Dickens was born in a poor family in Portsmouth, England. His father is a naval clerk. At the age of 65,438+00, his family was moved into debt and put into prison. 65,438+065,438+0 years old began to undertake heavy housework. At the age of 65,438+02, he was forced to drop out of school and become an apprentice in the shoe polish workshop, which made him understand the life and suffering of the working class, especially for those unfortunate children. 16 years old, working as a copywriter in a law firm, traveled all over the streets of London and learned a lot about the society. Later, I worked as a court stenographer and journalist, and I became familiar with the disadvantages of parliamentary politics. He writes for several newspapers in London. Dickens published his first novel "The Story of Pickwick" at the end of 1836, satirizing the hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy and becoming famous in one fell swoop. In the next 34 years, he wrote more than a dozen novels. At the age of 24, he married Lady Catherine. Because of the difference in personality and taste, it brought misfortune to his creation, especially in his later years. Besides writing hard, he also likes drama all his life. He has personally participated in performances, directed and held recitals. 1June, 870, he was writing the novel Edwin. Druid mystery, due to overwork, sudden death. Buried in Westminster Abbey in London.
Dickens mercilessly exposed and castigated the darkness and hypocrisy of capitalist society in his novels. 1838 and 1839 published Oliver Twist and Nicholas. Nicobe described the miserable life of poor children in capitalist society and exposed the darkness of poor shelters and school education. Dickens is one of the greatest British novelists and an outstanding representative of English realistic literature, which has had a great influence on world literature.
Oliver Twist is Dickens' second novel. The 25-year-old novelist is determined to pay tribute to the British realist painter William? William hogarth (1697- 1764) set an example and bravely faced life, which truly showed the miserable life in the slums of London at that time. He has a lofty moral intention: to protest against social injustice, arouse public opinion, carry out reforms and help the poor in dire straits. Because of this, Dickens has been defined by scholars in China and the former Soviet Union as "the founder and the greatest representative of critical realism in English literature". In this regard, I have some different opinions: literature and art is a special social ideology, and it must be a reflection of social existence. However, we must not regard all the literature that reflects reality as realistic literature, and expand the extension of "realism" indefinitely. In fact, the creative methods used by writers vary from person to person, which is closely related to the writer's special temperament and personality characteristics. Dickens' creative imagination is rich and full of poetic passion. He deliberately exaggerates his moral ideal, breaks through the faithful imitation of nature everywhere, and borrows a sentence from Goethe: higher than nature. This is related to Thackeray, Trollope and others' insistence on objectivity. There is a significant difference between calm and strict realism.
Take Oliver Twist as an example. (1) Personalized language is an excellent means used by Dickens in characterization. The language of hooligans, thieves and prostitutes in the book is commensurate with their status, and even uses industrial slang. However, Dickens never copied naturalism, but processed, refined and selected it to avoid using dirty and obscene words. Oliver, the hero, has a standard language and elegant speech. He doesn't even know what stealing is. He is an orphan who grew up in a poor school. He has no good education, and he is in contact with evil and degenerate people. How can he speak such good English? This can't be explained by the viewpoint of historical materialism that man is the sum of all social relations. It can be seen that Dickens focused on his own moral ideals rather than pursuing complete realism. (2) In excellent realistic novels, the storyline is often the development history of the character's character under the influence of the environment, that is, Gorky said "the history of a certain character, typical growth and composition". However, Dickens did not stick to any model, and arranged as many coincidences as he wanted. Oliver went shopping with thieves for the first time. The first person who was robbed happened to be Brown Rowe, a good friend of his dead father. The second time was robbed by the gangster Sikes, and it happened that his menstrual Ruth was stolen? Meles' home. This is unreasonable in any case. But Dickens has his own genius. His detailed description is full of life breath and passion, which makes people breathless, so they have to believe this far-fetched and unnatural plot. This is the charm of Dickens' art world. (3) When Dickens wrote, he always had a "sympathetic imagination", even for the heinous characters. The trial of Fagin, the thief leader and the old Jew in the book, always starts from Fagin's psychological point of view. He saw the floor from the ceiling and his eyes were fixed on him. He heard the statement of his crime, and he turned his pleading eyes to the lawyer, hoping to defend him. Some people in the crowd are eating, some are fanning with handkerchiefs, and a young painter is sketching him. He thought, I wonder if it looks like it. I really want to cran my neck to have a look ... a gentleman went out and came in again. I must have gone to dinner, he thought. What did I eat? Seeing the spike on the iron railing, he thought, it is easy to break. From then on, he thought of the gallows. At this time, he heard that he had been hanged. He just mumbled that he was getting older, and then he couldn't make any noise. Here, Dickens carefully chose a series of details, which not only described the objective things, but also cut into the inner world of the characters, showing his extremely rich imagination. The artistic method he adopted cannot be generalized by "critical realism". I worship George Dickens, an English writer. George Gith -ing (1857- 1903) called Dickens' creative method "romantic realism". I think this statement is accurate enough and conforms to the reality of Dickens' novel art.
