The Childhood of Charles Dickens Essay -- Biography Biographies Essays

The Childhood of Charles Dickens I do not write resentfully or angrily for I know all these things have worked together to make me what I am - Charles Dickens Charles Dickenss tumultuous childhood did indeed work the person he became, as well as have a definite impact on his literary career. There are shades of puppylike Dickens in many of his most beloved characters, including David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and of course, Great Expectations Pip. Like Dickens, all three of these characters came from humble beginnings and were able to rise above their respective muckle to achieve success. Similarly, Dickens literary success is owed in large part to his unhappy childhood experiences. He did not merely overcome his past, he triumphed over it by incorporating it into best-selling works of art. Drawing on these events not only provided a cathartic release from childhood traumas, it also modernized the classic rags-to-riches success story. When equivalence Di ckens childhood to Great Expectations, it becomes apparent not only how these formative years influenced his literary career by inspiring many of the characters and themes predominant in the novel, only when also how Dickens used his work as a form of therapeutic release from childhood tensions. Charles Dickens childhood and young adulthood was definitely fill up with enough drama to base a novel upon. Born February 7, 1812, to John Dickens, a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, and his wife Elizabeth, Charles spent his earlier years in the English seaport town of Portsmouth. The first years of his life were idyllic enough, alt... ... safe way. He did not have to confront the tribe and events that shaped him directly, he could do it through characters such as Pip. He was well-acquainted with the themes that run throughout the novel because he experienced them in his own life. His first-hand experience of such feelings as guilt, betrayal and personal redemp tion added an authenticity to his fiction that would be difficult for authors without such a history to duplicate. Works Cited Allen, Michael. Charles Dickens Childhood. Basingstoke, Hampshire Macmillan, 1988. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. 1861. Ed. Janice Carlisle. capital of Massachusetts Bedford, 1996. Forster, John. The Life of Charles Dickens. New York Bigelow, 1876. Kaplan, Fred. Dickens A Biography. New York Morrow, 1988.