3.2 Nancy’s Pessimism about Her Own Destiny 12

Conclusion 13

Works Cited 16

 An Analysis of Dual Personalities of Nancy in Oliver Twist

Introduction

Critical realism refers to a kind of literary trend of thought and creative method originated in Europe in 19th century. It is formed on the basis of inheriting the realistic literature in the past. As a literary trend, it is considered as the succession and development of the traditional realism. The term “critical realism” is a term summarized by the later generations. Critical realism focuses on the real mode of art, and it highlights that art must reflect life objectively and truly. What’s more, it pays much attention on the description of the relationship between social environments and human beings, working on creating typical characters in a typical environment. 

“From the beginning of the 1830s, as a literary movement, British romantic literature has declined. Critical realism took the place of it and made great achievements.” (Richetti 45) In the 1840s and 1850s, there emerged a number of outstanding critical realistic writers such as Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, and Charlotte Bronte and so on. They exposed social oppression on the humanitarian grounds, and hoped to solve the social problem in the capitalism by improving the society. 

Charles Dickens, born in February, 1812, is the most famous British critical realist. When he was young, although he considered himself a “very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy”, (Foster 215) his early years seemed to be an idyllic time. Dickens did not receive a lot of formal education, and he achieved success basically by self-study. The time of his life and literary creation was Victorian era. During his life, his whole creation and activities always keep the pace of trends. “He exposes the hypocrisy, greed, and ferocity of social upper class by practical technique.” (Luo 136) Besides, with deep sympathy, he describes the miserable and tragic life of the lower class. In his works, he always has “an unbroken faith in people with an entire pessimism about capitalist society”.(Liu Bingshan 354) In addition, he praises human nature’s goodness, and beauty and looks forward to a new society with more reasonable system and a new beautiful life. His early works, such as Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, and A Christmas Carol, are not only humorous and vigorous, but also full of sentiment. The critique and disclosure of England society is confined to the part of the system and the field. After Dombey and Son, his creation becomes more mature. 

Charles Dickens depicts a large number of figures in the middle and lower class, which is unprecedented in previous literary works. He does not use a sermon or a conceptual approach to show his tendency; instead, he always strikes a responsive chord with readers by creating some vividly drawn characters. The characters portrayed by him almost have vivid personalities. Dickens is adept in using artistic exaggeration to display some personalities of characters. He likes to disclose their inner world through their actions, gestures and words. What’s more, he is also clever at drawing people’s language from life. He prefers to show one’s personalities with his typical words.