Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and ForgivenessAttitudes toward punishment and forgiveness in English society of the nineteenth century came, for the most part, out of Christianity. In actual experience the ideal was not often met, but in the literature of the time the model was important. For novelists attempting to tell exciting and dramatic stories, violent and criminal activities played an important role, and, according to convention, had to be corrected through poetic justice or human punishment. Both Dickens' and Thackeray's novels subscribed to the ideal, but dealt with the dilemma it presented in slightly different ways. At a time when a great deal of attention has been directed toward economic production and consumption as the bases for value, Reed's well-documented study reviving moral belief as a legitimate concern for the analysis of nineteenth-century English texts is particularly illuminating. |
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... miserable it is to be ashamed of home , and associates that shame with moral fault . " There may be black ingratitude in the thing , and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved ; but that it is a miserable thing I can ...
... miserable in private " ( 1 : 225 ) . In short , because Thackeray wants to keep in suspension both the forward drive of his narrative as an invented story and his audience's consciousness of his creative effort , both the illusion of ...
... miserable marriage . " Did he not spend a great part of his fortune for the possession of this cold wife ? " ( 11 : 330 ) . And yet the unpleasant people in the novel , seen from a slightly different perspective , go unpunished . After ...
Contents
Attitudes Toward Punishment and Forgiveness | 3 |
Some of the contents of this study appeared elsewhere in different form Mate | 28 |
Education | 30 |
Copyright | |
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