Charles dickens and oliver twist

3. Ideological and artistic originality of Dickens' novels of the late period of creativity ("Great Expectations")
Genre and plot originality of later works Dickens's last novels Great Expectations (1860-1861), Our ­Mutual Friend (1864-1865) and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870) are united by a number of common features that allow us to talk about the development and consolidation of trends in the detective genre in creativity Dickens.
The mysterious crime, to which the efforts of a number of characters are directed, is generally quite common in Dickens' novels. In Martin Chesluit , in Nicholas Nickleby , in Oliver Twist, in Bleak House, Hard Times and Little Dorrit, there are all kinds of sinister criminals ­and murderers, but at the same time none of of these works cannot be unconditionally called a detective novel. True, the crime is the engine of the plot, it organizes the intrigue, it helps to arrange the characters, it more clearly distributes moral chiaroscuro - all this is true. But the crime and the disclosure of the secret associated with it are not the main content of the work here. Its content is much broader.⁹
The movement and interweaving of individual destinies (where ­some secret of a gloomy character enters only as an integral element) played an auxiliary role in all these novels and served the main, broader task, symbolizing the dark, mysterious forces of the depicted reality.
In the so-called crime, or detective ­novel, the situation is different. The center of gravity is transferred to the individual, empirical fact, to the very way in which the crime was committed, or to the methods of its disclosure. It is characteristic that in Gothic literature the main interest of the reader was attracted by the figure of the criminal, often (in typical cases, like Melmoth ) surrounded by a mystical halo. The crime ­may already be known or it may not exist at all. Intentions are important, the “philosophy of evil” is important, the very bearer of the evil principle is important as an ideological phenomenon, regardless of his real actions (Manfred, Melmoth ).
In a detective novel, the crime itself is important, and most importantly (and hence the name of the genre) is all the complex mechanics of finding out, which, in fact, constitutes the plot of such works. The reader, as it were, ­joins the active investigation of the judicial incident and tirelessly participates in solving the problem, which at first is ­presented to him in the form of an equation with a rather large number of unknowns (however, a gradual increase in their number is also possible here). The solution to this equation is the forward movement of a typical detective novel.
Detective genre, which first found its ­complete expression in the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe, came into contact with the so-called sensational novel in England and gained extraordinary popularity in the 1950s and 1960s. Writers like Charles Reid and Wilkie Collins especially cultivate this genre and give it a certain finish. Elements of a "black ­" novel and a detective story, combined with a melodramatic love affair against the backdrop of modern life - this is basically the composition of this novel.
All sorts of mysterious adventures, disguise ­, disappearances, "resurrection from the dead" (based on the alleged death of the hero), kidnappings, robberies, murders - all this is an inevitable accessory. Works of this kind are full of strange, terrible characters: sleepwalkers, morphine addicts, opium smokers, all kinds of maniacs or charlatans, hypnotists, soothsayers, etc. All this literature, especially the novels of Wilkie Collins, had an undeniable influence on Dickens.
Starting with "Great Expectations" and ending with "The Secret of Edwin Drood", we can observe the process of a gradual ­decrease in social pathos and the shift of the author's attention to the crime- detective theme. In this respect, Great Expectations, like Our ­Mutual Friend, occupies an intermediate position. But since the crime theme and the detective “solving the mystery” have not yet fully mastered the plot and leave room for a relatively broad picture of social reality as well (in “Great Expectations” these are episodes of Pip ’s city life , in “Our Mutual Friend” it is mainly satirical image of a ­secular society). And only The Mystery of Edwin Drood can be called a detective novel in the full sense of the word.
