Dickens' portrayal of children

Abstract

In this study, I have set out to discuss Dickens' portrays of the child characters in his novels. I have chosen to treat those aspects which seemed to me to be representative of the stages in the development of the child figure. Accordingly, I have entitled Part I "The Development of the Child Figure" because it shows how in the early works, Dickens, being a social writer~ concentrated on the child at the centre of ' society and usually eliminated the child's family, so that the I early heroes and heroines are orphans. As he matured, Dickens realized that children were inadequate centres for the complex social and moral structure he was trying to compose. So he removed them from the centre and the children consequently . gained in realism. The child was given more individual attention and his relations with the more intimate members of his circle, especially his parents, were explored in depth. Unsatisfactory relations between parents and children, however, led to the creation of what I have termed "adult-children." Part II deals, with the function of the child as a camera-eye in the novels and as a tool with which the writer attacked the social evils of the day. My main hypothesis, supported by Dickens' writings, is that he deliberately used children in order to gain sympathy for them, thereby hoping to improve their social conditions, especially with regards to child labour and crime. Though his works did not immediately have their desired effect, Dickens must be given the credit for fully exploiting the possibility, afforded by the childish I . point of view he adopted, of viewing the adult's world through the naive, fresh aye of the child, and for portraying children authentically as human beings with their own personal experiences and private worlds.