As a result, he firmly hated all individuals, institutions, and systems that he regarded as standing in the way of natural human goodness. Dickens kept a strong belief that people, if they were not stifled, would behave with fairness. To bring about improvements, he depended upon the release of the goodness that he felt to be inherent in all human nature. Dickens had little confidence in systems as agencies of good but placed his faith in people. In Hard Times, trade unionism is shown to be loaded with the potential for mischief, in the manner of all oppressive forces when those in power fall prey to corruption and abuse. Dickens looked upon almost all institutions with suspicion, including religious movements. He could not have had such enormous popularity if he had not in a large measure voiced sentiments and values that motivated the readers of his times.

Nor will you find any easy answers or pat solutions.ĭickens's attitudes and themes reflect a general approval of the English state and society. Although he bitterly attacks the defects of existing institutions - government, the law, education, penal systems - and mercilessly exposes the injustice and wretchedness inflicted by them, he does not suggest the overthrow of the established order.

This does not mean Dickens was a propagandist who held forth idealistic goals as cures for the ills of the world. It should, he believed, be directed toward social reform. Oliver Twist is a good illustration of Dickens's belief that the novel should do more than merely entertain. Thus the world of story he created is a mirror in which the truths of the real world are reflected. For him, real life was the springboard for fancy. He had a peculiar talent for exaggeration. Dickens was fascinated by extreme behavior and attitudes. In judging the writer's success, we have to grant his purposes and goal. His accomplishment grows out of a blend of experience and imagination. A novelist, however, communicates his interpretation of life through the medium of fiction. Dickens firmly maintains that the nature and behavior of his seemingly extreme characters reflect truth without distortion, however implausible they may seem.ĭickens is frequently charged with offering a view of the world that exaggerates reality. He considers such misrepresentations as a potentially harmful influence on impressionable minds.

In his preface to Oliver Twist, Dickens emphatically expressed resentment at the practice in popular literature of depicting rogues, like Macheath in The Beggar's Opera, as dashing figures, leading lively and colorful lives.

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