Features of the realistic method in the novel The novel Great Expectations is interesting to compare ­not only with the early works of Dickens, but also with the novels of Balzac. The earlier works of Dickens, and "Bleak House" and "Little Dorrit", are extremely close to the work of Balzac in their theme and in the very direction of thought. Dickens and Balzac, first of all, are brought together by the very grandiosity of the artistic concept, although this concept is embodied in them in different ways.¹⁰
The novel "Great Expectations" is similar in its theme to "Lost Illusions" by Balzac.Both here and there is the story of a young man's career. And here and there - dreams of glory, of wealth, of a brilliant ­future. Both here and there - disappointment after the hero's acquaintance with life. But at the same time, for Balzac, every disappointment of a young man is the ­result of another collision with some typical phenomenon of bourgeois reality. Each disappointment is the result of experience, concrete knowledge, it is a sign of acquired wisdom, which in modern Balzac society is tantamount to a wound inflicted on a pure heart. Losing illusions, the hero gains wisdom, becomes a "worthy" member of a society where everything is built on predatory, anti-human laws. Therefore, the ideological result of the work is a critical exposure of bourgeois reality, adaptation to which is bought at the cost of losing everything beautiful that is in man.
Although "Great Expectations" is also devoted to a certain ­extent to lost illusions, the character of the disappointment of Dickens' heroes is very far from Balzac's. Pip , the hero of "Great Expectations", passively ­waits for a long time for happiness, which should fall on him from the sky. The main reason for Pip 's disappointment is that his patrons are not a noble, rich old woman and her beautiful pupil ­, but a runaway convict whom Pip once saved from persecution. Thus, Pip 's disillusionment itself does not contain that critical, revealing content in relation to bourgeois reality, which Balzac has and which Dickens's earlier novels had.­
The plot of the novel is presented in such an individualized way that the generalizing tendency in it exists somewhere ­near the "private" experience of the hero. Reality is depicted in rather gloomy, almost revealing tones (especially the London ­episodes), but the hero himself would willingly agree to exist in it under more favorable conditions, could, ultimately, adapt to these circumstances, And at the same time, this “adjustability” of the hero (in combination with some other negative traits, which will be discussed later) also does not find an unambiguous moral assessment on the pages of the novel.
All this is possible only because the ­author's social pathos is muted here and that the interest of the novel is largely concentrated on finding out who the hero's real patron is, that is, on finding out a "secret" that does not have a wide generalizing meaning.
In this novel, Dickens partially returns to his earlier works, in the center of which is the figure of a destitute little hero, ­subjected to all the trials of a harsh life.
Pip is reminiscent of both Oliver Twist and David Copperfield . And the very construction of the novel, as it were, returns ­us to the original positions of Dickensian poetics, when the plot of the work was built around the biography of the hero and basically coincided with it (“Oliver Twist”, “Nicholas Nickleby ”, “David Copperfield ”). This method of "one-line" construction is all the more natural in cases where the story, as in "Great Expectations", is told in the first person, and, consequently, the volume of reality depicted completely coincides ­with the hero's individual experience.
From the very beginning of the novel, the narrative goes along two lines: in an emphatically everyday plan, the house of Pip 's older sister , the ferocious Mrs. Jo Gargery , she herself and her husband, the touchingly good-natured blacksmith Joe, as well as their inner circle are described. Pip ­'s adventures in his ­own home are traced with cheerful humor : the friendship of Pip and Joe, these two sufferers, oppressed by a ferocious sister and wife, the episode of stealing a file and a pie, Pip 's disturbing experiences during a festive dinner, when an unpleasant parallel is drawn between a pig on a platter and them themselves.
The second plan of the story is connected with extraordinary incidents in the life of young Pip , with his "personal biography", and introduces us into the atmosphere of a crime-detective novel. So the first scenes of the novel are played out in a ­cemetery, where a meeting with a convict takes place on the graves of the hero's parents, which is of decisive importance for Pip 's entire future fate .
Even the touching details about the boy's early orphanhood (let us recall the story of Oliver for comparison) are given here not only in sentimental terms, but are surrounded by elements of adventurous-criminal ­literature of secrets and horrors.
And then, no matter how dramatically the hero's life changes, fate again and again leads him to the gloomy swamps ­behind the cemetery, the peace of which is often disturbed by the appearance of fugitive criminals seeking shelter here.