Oliver, the hero of the novel. Twist is an orphan born in a workhouse. He suffers from hunger and bullying. He fled to London alone because of the abuse of the coffin shop owner and parish deacon Bambur. Unfortunately, he was tricked into a thief's den as soon as he arrived. Fagin, the leader of the thief gang, tried his best to train Oliver as a pickpocket and let him drive. Oliver stole a handkerchief from a gentleman named Brownlow (who happened to be his father's good friend) when he followed the thief's companion "a clever guy" and Bates to the street, and was arrested by the police. Later, because the owner of the book stall proved his innocence, it showed that the thief was someone else, so he was released. Because he was very ill and delirious at that time, and his appearance resembled the portrait of a young woman left by a friend before his death, Brownlow took him in for treatment at home, and he was taken care of by Brownlow and his housekeeper, Mrs. Bidwin, and felt the warmth of the world for the first time. The thieves' gang was afraid that Oliver would reveal the secrets of the gang. Under Fagin's instructions, when Oliver went out to return the bookseller's books for Brownlow, Sikes and Nancy tried their best to get him back to the thief's den. But when Fagin tried to punish Oliver for beating him up, Nancy stepped forward to protect Oliver. Fagin tried to force Oliver to become a thief and a cash cow by threats, inducements and indoctrination. One night, Oliver was involved in the theft of a big house under the coercion of Sikes. Just as Oliver climbed into the window to report to his master, he was shot and wounded by the housekeeper. The thief ran away and abandoned Oliver in the ditch by the side of the road. Oliver crawled in the rain and snow and got hurt. He accidentally went back to the house and fainted at the door. Mrs. Merry, the kind master, and her adopted daughter, Miss Ross, took him in and sheltered him. Coincidentally, this Miss Rose is Oliver's menstruation, but neither side knows it. At Mrs. Merry's house, Oliver really enjoyed the warmth and beauty of life. But Fagin and his gang couldn't let Oliver go. One day, a man named monks came to Fagin. This man is Oliver's half brother. Because Oliver was unworthy, his father gave him all his inheritance in his will. Only when Oliver and the monk are the same black sheep can the monk inherit the inheritance. So monks paid a high price to bribe him and turned Oliver into a hopeless criminal, so as to seize all the inheritance under Oliver's name and vent his resentment against his dead father. Nancy heard monks's triumphant story about how he colluded with Bumble and his wife to destroy the only evidence that could prove Oliver's identity. Nancy was brave, sympathized with Oliver's experience, risked her life, secretly found Miss Ross and reported all this to her.
Just as Miss Rose was thinking about how to act, Oliver told her that he had found Mr. Brownlow. Miss Ross and Brownlow discussed how to deal with this matter. When Miss Ross met Nancy again accompanied by Brownlow, Brownlow learned that monks was his late good friend Edwin. Leward's black sheep decided to talk to Monks himself, but their conversation was heard by the spies sent by Fagin. Sikes killed Nancy in cold blood. Nancy's death destroyed Fagin's gang. Fagin was arrested and hanged, while Sikes slipped and was strangled by his own rope. At the same time, monks was taken home by Brownlow, forcing him to give up everything. The truth came out that Oliver was adopted by Brownlow, ending his miserable childhood. In order to give monks a new chance, he got half of the inheritance that should have belonged to Oliver. However, the monk did not change his bad habits, squandered his property, continued to do evil, and finally went to prison and died in prison. Bourgh, who deserves what he deserves, was deprived of all his posts and spent the rest of his life in the workhouse, where they once bullied others.
