Charles Dickens - Great Expectations

3. HOW DICKENS WRITES

It will really help us if we think first about how Dickens wrote.

Dickens loved to describe the world in great detail. He piled up words, making long lists of details, often repeating the same connecting phrase again and again to give his passages urgency. This was partly because many of his books were written in serial form, an episode a week, for which he was paid so much a word. He loved adjectives – often describing things in new and imaginative ways.

After he became famous, Dickens gave readings of his books to lady’s literary groups. So his writing was sentimental, designed to tug the heart-strings of wealthy women. His books were designed to be read out loud, and the words have a rhythm which sometimes makes them sound more like poetry than prose.

Dickens is famous for his use of metaphor and simile. His descriptions, often present people, their surroundings and even the weather in ways which mirror each other, so that a certain ‘feel’ is built up and reinforced through the passage.

One interesting feature of Dickens's writing is the care he took with names. Click here to read about how and why Dickens chose the names he used in Great Expectations.

Look at these passages from different Dickens books:

Source A Dickens description a boat ride on the River Thames

[We sailed] among the tiers of shipping, in and out, avoiding rusty chain-cables, frayed hempen hawsers and bobbing buoys, scattering floating chips of wood and shaving, cleaving floating scum of coal, in and out, hammers going in ship-builders' yards, saws going at timber, clashing engines going at things unknown, pumps going in leaky ships, ships going out to sea, and unintelligible sea-creatures roaring curses, in and out….

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1861)

Source B Dickens description of poor London women at Covent Garden

Such stale vapid rejected cabbage-leaf and cabbage-stalk dress, such damaged-orange countenance, such squashed pulp of humanity, are open to the day nowhere else.

Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (1865)

Source C Dickens description of a Whitechapel slum – ‘Seven Dials’

The stranger who finds himself in 'The Dials' for the first time will see enough around him to keep his curiosity and attention awake for no inconsiderable time. From the irregular square into which he has plunged, the streets and courts dart in all directions, until they are lost in the unwholesome vapour which hangs over the house-tops, and renders the dirty perspective uncertain and confined. And lounging at every corner, as if they came there to take a few gasps of such fresh air as has found its way so far, but is too much exhausted already, to be enabled to force itself into the narrow alleys around, are groups of people, whose appearance and dwellings would fill any mind but a regular Londoner's with astonishment…

He traverses streets of dirty, straggling houses, with now and then an unexpected court composed of buildings as ill-proportioned and deformed as the half-naked children that wallow in the gutters. Here and there, a low dingy public-house; long rows of broken and patched windows expose plants that may have flourished when 'the Dials' were built, in vessels as dirty as 'the Dials' themselves; and shops for the purchase of rags, bones, old iron, and kitchen-stuff, vie in cleanliness with the bird-fanciers and rabbit-dealers. Brokers' shops, which would seem to have been established by humane individuals, as refuges for destitute bugs, interspersed with announcements of day-schools, penny theatres, petition-writers, mangles, and music for balls; and dirty men, filthy women, squalid children, bad fruit, more than doubtful oysters, attenuated cats, depressed dogs, and anatomical fowls, are its cheerful accompaniments.

Charles Dickens, Scenes and Characters No.1 in Bell's Life in London (September 1835)

Think about it:

1. Read Sources B–D two or three times each. Can you find examples in the Sources where Dickens:

· makes a long list of details (often repeating the same connecting phrase again and again).

· uses adjectives (sometimes unusual adjectives) to describe something or someone.

· gets sentimental about the sufferings of the poor.

2. Study Source B. Explain how Dickens describes the people, the place and the air in the same way – what effect does he create for the reader about the Dials.

3. ‘His words have a rhythm which sometimes makes them sound like poetry’. From Sources B–D, find a particularly pleasant-sounding and rhythmic passage, and practise reading it out loud with a friend.

