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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... creates an intense pressure toward retribution in the narrative to come , a pres- sure that is both supported and mocked by images of a bound energy that is ulti- mately released publically in the Gordon Riots . Once the theme of murder ...
... creates . In the great scene when she and Carker begin to deal openly with one another , Dickens marks his ... create a mirrored and mirroring cycle of retribution and self - punishment , but set against this maelstrom of requital are ...
... creates , Thackeray constantly calls attention to the fictive nature of the story and of the narrator's involvement in it . But the narrator simultaneously con- tinues the pretence that the story he narrates is independent of him . Near ...
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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