Dickensian

Hardly any history book depicts nineteenth-century England better than Charles Dickens's novels. Although his Oliver Twist or Little Dorrit are by no means fictional characters, thousands of impoverished workers and children from that period could easily identify with them.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) understood the plight of the English poor like hardly any other writer. Born into a struggling family of eight children, Dickens had to take up a job at the age of 12. Few expected that this shoeshiner would grow to be the most acclaimed chronicler of his times. He debuted in 1837 with Pickwick Papers, but it would be two more years until Oliver Twist, a touching story of an orphan fighting for life, was published and Dickens became a well-known novelist. When he died on June 9, 1870, the entire literary world mourned the great artist.

Because Dickens's novels, humorous as they are, present England as a country of ineffable poverty, his name now symbolizes those harsh conditions. The adjective “Dickensian” is, in the words of the Oxford English Dictionary, “reminiscent of the novels of Charles Dickens, especially in terms of the urban poverty that they portray.” Another source expands the definition to any “poverty, distress, and exploitation.”

Although children are not forced to work anymore – at least not in the developed world – “Dickensian” remains widely used. Reviewing Richard Rhodes's A Hole in the World, the New York Times wonders how the writer, orphaned in the early years, “survived this Dickensian upbringing.” In fact, Dickens and Rhodes could find many similarities in their biographies – both had to work to survive in their youth and both established themselves as unrivaled critics of their times.

Within the decades, however, the eponym has lost some of its original strength. Modern journalists use it more often not only to denote tough conditions of slums, but also to complain about less appalling problems. Christopher Dickey of Newsweek, for example, stated recently that “Flying today is a Dickensian affair: lines, cramped conditions and sharp divides between have and have-nots.” If crammed airports were Oliver Twist's only problems!

Nineteenth-century England was far from perfect. But even in this cruel reality, Charles Dickens always found a few individuals who miraculously saved unfortunate heroes. After all, Dickens wouldn't be himself if he hadn't given his books happy endings, and this too, is part of the Dickensian world.