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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... perhaps in irradicable tendencies to anti - social behavior . Cesare Lombroso in Italy was a prominent exponent of the idea of the criminal as a primitive , unevolved human type . Early reformist hopes were by the end of the century ...
... perhaps even polar op- posites , a little examination proves them to be elaborately intertwined . Estella is not an embodiment of a happy household , but the daughter of a convict . The hearth is no haven for Pip , not only because of ...
... perhaps a significant weakness of the novel is that there is too little penetration of the masks , too much reticence . Other novels had scamps like Becky Sharp to puncture other people's pretences . Esmond had what I believe Thackeray ...
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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