The Development Of Charles Dickens' View On Humanity －As Seen In The Magnum Opus Of His Three Literary Stages

Charles Dickens is among the most outstanding novelists of the 19th century in England with a remarkable productivity of works. Focusing on different aspects of Victorian England, these works are characterized by the author's criticism of the bourgeois society, the advocacy of his moral values and a probe into the depth of human nature.This thesis tries to explore Dickens'probe into human nature, to explore the development and formation of his view on humanity. To achieve this purpose, three works, which are considered as Dickens'most autobiographical novels, are selected to be analyzed. And these works, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Great Expectations, are produced at three different stages in Dickens'writing career.During the span covering 30 years of writing from his instant success in 1837 to his sudden pass-away in 1870, Dickens'view on humanity had undergone a changing with three stages: in the first stage, he is prematurely optimistic about human nature; in the second stage, he falls into perplexity and confusion about human nature and works painfully to find the truth; and in the final stage, a comparatively mature humanity view comes into being. With his unrelenting criticism of the distorted and ugly bourgeois society, Dickens fosters a fervent aspiration for the return of pure and nice humanity.In addition to the introduction and conclusion, this thesis is composed of three chapters.The introduction is a summary of previous studies on Dickens and his works. Also, this part clarifies the method and purpose of this study.The first chapter demonstrates Dickens'prematurely optimistic view on humanity in his early writing career by analyzing Oliver Twist. The first section of this chapter describes Oliver's unique orphan image and his distinguished humanity as the hero of the novel. Oliver is born and fostered in a brutal and inhuman workhouse and receives neither proper education nor any rightful moral guidance from anyone near him. But he just stays pure even when he is trapped in the ugliest thieves'den. The second section contains an analysis of many perfect bourgeois characters in the novel and various ideal moral concepts they represent, only to prove that this superhuman humanity Dickens bestows on Oliver can only be a fantasy in Victorian England, a time in which class-consciousness is deeply rooted in people's mind and the worship for money thrives. The third section presents an analytical thinking about the good and nice humanity that lies in the ugly thieves'den headed by Fagin, accentuating Dickens'great but immature belief that good humanity can survive extreme adversity.The second chapter brings forth Dickens'loss in his optimism and discusses his confusion about human nature by analyzing David Copperfield, the magnum opus of the second period of his writing career. The first section of this chapter focuses on David's hearty confession on his confusion about familial affection, love and friendship. This actually elucidates the author's own suspicion about the alleged existence of good humanity. In other words, David, the hero in the novel, has become the spokesman for the author himself in uttering his own sense of confusion and loss. The second section of this chapter diverts to focus on various forms of humanity that are simply hard to ascertain in different novelistic characters. With a disclosure of the duplicity seen in the many characters and the illusions they create, Dickens points out furthermore his own confusion as for what a real humanity should be.The third chapter goes further to explore the last stage of Dickens'development in his view on humanity, taking the most outstanding work in the later period of his writing, Great Expectations, as the target of analysis. A close reading of this masterpiece illuminates that Dickens achieves a much more mature stance on humanity. While still fostering a fervent dream and praise for good and nice humanity, he now achieves a deeper and thorough awareness of the status quo in the bourgeois society. This consequently leads to his fierce criticism and debunking of all sorts of distorted humanity. The first section of this chapter reveals the purity-corruption process of Pip's humanity, and probes the reasons that bring about such deterioration. This process illustrates Dickens'severe criticism on the loss of humanity caused by the decadent bourgeois society and reflects his doubt about the existence of pure humanity. This kind of criticism is furthermore manifested in the second section, in which those distorted humanities are analyzed. The author of this thesis here points out two main factors that lead to human nature distortion– patriarchal value and insatiable material hunger. By penetrating into the depth of human nature, Dickens, in his last stage of writing, further delivers to the readers his denouncement of bourgeois humanity. The third section makes an analysis of final return of true humanity in Pip, which better illustrates Dickens'dream and life-long effort for pure humanity.Last comes the concluding part of this thesis. This part of the study summarizes Dickens'demonstration of human nature in his three novels and draws the following conclusion: Dickens'view on humanity takes on a developing course that coincides with the three stages of his writing career—from innocent optimism on humanity to extreme confusion about himself and the society as well, and then come to form his exclusive view on humanity. The maturity can be seen in the coexistence of a good-will longing for true and nice humanity with bold and sharp criticism of false bourgeois humanity. It is this great achievement in successfully defining the good humanity and criticizing the false bourgeois humanity that gives prominence to Dickens'writing career, and furthermore establishes his exclusive importance in world literature as a master of critical realism.