LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 16:12 December 2016
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Human Relationships in Charles Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend

K. Shantikumar Sharma, M. A., Research Scholar
Dr. H. Shimreingam, M.A., M. Phil., Ph.D.


Abstract

Charles Dickens, the top novelist of the Victorian Age created human relationships and took keen interest in portraying the life of London city and also its pleasure in his novels. Various kinds of relationships i.e. the relationship between lovers, relationship between Master and servant, the relationship between caretaker and boarders, relationship between friends, etc. are dealt with in the novel. He himself had the experiences of life of the London streets for which he was regarded as the first genuine story teller of London life. He not only came up precisely at the right time in the history of English novel on the literary side but also on the other social issues. In his novels he brought about all classes of people living in different social strata which London city had during the reign of Queen Victoria and relationships between individuals. The novelist tactfully sketched all sections of society including women and children who struggled for existence and survival for fittest in the London society. And he never tries to modify the facts to go well with the existing standards of society. The paper talks about Dickens’ human relationships and see how he keeps the relationships among the characters which might have existed in the Victorian society.

Keywords: Charles Dickens, Victorian Age, London streets, portrayal, human relationship, struggle, survival for fittest.

Introduction

Charles Dickens was born on 7 February 1812. His mother taught him privately. The novels which he obtained from his father includes: Roderick Random, Humphry Clinker, Tom Jones, The Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, etc. When the family faced with financial crunch, a friend of John Dickens offered his son, Charles Dickens work in a blacking business at Hungerford Stairs where Charles started work at the age of twelve, labeling bottles for six shillings a week. There he suffered unbearable mental torture for the unskilled work of washing and labeling blacking bottles. When John Dickens was taken to the Marshalsea Debtor’s Prison for debt, Charles Dickens spent his Sundays with his father in the prison and on other days at the warehouse as usual. After three months of imprisonment, his Charles’s father was released on receipt of a bequest from his mother, who died leaving an amount of four hundred and fifty pounds for him. Some weeks later, John Dickens withdrew Charles from his work and sent him to school. Again at age fifteen, Charles Dickens began to work in the office of a firm of Gray’s Inn attorneys. These painful experiences of life form background for the creation of his many children characters. Meanwhile he taught himself shorthand and started working as a freelance reporter in the court of Doctors’ Commons.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

K. Shantikumar Sharma, M. A.
Research Scholar
Department of English
Himalayan University,
Arunachal Pradesh
skongbrai@gmail.com

Dr. H. Shimreingam
Assistant Professor
Pettigrew College
Samsai, Ukhrul 795142
Manipur
India
hungyoshimreingam@gmail.com

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