WEBVTT

00:00:07.828 --> 00:00:11.936
The starving orphan seeking 
a second helping of gruel.

00:00:11.936 --> 00:00:15.591
The spinster wasting away 
in her tattered wedding dress.

00:00:15.591 --> 00:00:20.468
The stone-hearted miser plagued 
by the ghost of Christmas past.

00:00:20.468 --> 00:00:22.676
More than a century after his death,

00:00:22.676 --> 00:00:27.358
these remain recognizable figures
from the work of Charles Dickens.

00:00:27.358 --> 00:00:32.067
So striking is his body of work 
that it gave rise to its own adjective.

00:00:32.067 --> 00:00:36.879
But what are the features of Dickens's
writing that make it so special?

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:36.879 --> 00:00:39.528
Dickens’s fiction brims with anticipation

00:00:39.528 --> 00:00:43.539
through brooding settings, 
plot twists, and mysteries.

00:00:43.539 --> 00:00:46.938
These features of his work kept
his audience wanting more.

00:00:46.938 --> 00:00:50.286
When first published, 
his stories were serialized,

00:00:50.286 --> 00:00:55.515
meaning they were released a few chapters
at a time in affordable literary journals

00:00:55.515 --> 00:00:58.621
and only later reprinted as books.

00:00:58.621 --> 00:01:01.621
This prompted fevered speculation
over the cliffhangers

00:01:01.621 --> 00:01:04.412
and revelations he devised.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:04.412 --> 00:01:08.116
Serialization not only made fiction
available to a wider audience

00:01:08.116 --> 00:01:09.623
and kept them reading,

00:01:09.623 --> 00:01:13.407
but increased the hype
around the author himself.

00:01:13.407 --> 00:01:16.955
Dickens became particularly popular
for his wit,

00:01:16.955 --> 00:01:21.225
which he poured into quirky characters
and satiric scenarios.

00:01:21.225 --> 00:01:24.996
His characters exhibit the sheer
absurdity of human behavior,

00:01:24.996 --> 00:01:29.438
and their names often personify
traits or social positions,

00:01:29.438 --> 00:01:31.966
like the downtrodden Bob Cratchit,

00:01:31.966 --> 00:01:33.997
the groveling Uriah Heep,

00:01:33.997 --> 00:01:37.786
and the cheery Septimus Crisparkle.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:37.786 --> 00:01:42.095
Dickens set these colorful characters
against intricate social backdrops,

00:01:42.095 --> 00:01:44.623
which mimic the society he lived in.

00:01:44.623 --> 00:01:46.257
For instance, he often considered

00:01:46.257 --> 00:01:49.276
the changes brought about 
by the Industrial Revolution.

00:01:49.276 --> 00:01:50.647
During this period,

00:01:50.647 --> 00:01:55.207
the lower classes experienced 
sordid working and living conditions.

00:01:55.207 --> 00:01:58.620
Dickens himself experienced 
this hardship as a child

00:01:58.620 --> 00:02:01.850
when he was forced to work in
a boot blacking factory

00:02:01.850 --> 00:02:05.061
after his father was sent 
to debtors' prison.

00:02:05.061 --> 00:02:09.518
This influenced his depiction
of the Marshalsea prison in Little Dorrit,

00:02:09.518 --> 00:02:13.868
where the titular character cares
for her convict father.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:13.868 --> 00:02:18.310
Prisons, orphanages, or slums
may seem grim settings for a story,

00:02:18.310 --> 00:02:20.300
but they allowed Dickens to shed light

00:02:20.300 --> 00:02:24.080
on how his society's 
most invisible people lived.

00:02:24.080 --> 00:02:25.449
In Nicholas Nickleby,

00:02:25.449 --> 00:02:29.270
Nicholas takes a job with the schoolmaster
Wackford Squeers.

00:02:29.270 --> 00:02:33.101
He soon realizes that Squeers
is running a scam

00:02:33.101 --> 00:02:36.544
where he takes unwanted children
from their parents for a fee

00:02:36.544 --> 00:02:39.849
and subjects them to violence
and deprivation.

