, através dos seus textos literários, apontar caminhos estéticas, para denunciar essas contradições existentes nas suas realidades.

Charles Dickens é um autor cujos méritos literários são, muitas vezes, obscurecidos por sua enorme popularidade, sendo seus livros relegados por muitos à categoria de mero entretenimento. O propósito deste trabalho é analisar na forma do romance como - apesar de temas e estilo que se apresentam como populares - o texto de Hard Times pode revelar um interessante e profundo diálogo entre literatura e sociedade. Sentimentalismo e melodrama são estudados como formas tipicamente dickensianas de representação dos conflitos e transformações sociais que afetaram o século XIX. / Charles Dickens has sometimes had his literary qualities darkened by his enormous popularity, and his books have been considered by many critics as nothing but entertainment. The objective of this work is to analyse how the form of the novel - in spite of its popular style and theme- promotes in Hard Times an interesting and profound dialogue between literature and society. Sentimentalism and melodrama are studied as typically Dickensian forms of representation of social changes and conflicts in the 19th Century.

The Prelude and David Copperfield reveal strikingly similar patterns of their heroes' development from boyhood to manhood; the idiosyncrasy of their growth can be found in its retrogressive rather than progressive aspect.

Between 1848 – 1870 Dickens’s novels became increasingly outward looking towards transnational spaces. Dickens’s growing interest in China and Chinese commodities such as tea can be seen in his novels where contemporary anxieties about a close association with China and the Chinese is identified. The fraught trading and political relationships between Britain and China both during and after the Opium Wars and the opening of five new ports identifies this nation as one which Dickens perceived to pose a threat to British national identity. Looking at this relationship in terms of commodities, Chinese tea can therefore be a marker not only for a fetishised commodity but also as a representation of a nation. This thesis argues that Dickens’s representation of China through commodities such as tea presents a new way for British national identity to be conceptualised. Dickens’s inclusion of Chinese commodities intersects with other foreign countries that, unlike China, formed part of the British Empire. China’s independence facilitated a commercial freedom that was not available to nations that formed part of the Empire and, as a consequence, increased its commercial power. This thesis underscores some of the significant moments in Dickens’s novels from 1848 -1870 to reveal a commodity dialogue between China and Britain which moves beyond the page and reflects an increasingly interconnected world which was both assimilated and ostracised. This provides a new understanding of Britain that, far from establishing its commercial autonomy, shows how it became increasingly reliant on China and the conversations that these commodities contribute to an understanding of Dickens’s world. The thesis considers the productive readings of China in Dickens’s fiction and the importance of geopolitical commodities in forming an understanding of nation and nationality, identity and culture, and Britain and Britishness through trade.

Abstrakt I denna uppsats skrivs en nutida version av Charles Dickens verk En julsaga. Texten kommer att utspela sig under 2000-talet, det blir alltså ett miljöbyte genom tidsresan, inte rent geografiskt. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka om genren och huvudkaraktärerna kan bevaras när miljön förändras och om den nya texten bibehåller formen av en saga. Inledningsvis har jag läst En Julsaga och sedan valt tre scener och av dem skrivit en nutida version.