This second plan of the novel, connected with the intrusion into the life of Pip by the gloomy, persecuted convict Abel Magwitch , is all built on secrets, from the first meeting ­and ending with all those episodes when the stranger in an incomprehensible way makes Pip know about himself and about his ­disposition towards him . .
This, at first glance, inexplicable, attachment of Mzgvich leads not only to the fact that he provides Pip with the enviable existence of a “youth from a rich house”. But, risking his life, for the sake of meeting with him, he ­returns to England (here again, a comparison with Balzac suggests itself: the motive of the dependence of a young man from bourgeois society on a criminal rejected by this society).
In the history of Magwitch, the crime-detective line of the novel finds its most vivid embodiment. Only towards the end are revealed all the complex storylines connecting Pip with this man through the mysterious ­house of Miss Hevisham , as well as with her pupil Estella , who turns out to be Magwitch 's daughter .
However, despite the emphasized dependence ­of Magwitch 's line on the tradition of the "nightmare" and detective genre, his story, nevertheless, is not without ­a socially accusatory meaning. The high point here is the story of his past life, where Magwitch grows before our eyes into a pathetic, tragic figure of an eternally persecuted sufferer. His speech sounds like an indictment of the ­bourgeois system.
“To prison and out of prison, into prison and out of prison, into prison and out of prison,” he begins his ­story like this... “I was dragged hither and thither, expelled from one city and another, beaten, tortured and driven away. I know no more than you about the place of my birth ... I remember myself for the first time in Essex, where I stole turnips to satisfy my hunger ... I knew that my name was Magwitch , and I was baptized Abel. How did I know about it? Just as I learned that one bird is called a sparrow, the other a tit...
As far as I could see, there was not a living soul who ­, seeing Abel Magwitch , would not be frightened, would not drive him away, would not ­lock him up, would not torment him. And it so happened that, although I was a small, unfortunate, ragged creature, the nickname of an incorrigible criminal was established behind me ”(Chapter XVII).­¹¹
Biography of Magwitch is a variant of the biography of Ollie ­Twist, devoid, however, of the essential element by which Dickens usually rescued his well-meaning but destitute heroes. In the history of Magwitch, Dickens finally showed what can happen ­to a person in a capitalist society without the “good money” that he so often resorted to at the end of his novels - Magwitch remained an internally noble person (this can be seen from his disinterested attachment to Pip ) but morally and physically he is doomed to death. The optimism of the previous plot endings in Dickens' novels is finally broken here.
The criminal-adventurous atmosphere of the novel ­is further enhanced by a fabulous-fantastic element. Fate confronts Pip with Miss Hevish , a rich, half-mad ­old woman, and her pretty, capricious and by no means kind pupil Estella , whose life purpose is to avenge all men for the insult inflicted once upon her patroness.
Miss Hevisham's house is surrounded by secrets, Pip is let in here at the special invitation of an old woman, whom he, a simple village boy, for some reason must entertain.
The image of the mistress of the house is designed in fabulous colors. Here is her first description, when Pip enters her room, forever devoid of daylight: “She was wearing a white dress of expensive fabric ... Her shoes were white, a ­long white veil descended from her head, attached to her hair with white wedding flowers, but her hair was completely gray. Precious jewelry sparkled on the neck and arms, and the same jewelry lay on the table. Around the room were scattered dresses, not as expensive as the one she was wearing, unpacked suitcases were lying around. She herself, apparently, had not yet finished dressing; she had only one shoe on, the other lay on the table beside her hand; the veil was half pinned on, the watch and its chain, lace, a handkerchief, gloves, a bouquet of flowers, a prayer book - everything was thrown somehow on the table next to the jewels lying on it ... I noticed that white had long ceased to be white , lost its luster, turned yellow. I noticed that the bride had faded, just as her wedding clothes and flowers ... I noticed that her dress was once sewn on the slender forms of ­a young girl, and now hung like a sack on her figure, which was a bone covered with skin" (Chapter VIII).
