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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 82
... justice . He argues that most people in modern times suffer from decidophobia , the dread of autonomy . 10 The road to autonomy is blocked by guilt and justice . Kaufmann lists the stages of justice as ( 1 ) conforming to custom , ( 2 ) ...
... justice in A Tale of Two Cities ( 1859 ) . Both En- glish and French legal systems seem more capable of persecuting ... justice with a sense of mercy , but under these requirements it is difficult to assign authority to punish . Christ ...
... justice upon them . Dickens assures us , in describing the triumph of the Boffins ' simple virtue over old Mr. Harmon's selfish greed , that " this is the eternal law . For Evil often stops short at itself and dies with the doer of it ...
Contents
Attitudes Toward Punishment and Forgiveness | 3 |
Some of the contents of this study appeared elsewhere in different form Mate | 28 |
Education | 30 |
Copyright | |
25 other sections not shown