In this book, Oliver, Nancy and Miss Ross are all representatives of kindness. They were all born in misery and grew up in a dark and sinful world, but they always kept a pure world and a kind heart in their hearts. All kinds of hardships can't make them degenerate or completely degenerate, but they show their dazzling crystal quality. In the end, evil prevailed over evil. Although Nancy was finally killed, it was her death that summoned the earth-shattering power of social justice, and it was her spirit in heaven that doomed the representative of evil forces-Fagin Gang. Therefore, in the novel, Nancy's spirit is sublimated, and Oliver is rewarded in a typical sense. The representatives of the wicked-Fagin, monks, Bambur and Essex all came to a tragic end.
Thief in foggy city
Oliver Twist is the second novel of British writer Charles Dickens. The characters depicted in the novel, Oliver Twist, a foundling, Bambur, a parish official, and Fagan, the head thief, have all become typical figures in British and American literature.
The worst image in the novel is Fagan, an old Jew. The old thief controls some teenagers, abets and directs them to steal in the street, shares the stolen goods themselves and takes no risks. He also played tricks in the thief business and did not hesitate to betray and murder his accomplices until he was finally sentenced to death. This evil criminal image later became synonymous with abettor in English.
Besides Fagan, the novel also describes a series of thieves. For example, Sykes, a ferocious thief, Nancy, a female thief with persistent conscience, Jack Dawkins, a thief who was controlled by Fagan and indulged in depravity, and Charlie Bates who finally turned his back on him. These characters are basically villains in the author's works, and the author has arranged a shameful ending for them. The old Jew was finally hanged. Sikes was hanged on a rope during his escape, and he is still hanged today. Clever "can't catch", and finally "lost the wind" in order to steal a snuff bottle, he was sentenced by the court and exiled for life. Even Nancy, who later fell out with the thief to save Oliver, did not get a better ending, but was beaten to death by her lover Sikes.
The author tries his best to protect his beloved hero, Oliver Twist, and tries his best not to let him fall into the hands of thieves, being careful not to let him get a little stealing. Oliver was dragged out to work for the first time because he couldn't catch it. Before he knew what was going on, he was chased by passers-by in a daze. The second time Sikes forced him to break into the house with a gun, but the owner found him, was shot and almost died. Moreover, the only two results of Walking with Criminals are actually good opportunities for Oliver to get a turning point in his fate. Although the author specially arranged a story to ask Oliver not to be contaminated with criminal acts (the restrictive condition of Oliver's inheritance stipulated in his father's will), in the eyes of today's readers, this arrangement is really bizarre and reluctant.
Thieves as social scum
In the era of Dickens' writing, serial novels in magazines were often read to the whole family by parents in front of the fireplace. Obviously, the novel must conform to the moral standards and aesthetic taste of the growing middle class in order to sell well. Therefore, Dickens' description of thieves and their fate in Oliver Twist are all reflections of the mainstream consciousness at that time. In fact, Dickens has repeatedly explained this point in the author's preface at the beginning of this book. He vowed to assure readers that the "evil and degenerate generation" he described was for the moral purpose of social education. Therefore, he must first clearly criticize some works that intentionally or unintentionally depict thieves with romantic colors.
Similar to Dickens' Oliver Twist, in his time and before, in the most widely circulated and famous literary works in Europe, the images of thieves were almost negative and sinful.
For example, the most rebellious literary work of the Renaissance, decameron by Italian writer Boccaccio, tells 100 stories. From the perspective of Taoists, more than half are "teaching prostitutes" and none are "teaching thieves". Even if the characters in the book have the experience of being thieves, they are accidental mistakes, and finally repent and turn over a new leaf, and get good results. Chaucer's masterpiece The Canterbury Tale, a contemporary English writer, does not describe theft positively.
/kloc-in the second half of the 0/9th century, western literary works mainly focused on the positive image of thieves and emphasized the social and environmental factors of thieves' behavior. The most famous is Les Miserables by the French writer Hugo. Hugo created the character Jean Valjean in this novel published by 1862. He was sentenced to five years of hard labor for stealing a piece of bread, and was sentenced to 14 years for trying to escape from a hard labor quarry four times. He was released after serving 19 years. Hugo said in the preface of his book: The tragic world of civilized times is due to social oppression and "laws and customs have turned the world into hell", which makes "men morally corrupt because of poverty, women degenerate because of hunger, and children are weak because of darkness". Even so, Hugo, after being inspired by the bishop to repent and turn over a new leaf, still made his hero suffer this thief experience. The object of Hugo's criticism is the deep-rooted hatred and discrimination against thieves in European society.
