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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... Imagine a governor amidst a population of convicts trusting to high principle . Imagine a parent having no fixed hours , no rules , no law in his household , no pun- ishment for evil ! There is a morbid feeling against punishment ; but ...
... imagine events and conversa- tions that he has not witnessed . At the conclusion of the story the new narrative voice points out that Pendennis had to get his information about Ethel's private experiences from somewhere , and he ...
... imagine , but describe them good or bad , with a like calm . " As though to highlight Pendennis ' tolerant position , Thackeray makes the central character of his novel weak in precisely this regard . One of Philip's chief faults is ...
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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