In what way does Charles Dickens win the sympathy of his readers for the children in his novels?

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16/2/2002

GCSE Coursework

“The novels of Charles Dickens often show children as victims of uncaring, unsympathetic and often brutal adults who are charged with their upbringing and education

In what way does Charles Dickens win the sympathy of his readers for the children in his novels?”

        A man born in the Victorian era in a working class family and environment, who had to work himself up from a working class child to a well-known figure that he is today. A man that is seen as a literary supreme, he is the senior of all the literary writers of his age. The period and circumstances have lead to the man being seen as a intelligent and unusual man in the field of literary work.

        Charles Dickens shows his uncanny way of making people feel sorry (feel sympathy) for a group or section of a population. For example his usage of words in the way he uses them.

“They were very long, very numerous, very hard- perfect unintelligible” This is from the Charles Dickens book David Copperfield and it is being read by David about the work that Miss Murdstone had been giving him. The quote is quite complicated but uses 3 various sections all showing how much David Copperfield dreaded the lessons that Miss Murdstone gave him.

        In Charles Dickens work it is usually the children who gain sympathy. Charles Dickens does this in quite a few ways.  

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        Through exaggeration of a characters description. This technique he uses and sometimes makes you feel hatred or even anger against a character or even a group of characters.

        I have read one book where I found the above technique was being used and to a great extent, it was in ‘Great Expectations’, there is a section where Pip is having Christmas with the Mr Joe, Mr & Mrs Wopsle and Uncle Pumblechook. To put it simple he has a meal where he is treated badly, with no respect even for the standards of how children were treated during he Victorian ...

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