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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... Crime in England , Its Relation , Charac- ter , and Extent as developed from 1801 to 1848 ( 1851 ) that there existed a separate criminal class , not identifiable with the lower classes , but professional in na- ture.10 Recent studies ...
... crime he is haunted by Nancy's phantom . Bill's feverish excursion bears a very strong re- semblance to the earlier leisurely trip that he and his gang make with Oliver to commit the burglary at the Maylie house . It is as though our ...
... crime of the narrative present to the reader . Moreover , the subplot involving Ned Chester , his father , Mr. John Chester , Emma Haredale , and her father keeps the theme of the haunted Warren alive in the context not of crime , but ...
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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