"Dog Thief" and "Ghost Thief" with Special Skills
Contrary to the tendentious descriptions of these famous European literary works, in China's traditional literary works, thieves are not so contemptible images, and even the protagonists in the positive images of many literary works are thieves themselves.
As early as the 3rd century BC, it was mentioned in the book "The Warring States Policy" that Meng Changjun had 3,000 guests, including thieves who were used to "dog thieves". Later, Meng Changjun was detained by the king of Qin because of this "dog thief". He sneaked into Qin king Palace and stole fox white fur for the king of Qin, Aji, so as to put in a good word for the king of Qin and let Meng Changjun return to China. This story is widely circulated in the future, which indicates that the thief is a stand-in, and also sets the tone for the thief image in future literary and opera works.
For example, Ling Chu, a writer in the late Ming Dynasty, described the positive images of several thieves in his collection of short stories "Instantly Surprised". One was a "play thief" in Lin 'an City in the Southern Song Dynasty, because every time he sneaked into other people's houses to steal, he had to write three big characters "I'm coming" on their walls, which became the trademark of thieves. Even if he enters the prison, he still has the ability to make himself innocent and walk out of the prison. The other was a "thief" in Suzhou during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, nicknamed "Lazy Dragon". After stealing from others, he still likes to draw a plum blossom on the wall, so he is nicknamed "a plum blossom". Chased by the magistrate of a county, he went into the magistrate's back room at night, cut the magistrate's bun and put it in Yin He, so he drew plum blossoms and ran away. The magistrate of a county got up in the morning and was dumbfounded with fear. "haircut, it is clear that you can cut your hair." Put it in the print box, and it is clearly stated that it can be stolen and printed. This thief is so powerful! "Immediately ordered to stop hunting. The author tries to describe the brave meaning of "lazy dragon". " People like this can be regarded as heroes among villains, which is inversely proportional to the difference between treacherous, greedy and selfish people. "
The thief's famous purpose is "Water Margin", and "beating fleas" moves from time to time, which shows that thieves are born and good at stealing skills. Not to mention that many of these 108 heroes are robbers who kill and steal goods, but they all appear as heroes praised by the author. The author emphasized the "talent" side of the thief, and finally everyone had to think that the court was loyal.
There's only one dead thief
The literary image of thieves reflects the general view of social consciousness on thief behavior. In the cultural tradition of the western world, thieves have always been a great sin that can never be allowed and forgiven.
The earliest and most complete ancient code in the world is the code of hammurabi promulgated by King Hammurabi of Babylon. This code clearly stipulates that those who steal property from temples or palaces should be sentenced to death; Those who own other people's property but can't prove that it is the proceeds of sale should also be executed as thieves; Those who fail to steal other people's property shall be fined 30 times of the property, and those who fail to deliver it shall also be executed. Obviously, nearly 4000 years ago, the legal principle of death penalty for all theft was established in the two river basins.
In the laws of the ancient Greek city-states on the northern shore of the Mediterranean, the death penalty was also used to punish theft. It is said that in the "delacour Legislation" in Athens in the 6th century BC, theft was sentenced to death. Later, laws in Athens allowed shopkeepers to kill thieves on the spot and claim compensation twice the value of the goods afterwards. Rome, a powerful country in the Mediterranean region, in its first written law, the Twelve Bronze Watch Law, also allowed thieves who killed burglars to be whipped by their owners during the day, and even stipulated that adults who grazed crops cultivated by others or secretly mowed grass at night must be executed.
In the early medieval Germanic common law in Europe, both theft and murder can be solved by compensation. However, after the Christian kingdom was gradually established in the Middle Ages, the Ten Commandments began to have an impact, and most of the laws promulgated by kings adopted the most severe death penalty-hanging. In fact, it was not until the beginning of 19 century, that is, more than 20 years before the publication of Oliver Twist, that the stolen property in Britain was sentenced to hang if its value exceeded one shilling (1/20).