The novel Dombey and Son by C. Dickens and its place in the writer's work Contents

2.1.Features of Dickens ' late work. The novel "Dombey and Son".


Third period (1848-1859) is characterized by the deepening of the writer's social pessimism. The technique of writing is also changing: "it is distinguished by great restraint and thoughtfulness of techniques", in the image of art paintings "detail becomes particularly important". At the same time, the writer's realistic study of child psychology also deepens. In general, the work of Charles Dickens in this period marked a qualitatively new stage in the history of the development of English realism-the psychological stage. A new ethical category, previously unexplored by him, appears in the writer's work — moral emptiness.
During this period of creativity, the following mature realistic novels of the writer were published:: "Dombey and Son" (1848)," David Copperfield "(1850)," Bleak House "(1853)," Hard Times "(1854)," Little Dorrit "(1857)," A Tale of Two Cities " (1859).
Fourth period (1861-1870) In this last period, Charles Dickens created two masterpieces: "Great Expectations" (1861) and "Our Mutual Friend" (1865). In these works, you will no longer find the soft humor inherent in Dickens at the beginning of his creative career. Soft humor gives way to merciless irony. The theme of the late Dickens '"great hopes" turns, in fact, into Balzac's theme of "lost illusions", only it has more bitterness, irony and skepticism. Broken hopes are not saved even by Dickens's all-consuming fire of the hearth. But this result of the collapse of "great hopes" interests Dickens — the artist and moralist is no longer in the social plane, but rather in the moral and ethical.
The poetics have also changed: novels are less and less like huge, shapeless, though full of charm, buildings. Dickens ' later novels are characterized by harmony of drawing, subordination and proportionality of parts. The "realistic dominant" was also largely determined by the writer's changed public moods associated with the crisis situation in England in the 50s.
Dombey and Son exposes the inhumane nature of bourgeois relations with great conviction. Dickens seeks to show the interrelation and interdependence between different aspects of life, the social conditionality of human behavior not only in public, but also in private life. Dickens ' novel reflected his program, aesthetic credo, and moral ideal associated with a protest against selfishness and alienation of a person in society. The beautiful and the good in Dickens are the highest moral categories, evil is interpreted as a forced ugliness, deviation from the norm, and therefore it is immoral and inhumane.
Dombey and Son is different from all of Dickens ' previous novels, and in many ways marks the transition to a new stage.
Dombey and Son has an almost imperceptible connection with the literary tradition, that dependence on the samples of the realistic novel of the XVIII century, which is noticeable in the plot structure of such novels as The Adventures of Oliver Twist, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, even Martin Chuzzlewit. The novel differs from all previous works of Dickens both in its composition and emotional intonation.
The novel "Dombey and Son" is a multi-character work, but at the same time, creating it, the author used a new principle of organizing artistic material. If the previous novels Dickens built as a series of sequentially alternating episodes or included several parallel developing and at certain points intersecting plot lines, then in Dombey and Son everything, down to the smallest details, is subordinated to the unity of the plan. Dickens departs from his favorite way of organizing the plot as a linear movement, developing several plot lines that arise from their own contradictions, but intertwine in one center. They become Dombey and Son, its fate and the fate of its owner: the lives of Solomon Gills, the owner of the ship's tool shop, and his nephew Walter Gay, the aristocrat Edith Granger, the family of the stoker Toodle, and others are connected with them.
Dombey and Son is a novel about the" greatness and fall " of Dombey, a major London merchant. The characters on which the author's main attention is focused are Mr Dombey. However great Dickens's skill in portraying such characters as Carker, the manager of Dombey and Son, Dombey's daughter Florence and his young son Paul, who died early, Dombey's wife Edith or her mother Mrs Skewton, all these images ultimately develop the main theme – Dombey's theme.
Dombey and Son is primarily an anti-bourgeois novel. The entire content of the work, its imaginative structure is determined by the pathos of criticism of private property morality. Unlike novels named after the main character, this work has the name of a trading company in the title. This highlights the importance of the firm to Dombey's fortunes, and points out the values that a successful London merchant worships. It is not by chance that the author begins the work by defining the meaning of the firm for the main character of the novel: "In these three words was the meaning of Mr Dombey's whole life. The earth was made for Dombey and Son to carry on their trade, and the sun and moon were made to shine upon them... Rivers and seas were made for the navigation of their ships; rainbows promised them good weather; winds favored or opposed their enterprises; stars and planets moved in their orbits to keep the system of which they were the center inviolable." Thus, Dombey and Son becomes an image-a symbol of bourgeois prosperity, which is accompanied by the loss of natural human feelings, a kind of semantic center of the novel.
Dickens 'novel was originally intended as a"tragedy of pride". Pride is an important, though not the only, quality of Dombey's bourgeois business man. But it is precisely this trait of the main character that is determined by his social position as the owner of the Dombey and Son trading firm. Dombey loses all normal human feelings in his pride. The cult of the business in which he is engaged, and the consciousness of his own greatness, turn the London merchant into a soulless automaton. Everything in the Dombey household is subject to the harsh necessity of fulfilling one's official duties – serving the firm. The words "must" and" make an effort " are the main words in the Dombey family lexicon. Those who fail to follow these formulas are doomed to perish, like Dombey's first wife, Fanny, who failed to " make an effort."
Dickens ' vision is revealed in Dombey and Son as the characters develop and the action unfolds.
Dickens ' artistic style in Dombey and Son was still a combination of various artistic techniques and trends. However, humor and the comic element are pushed into the background here, appearing in the portrayal of secondary actors. The main place in the novel begins to occupy an in-depth psychological analysis of the internal causes of certain actions and experiences of the characters.
The writer's narrative style becomes much more complicated. It is enriched with new symbols, interesting and subtle observations. The psychological characteristics of characters become more complex, the functionality of speech characteristics is expanded, supplemented with facial expressions and gestures, and the role of dialogues and monologues increases.
The mastery of portraiture and psychological characteristics is very high in Dombey and Son, and even comic minor characters, having lost the grotesque and comical features inherent in the heroes of the first period, are depicted by the writer as people who are well known to readers, who could be distinguished in the crowd.
The general tone of the story in the novel is completely different than in the previously created works. Dombey and Son is the first novel by Dickens that lacks the optimistic tone that was so characteristic of the writer before. There is no place for the boundless optimism that defined the character of Dickens ' works. In the novel, for the first time, the motives of doubt, indefinite, but aching sadness were voiced. raises questions that are fundamental to the existence of society, namely, the incompatibility of hoarding with morality, money with humanity. Dombey's paternal sense of love for his son is deformed, and love for his daughter turns out to be completely impossible (he treats his daughter “like a fake coin that can't be invested "– ” a piece of base coin that couldn't be invested " – a brilliant comparison). Dombey's wife, son, and all those around him are considered only in relation to the firm, and the firm itself becomes something of a myth (a grotesque device).