It should be added that the clock in Miss He ­Wisham 's house stopped at twenty minutes to nine many years ago, when she learned of the treachery of her fiancé, that her shoe had never been worn since then, that the stockings on her legs had decayed. to the holes and that in one ­of the neighboring rooms, teeming with mice and other evil spirits, covered in cobwebs, there was a wedding cake on the table - details that are already possible only in a real fairy tale itself. If we recall in this connection other Dickens novels, we will find that houses surrounded by secrets were met with him before.
The atmosphere of this part of the novel is to a large extent reminiscent of the atmosphere of one of Andersen's fairy tales ­, where the hero finds himself in a mysterious castle in which an old sorceress and a beautiful but cruel princess live. In Pip 's mind, Miss Hevisham is called a sorceress (chapter XIX), he himself is a knight, and Estella is a princess (chapter XXIX).
Thanks to a sharp turn, as is often the case with Dickens, the plot of the novel changes radically, and the realistic plan of narration comes into force again ­. An unexpected enrichment (which Pip falsely attributes to the generosity of Miss Hevisham ) forces the hero to leave his native place, and we find ourselves in a new and very real sphere of reality.
Realistic and deep in its psychological pattern and knowledge of life is the episode of Pip 's farewell to poor ­, modest Joe and the equally modest and selfless Biddy, when Pip involuntarily assumes the tone of a condescending patron and begins to secretly be ashamed ­of his ingenuous friends.
These first days of his social exaltation thus also signify ­a certain moral decline - Pip has already approached the world of worldly filth, into ­which he will inevitably have to plunge in connection with his enrichment. True, the motive of the “fall” of the hero does not become the leading one and emerges for the most part only at each regular meeting with Joe. The “good beginning” in Pip still prevails, despite all the trials ­.
Once again, Dickens brings his young hero to London (Oliver Twist), ­shows him a huge unfamiliar city, makes him think about the inner springs of modern bourgeois society. And from that moment in the novel there is a contrast between the two worlds. On the one hand, there is a world of calm, silence and spiritual purity in the blacksmith Joe's house, where the owner himself lives, who suits his working dress, his hammer, his pipe best of all. On the other hand, there is the “vanity of vanities” of the modern capitalist capital, where a person can be deceived, robbed, killed, and, moreover, by no means because of special hatred for him, but because this “for some reason may turn out to be beneficial” (Chapter XXI).
Dickens has always been inexhaustible in creating figures that symbolize this terrible world of bloodthirsty selfishness. But here, less than before, he resorts to the ­metaphorical and masking symbolism of the Gothic novel, and draws people as they are generated every day and every hour by the prose of capitalist existence.
One of the colorful figures in this part of the novel is the Wemmick clerk , whose life is sharply divided into two halves. On the one hand, the withering and embittering work in ­Jaggers ' office , where Wemmick cheerfully ­shows Pip casts of the faces of executed criminals ­and boasts of his collection of rings and other valuable "souvenirs" that he obtained with their help. And on the other hand, Wemmick's domestic idyll , with a garden, a greenhouse, a poultry house, a toy drawbridge ­and other innocent fortification tricks, with touching solicitude for a deaf old father.
At the invitation of Wemmick Pip visited him ­(according to the chosen biographical method, the hero must personally visit the house of a person completely alien to him, so that his home environment could be described in the novel), and so the next morning they rush to the office: “ Wemmick grew drier and rougher ­as we moved forward, and his mouth closed again , becoming a mailbox. When at last we entered the office and he pulled out the key from behind the gate, he apparently forgot both his " ­revenge" in Walworth , and his "castle", and the drawbridge, and the gazebo, and the lake, and fountain, and the old man, as if all this had time to scatter to smithereens ... ”(Chapter XXV).
