Theme Analysis of Charles Dickens "Hard Times".

About the author Charles Dickens was born on the 7th of February 1812, in Portsmouth, England. His parents were John and Elizabeth Dickens. Charles was one of eight children, and his father had a rather rough time making ends meet working as a pay clerk in the navy office. This forced the family to move around England until they settled in Camden Town, a poor neighborhood in London. At the age of twelve, Charles worked in a factory that handled "blacking" or shoe polish. While his father was in prison for failure to repay debts, the rest of the family moved to live near the prison, leaving Charles to live alone. This experience of hardship and loneliness was the most significant event of his life and it would later be portrayed in a variety of his novels. Charles went back to school once his father received a heritance and repaid his debts. But in 1827, at age fifteen, he was again forced to leave school and work as an office boy. The year after that he became a freelance reporter and stenographer (using shorthand to transcribe documents) at the law courts of London. By 1832 he had become a reporter for two London newspapers and then began to write a series to other newspapers and magazines, signing some of them "Boz." He finally had these published in 1836 as Sketches by Boz, which would become his first book. Once success became evident, Charles married Catherine

  • Word count: 1753
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
Access this essay

Using Chopin's "The Awakening" as an inspiration for poetry.

The Awakening: commentary From the Victorian era, Chopin startled critics with her tale of a woman’s abortive struggle towards independence in an oppressive society. By using women as her protagonists, Chopin highlights their sexist roles in literature; however she restricts their development through a controlled, authorial third person narrative. It thus seemed conducive to transform The Awakening into a series of English sonnets, revealing the undeveloped characterisation of Edna with Robert, through their separation. Therefore, the audience for my piece would be educated readers who enjoy reading poetry that has a challenging and unconventional form. I shed new light on the short story by elucidating Edna’s role in society through highlighting the narrow and stereotypical way in which women are often portrayed in literature. The short story distances the protagonist from her emotional development, because it is written in the third person narrative. Hence, the form does not offer the opportunity for character expansion in the same way the sonnets do. My transformation moves from a third person, omniscient narrator in the novel to dual first person narrative. For example, Edna openly declares her love for Robert, at the time of her death: “I’m the person who deserves your love.” The narrative voice appears more autonomous in the sonnet because the author’s

  • Word count: 930
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
Access this essay