1. Charles Dickens George ORWELL’s essay from: Inside the Whale
Ms I. Marinaro
George ORWELL’s
Charles Dickens
essay from:
Inside the Whale
(Secker & Warburg, London 1939)

2. why? Dickens is a theft stolen by Marxists and by Catholics.
and above all by Conservatives
why?
Ms I. Marinaro

3. because of: his familiarity: - any English has grown up with him
Ms I. Marinaro
because of:
his familiarity:
- any English has grown up with him
beyond any aesthetic judgement nobody can reject what belongs to our childhood.

4. In the end Dickens becomes HE IS STILL HERE… “LIKE THE NELSON COLUMN”
Ms I. Marinaro
In the end Dickens becomes
an institution
We may not approve him
BUT
HE IS STILL HERE… “LIKE THE NELSON COLUMN”

5. How can Dickens attack the British society and be loved all the same?
That’s something “unreal”!
To understand that, we have to consider
what Dickens was not:
Ms I. Marinaro

6. a) He was not a PROLETARIAN WRITER
Ms I. Marinaro
a) He was not a PROLETARIAN WRITER
never dealt with the real English proletariat;
all action takes place in the middle-class and surroundings.
b) He was not a
REVOLUTIONARY WRITER
as given such a type of society, certain evils are inevitable.

7. The central secret of his success?
Ms I. Marinaro
The central secret of his success?
his limitations
his generosity of mind
He expressed in a comic way the form of the native decency of the common man.

8. Dickens’s judgement on his society is
Ms I. Marinaro
Dickens’s judgement on his society is
MORAL
that is why
he is not convinced a subverted society would be better
he is not willing to subvert the social order
his judgement is never political

9. What about his MORALITY?
Ms I. Marinaro
What about his MORALITY?
A sort of Bible-Christian one.
He backs for:
- the oppressed
- the underdogs
No matter their side. Even for the aristocrats (hated!)
if somehow persecuted.

10. If all people behaved decently, the whole world would be better.
Ms I. Marinaro
He seems to say capitalists ought to be “more human” and
not that workmen should rebel against them!!!
His central message?
The following common-place:
If all people behaved decently, the whole world would be better.

11. Can he see a universal remedy?
YES, HE CAN.
The single person’s goodness
Ms I. Marinaro

12. Dickens eventually wishes a change
in human psyche, not in the social structure.
For him it is utterly useless to change the institutions
if there is not a “change of hearts”.
But …..
…this is the usual pretext of those people
who do not want to change anything.
Ms I. Marinaro

13. ? However Dickens understood something the same Marx undervalued!!!
Ms I. Marinaro
However Dickens understood something the same Marx undervalued!!! ?
We may overturn the system, but there will always be some other tyrant ready to come if the new system has not changed the human nature.

14. He never faces work: we are never told about
Dickens’s themes:
REVENGE
universal ones
SELFISHNESS
AMBITION
LOVE
He never faces work: we are never told about
his characters’ precise working activity
Ms I. Marinaro

15. never pictured as active members of the society
His characters:
never pictured as active members of the society
always in their private life.
static, no evolution
IF they act, melodrama starts
intrigues, coincidences, murders, lost brothers, hidden wills… ALL FULL OF USELESS DETAILS.
Ms I. Marinaro

16. So, we remember Dickens’s details more than dynamic scenes.
Absolute meaningless details, with
no function for the plot.
Ms I. Marinaro

17. What is the final goal of all Dickens’s characters?
to make money
to marry the heroine
to right themselves
to live without any concern
to be good.
Eventually to live in a sort or static idleness.
Ms I. Marinaro

18. They lack of poetry, tragedy, life, sex.
lots of realistic details
Ms I. Marinaro
His characters are :
“types”, not real people
They lack of poetry, tragedy, life, sex.
They do love staying at home
without anything to do.
Everything is protected, quiet and above all domestic.

19. Why can’t we forget his characters?
Just because they are unreal.
They live in a world of unnecessary details, in a rococo atmosphere.
Like a wedding-cake that you may like...
… or not.
Ms I. Marinaro

20. His novels lack of unity.
Doesn’t matter: in Dickens the best part is the fragment, not the whole.
Ms I. Marinaro

21. Differences between Dickens’s characters and Tolstoy’s ones
Ms I. Marinaro
DICKENS:
static, fixed, already perfect
not intelligible outside the English-speaking culture
most likely to impress working/middle class readers
TOLSTOY:
evolve
cross frontiers
complex, most likely to impress upper class / learned intellectuals
Luckily nobody is forced to choose between
a “rose and a sausage”.

22. C O N C L U S I O N S:
In spite of all that, Orwell pictures him as a man about forty, laughing with a slight anger , without triumph or malignity, as a man always in fight in the open, never frightned and generously angry: a “XIX century liberal”, a sort of “free intelligence”, hated by all those “smelly little orthodoxies that are now contending for our souls.”
Ms I. Marinaro