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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... knowledge of evil is kept from you " ( 4 : 435 ) . Pen's assertion is more significant than he can suppose , for the narrator has established a context in which even the paragon , Laura , has had her lapse and her secret . But this ...
... knowledge too . It lies behind that irony he wears like a cloak he cannot remove " ( 113 ) . But if Beatrix has this part of Thackeray's and Esmond's knowledge — if she has beforehand a knowledge that Thackeray and Esmond ac- quire ...
... knowledge . In principle , the external focalizer ( or narrator - focalizer ) knows everything about the represented world , and when he restricts his knowledge , he does so out of rhetorical considerations ( like the at- tempt to ...
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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