The Life and Adventures of Charles Dickens

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The Life and Adventures of Charles Dickens

• A Gentleman of Great Expectations

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Episode I

• Childhood Bliss/Working-Class Blues

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Act I I Am Born

• Born February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, England,
  second of 8 children
• Father John Dickens, Clerk in the Navy Pay
  Office
• Mother Elizabeth Barrow Dickens, genteel
  daughter of chief official in Navy Pay Office

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Act I I Am Born

• Parents from lower-middle-class but stressed
  gentility
• Maternal Grandfather Fugitive embezzler
• Paternal Grandparents Butler and Housekeeper
  for Lord Crewe

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Act I I Am Born

• John and Elizabeth Dickens lead convivial lives
• John Dickens improvidence leads family deeper
  into debt
• Family moves to increasingly poorer lodgings

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Act II Childhood Bliss

• 1816the Dickens family move to Chatham where
  Charles spends the happiest years of his
  childhood

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Act II Childhood Bliss

• Literary Influences
• Fairy tales The Arabian Nights Entertainments
• Ghost stories/macabre horror stories Mary
  Wellers bedtime stories
• 18th-Century novels Fielding, Smollett, Defoe,
  Cervantes
• Theater family theatricals and visits to the
  Theater Royal

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Act III I Become a Lad of Great Expectations

• Charles is taught to consider himself an
  especially gifted child
• Educated at home by Elizabeth Dickens
• Inspired by John Dickens to become a gentleman
• Educated at school by William Giles

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Act IV Great Expectations Realized?

• Charles family move to London
• Charles boards at William Giles school a few
  months
• Charles travels alone to join his family

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Act IV I Become Neglected and Am Provided For?

• Deep in debt, Charles family send him to pawn
  family possessions
• At age 12, Charles becomes member of working
  class when parents send him to work in blacking
  warehouse

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Act IV I Become Neglected and Am Provided For?

• John Dickens is arrested for debt and family is
  imprisoned in the Marshalsea debtors prison
• Charles lodges alone and supports himself
• Charles is ridiculed by common laboring boys
  but befriended by Bob Fagin

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Act IV I Become Neglected and Am Provided For?

• John Dickens is released from prison
• Recognizing Charles humiliation, John Dickens
  removes him from the warehouse
• Mother wants Charles to return to work, but
  father sends him to school

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Act IV I Become Neglected and Am Provided For?

• Effects of childhood experience
• Sympathy for the poor
• Obsession with figure of abused/abandoned child
• Rage against authority figures indifferent to
  suffering
• Obsession with criminal life

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Act IV I Become Neglected and Am Provided For?

• Effects of childhood experience
• Disgust for societys materialistic values
• Obsession with material success to avoid further
  destitution
• Frantic energy, earnestness, determination to
  work hard and succeed
• Need for adulation and sympathy

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Will our hero recover from his childhood tragedy
and find lasting happiness? Join us for Episode
IILondon Tragedy and Triumph