Such is the power of bourgeois "efficiency" and its ­influence on the human soul. Another terrible symbol of this world is in "Great Expectations" the figure of the powerful lawyer Jagters , the guardian of the hero. Wherever he appears, this powerful man, who seems to ­hold in his hands all the accusers and all the defendants, all the criminals and all the witnesses, and even the very London court, wherever he appears, the smell of fragrant soap is spread around him, emanating from his hands, which he carefully washes in a special room of his office, both after police visits and after each regular client. The end of the working day is marked by an even more detailed washing - up to gargling, after which not one of the petitioners dares to approach him (chapter XXVI). The dirty and bloody activities of Jaggers are most clearly emphasized by this "hygienic" procedure.
Dickens reproduces in this novel other spheres ­of reality, the image of which is familiar to us from earlier works. Such is the family of Mr. Pocket , Pip 's London tutor , ­portrayed in plotless, humorous grotesque ­and very reminiscent of the similar Kenwigs family in Nicholas Nickleby .
With virtuoso skill, Dickens draws the utter ­chaos that reigns in the Pocket house , where ­Mr. Pocket 's wife is busy reading books, the cook gets drunk to insensibility, the children are left to their own devices, roasts disappear without a trace during dinner, etc.
So far, we have been talking about those aspects of the novel "Great Expectations" that connected this later work with the early period of Dickens's work.
As we have seen, there was quite a lot in common here, and the most significant in this sense was the construction of the novel, in which Dickens, abandoning the diverse ­, multi-tiered structure of "Little Dorrit" or "Bleak House", returned again to the biographical one- linearity of "Oliver Twist" .
Now let's talk about significant differences. They lie in the author's attitude to some ­significant problems of our time and are also reflected in the plot structure of the novel.
First of all, it refers to the character of the protagonist. We remember that the "protagonists" of Dickens's early novels were usually rather pale figures, endowed, however, with all the necessary attributes of "positiveness" - here and disinterestedness, and nobility, and honesty, and steadfastness, and fearlessness. Take Oliver Twist, for example.
In Little Dorrit, in Bleak House, in Hard ­Times, in A Tale of Two Cities, the center of gravity is shifted towards great historical events and the broadest social topics, so that here one can hardly speak of any a single central (and positive) character for each novel.
The protagonist reappears in Dickens with a return ­to the biographical construction of the plot. But his character had already changed greatly, we have mentioned those not particularly noble feelings that had taken possession of Pip from the moment of his enrichment ­. The author draws his hero conceited, sometimes selfish, cowardly. His dream of wealth is inseparable from the dream of a "noble" biography. He would like to see only Miss Hevisham as his patroness , he does not separate his love for Estella from the desire for a secure, elegant and beautiful life. In short, Pip , being very far from the vulgar rogues and swindlers, from the "knights of profit" with which the novel is teeming, nevertheless reveals a penchant for ostentatious luxury, and for extravagance, and for idleness.
Pip 's vanity, cowardice and selfishness are especially pronounced at the moment when he again encounters a runaway convict and learns the name of his true benefactor. Despite the fact that Pip 's wealth was obtained for him by Magwitch at the ­cost of great perseverance, effort and sacrifice and is a sign of the most disinterested love for him, Pip , full of "noble" disgust, selfishly ­dreams of getting rid of the unfortunate man who risked his life to meet him. Only further ordeals make Pip treat Magwitch differently and have an ennobling effect on his character.
Thus, "good money", or rather, their fiction, is exposed for the second time in the novel already in the story of Pip himself . Pip , who from childhood dreamed that wealth would fall on him - and precisely the “noble” wealth coming from Miss Hevisham - sees that the capital received did not bring him anything good, that nothing was left of them but debts and dissatisfaction with himself, that his life is fruitless and joyless (chapter LVII).
“Good money” turned out to be useless money, and to top it off, “terrible money”, so that by the end of the novel Pip comes to the end of the novel as a broken man, resting his soul at someone else’s family hearth, however, with a timid hope that once proud, and now also punished life, resigned Estella ­will share the rest of his days with him.