(text and tasks from John D Clare, Britain 1750-1900 (Hodder Investigating History, 2003)

	Charles Dickens - Great Expectations 3. HOW DICKENS WRITES It will really help us if we think first about how Dickens wrote. Dickens loved to describe the world in great detail. He piled up words, making long lists of details, often repeating the same connecting phrase again and again to give his passages urgency. This was partly because many of his books were written in serial form, an episode a week, for which he was paid so much a word. He loved adjectives – often describing things in new and imaginative ways. After he became famous, Dickens gave readings of his books to lady’s literary groups. So his writing was sentimental, designed to tug the heart-strings of wealthy women. His books were designed to be read out loud, and the words have a rhythm which sometimes makes them sound more like poetry than prose. Dickens is famous for his use of metaphor and simile. His descriptions, often present people, their surroundings and even the weather in ways which mirror each other, so that a certain ‘feel’ is built up and reinforced through the passage. One interesting feature of Dickens's writing is the care he took with names. Click here to read about how and why Dickens chose the names he used in Great Expectations. Look at these passages from different Dickens books: Source A Dickens description a boat ride on the River Thames [We sailed] among the tiers of shipping, in and out, avoiding rusty chain-cables, frayed hempen hawsers and bobbing buoys, scattering floating chips of wood and shaving, cleaving floating scum of coal, in and out, hammers going in ship-builders' yards, saws going at timber, clashing engines going at things unknown, pumps going in leaky ships, ships going out to sea, and unintelligible sea-creatures roaring curses, in and out…. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1861) Source B Dickens description of poor London women at Covent Garden Such stale vapid rejected cabbage-leaf and cabbage-stalk dress, such damaged-orange countenance, such squashed pulp of humanity, are open to the day nowhere else. Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (1865) Source C Dickens description of a Whitechapel slum – ‘Seven Dials’ The stranger who finds himself in 'The Dials' for the first time will see enough around him to keep his curiosity and attention awake for no inconsiderable time. From the irregular square into which he has plunged, the streets and courts dart in all directions, until they are lost in the unwholesome vapour which hangs over the house-tops, and renders the dirty perspective uncertain and confined. And lounging at every corner, as if they came there to take a few gasps of such fresh air as has found its way so far, but is too much exhausted already, to be enabled to force itself into the narrow alleys around, are groups of people, whose appearance and dwellings would fill any mind but a regular Londoner's with astonishment… He traverses streets of dirty, straggling houses, with now and then an unexpected court composed of buildings as ill-proportioned and deformed as the half-naked children that wallow in the gutters. Here and there, a low dingy public-house; long rows of broken and patched windows expose plants that may have flourished when 'the Dials' were built, in vessels as dirty as 'the Dials' themselves; and shops for the purchase of rags, bones, old iron, and kitchen-stuff, vie in cleanliness with the bird-fanciers and rabbit-dealers. Brokers' shops, which would seem to have been established by humane individuals, as refuges for destitute bugs, interspersed with announcements of day-schools, penny theatres, petition-writers, mangles, and music for balls; and dirty men, filthy women, squalid children, bad fruit, more than doubtful oysters, attenuated cats, depressed dogs, and anatomical fowls, are its cheerful accompaniments. Charles Dickens, Scenes and Characters No.1 in Bell's Life in London (September 1835) Think about it: 1. Read Sources B–D two or three times each. Can you find examples in the Sources where Dickens: · makes a long list of details (often repeating the same connecting phrase again and again). · uses adjectives (sometimes unusual adjectives) to describe something or someone. · gets sentimental about the sufferings of the poor. 2. Study Source B. Explain how Dickens describes the people, the place and the air in the same way – what effect does he create for the reader about the Dials. 3. ‘His words have a rhythm which sometimes makes them sound like poetry’. From Sources B–D, find a particularly pleasant-sounding and rhythmic passage, and practise reading it out loud with a friend. (text and tasks from John D Clare, Britain 1750-1900 (Hodder Investigating History, 2003)

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