CHARLES DICKENS: LITERARY TECHNIQUES

Emma García Bértoa

LITERARY STYLE

Sense of humour

Detailed

descriptions

Episodic

writing

Satire

Exaggeration

Cliff-hanging endings

Storytelling

LITERARY STYLE

Dickens was once a newspaper reporter. Actually,

most of Dickens's greatest novels were first written

in monthly or weekly instalments in journals. His

novels are filled with real personalities and vivid

physical descriptions.  Dickens is also well-known

for his exaggeration.

LITERARY STYLE

Dickens is famous for packing his novels with social

commentaries. He targets the injustices of the

nineteenth century, namely, poor houses, boys’

boarding schools, the lack of education for women,

the tyrannies of family life, the over reliance on

alcohol, and the effects of poverty.

Plot

• Cliffhanger

Style

• Polysyndeton• Satire

Theme

• Symbolism • Irony• Character foil• Metaphor

Genre

• Bildungsroman

LITERARY TECHNIQUES

CLIFFHANGER

The end of the narrative is not solved. This takes the

audience to a future episode for the conclusion.

Dickens' novels were serial novels, a popular

publishing type in Victorian times, meaning that they

were published chapter-by-chapter, in magazines, over the

course of several months or years. This is why, even when

reprinted in traditional book format, each chapter's ending

still ends with a new mystery or twist. (The Book Club)

POLYSINDETON

To provide a sense of exaggeration Dickens uses

several conjunctions in close succession.

  A man who had been soaked in water, and

smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints,

and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped,

and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose

teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

(Great Expectations, chapter 1).

SATIRE

A way of using humor that shows the weaknesses or bad qualities of

a person, government, society, etc. (Merriam Webster)

That, for these reasons, the jury, being a loyal jury (as he knew

they were), and being a responsible jury (as THEY knew they were),

must positively find the prisoner Guilty, and make an end of him,

whether they liked it or not. That, they never could lay their heads upon

their pillows; (…); in short, that there never more could be, for

them or theirs, any laying of heads upon pillows at all, unless the

prisoner's head was taken off. (Great Expectations, chapter 3).

SYMBOLISM

Artistic imitation or invention that is a method of

revealing or suggesting immaterial, ideal, or otherwise

intangible truth or states. (Merriam Webster).

The guillotine, (…), is one of the enduring symbols

of the French Revolution. In Tale of Two Cities, the

guillotine symbolizes how revolutionary chaos gets

institutionalized. (LitCharts)

IRONY

The use of words to express something other than and

especially the opposite of the literal meaning. (Merriam

Webster)

The medical gentleman walked away to dinner;

and the nurse, having once more applied herself to the

green bottle, sat down on a low chair before the fire,

and proceeded to dress the infant. (Oliver Twist, chapter 1).

CHARACTER FOIL

In literature, a foil is a character that shows qualities that

are in contrast with the qualities of another character

with the objective to highlight the traits of the other

character. (Literary Devices).

In A Tale of Two Cities, Madame Defarge, the main

female character, looks like a compliant and innocent

grandma. However, she is ruthless. On the other hand,

her nurse, Miss Pross is respectable and loyal.

METAPHOR

A figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally

denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of

another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them.

(Merriam Webster).

In a Tale of Two Cities Using the wine that spills into the

streets early in the novel as a metaphor for the blood spilled in

the revolution serves a practical purpose: the Defarges run a

wine shop. The Defarges are the hub of revolutionary activity. It

all fits together neatly. (Shmoop)

BILDUNGSROMAN

A novel about the moral and psychological growth of

the main character. (Merriam Webster).

Oliver Twist or Great Expectations are

examples of a bildungsroman narrative.

BIBLIOGRAFÍA

Merriam Webster Online. Recuperado de: http://www.merriam-

webster.com/

The Book Club. Literary Terms. Recuperado de: http://www.pfspublishing.com/bookclub/literary-definitions/

Shmoop. Wine Blood in Tale of Two Cities. Recuperado de: http://www.shmoop.com/tale-of-two-cities/wine-blood-symbol.html

LitCharts . A Tale of Two Cities Symbols. Recuperado de:

http://www.litcharts.com/lit/a-tale-of-two-cities/symbols