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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... value of infant life correspondingly rose " ( 187 ) . Infanticide , to us a hideous crime , appears to change its ... values about infanticide were ab- sorbed by the lower classes , but the laws instituted by middle - class ideology ...
... value ; but it may be the power to do good as well as evil , it may represent the values of charity and kindness as well as selfishness and pride . Money as such is neutral , but it facilitates malicious or be- nevolent action ...
... value of earning one's own way and , as he well knows afterward , his speculating against Doyce's injunction is a betrayal of those values . At the same time , much more must be stripped from Arthur . He has had vain hopes about human ...
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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