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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... position is stressed by a secondary manifestation of his bad conscience , showing that part of his sin is his preoccupation with himself . When he hears the mob moving through Newgate , he is so engrossed with his own position as a ...
Punishment and Forgiveness John Robert Reed. schemes for bettering social conditions . His own position is clear . " The novelist as it appears to us , ought to be a non - combatant " ( 74 ) . This position , taken early , remains ...
... position , which asserts that the indignities that attend those who transgress " ought to be a lesson to a man to keep himself straight in life , and not to give any man a chance over him " ( 4 : 351 ) . This is a strictly selfish and ...
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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