00:02:39.849 --> 00:02:43.979
Oliver Twist also deals with the plight 
of children in the care of the state,

00:02:43.979 --> 00:02:46.490
illustrating the brutal conditions of
the workhouse

00:02:46.490 --> 00:02:50.040
in which Oliver pleads
with Mr. Bumble for food.

00:02:50.040 --> 00:02:55.090
When he flees to London, he becomes
ensnared in a criminal underworld.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:55.090 --> 00:02:57.860
These stories frequently portray
Victorian life

00:02:57.860 --> 00:03:00.190
as grimy, corrupt, and cruel.

00:03:00.190 --> 00:03:03.760
But Dickens also saw his time
as one in which old traditions

00:03:03.760 --> 00:03:05.658
were fading away.

00:03:05.658 --> 00:03:08.541
London was becoming
the incubator of the modern world

00:03:08.541 --> 00:03:12.591
through new patterns in industry,
trade, and social mobility.

00:03:12.591 --> 00:03:16.131
Dickens's London is therefore
a dualistic space:

00:03:16.131 --> 00:03:21.368
a harsh world that is simultaneously
filled with wonder and possibility.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:21.368 --> 00:03:24.107
For instance, the enigma 
of Great Expectations

00:03:24.107 --> 00:03:26.521
centers around the potential of Pip,

00:03:26.521 --> 00:03:30.061
an orphan plucked from obscurity
by an anonymous benefactor

00:03:30.061 --> 00:03:32.700
and propelled into high society.

00:03:32.700 --> 00:03:34.289
In his search for purpose,

00:03:34.289 --> 00:03:37.690
Pip becomes the victim 
of other people’s ambitions for him

00:03:37.690 --> 00:03:40.817
and must negotiate with 
a shadowy cast of characters.

00:03:40.817 --> 00:03:43.250
Like many of Dickens’s protagonists,

00:03:43.250 --> 00:03:46.769
poor Pip's position 
is constantly destabilized,

00:03:46.769 --> 00:03:49.278
just one of the reasons 
why reading Dickens

00:03:49.278 --> 00:03:51.269
is the best of times for the reader,

00:03:51.269 --> 00:03:54.765
while being the worst of times 
for his characters.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:54.765 --> 00:03:58.719
Dickens typically offered clear 
resolution by the end of his novels,

00:03:58.719 --> 00:04:02.449
– with the exception of
The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

00:04:02.449 --> 00:04:07.390
The novel details the disappearance of the
orphan Edwin under puzzling circumstances.

00:04:07.390 --> 00:04:10.429
However, Dickens died before the novel 
was finished

00:04:10.429 --> 00:04:13.619
and left no notes resolving the mystery.

00:04:13.619 --> 00:04:18.761
Readers continue to passionately debate 
over who Dickens intended as the murderer,

00:04:18.761 --> 00:04:23.560
and whether Edwin Drood 
was even murdered in the first place.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:25.111
Throughout many adaptations,

00:04:25.111 --> 00:04:26.260
literary homages,

00:04:26.260 --> 00:04:27.866
and the pages of his novels,

00:04:27.866 --> 00:04:31.285
Dickens’s sparkling language
and panoramic worldview

00:04:31.285 --> 00:04:33.460
continue to resonate.

00:04:33.460 --> 00:04:35.340
Today, the adjective Dickensian

00:04:35.340 --> 00:04:38.592
often implies squalid working 
or living conditions.

00:04:38.592 --> 00:04:43.127
But to describe a novel as
Dickensian is typically high praise,

00:04:43.127 --> 00:04:46.931
as it suggests a story in which true 
adventure and discovery

00:04:46.931 --> 00:04:49.722
occur in the most unexpected places.

00:04:49.722 --> 00:04:52.512
Although he often explored bleak material,

00:04:52.512 --> 00:04:57.972
Dickens’s piercing wit never failed
to find light in the darkest corners.