霧都孤兒英文讀后感
《霧都孤兒》是英國作家狄更斯于1838年出版的長篇寫實小說。以下是小編帶來的霧都孤兒英文讀后感，希望對你有幫助。
About the author
Charles Dickens is a English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens's works are characterized by attacks on social evils, injustice, and hypocrisy. He had also experienced in his youth oppression, when he was forced to end school in early teens and work in a factory. Dickens's good, bad, and comic characters, such as the cruel miser Scrooge, the aspiring novelist David Copperfield, or the trusting and innocent Mr. Pickwick, have fascinated generations of readers. Charles Dickens was born in Landport, Hampshire, during the new industrial age, which gave birth to theories of Karl Marx. Dickens's father was a clerk in the navy pay office. He was well paid but often ended in financial troubles. In 1814 Dickens moved to London, and then to Chatham, where he received some education. The schoolmaster William Giles gave special attention to Dickens, who made rapid progress. In 1824, at the age of 12, Dickens was sent to work for some months at a blacking factory, Hungerford Market, London, while his father John was in Marshalea debtor's prison. "My father and mother were quite satisfied," Dickens later recalled bitterly. "They could hardly have been more so, if I had been twenty years of age, distinguished at a grammar-school, and going to Cambridge." Later this period found its way to the novel LITTLE DORRITT (1855-57). John Dickens paid his £40 debt with the money he inherited from his mother; she died at the age of seventy-nine when he was still in prison. Dickens's sharp ear for conversation helped him to create colorful characters through their own words. The publisher, William Hall, now commissioned Dickens to write The Pickwick Papers in twenty monthly installments. This was followed by Oliver Twist, published in Bentley's Miscellany (1837-38) and Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39), also published
monthly. Dickens was now the most popular writer in Britain and over the next few years he wrote a series of popular novels including The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1), Barnaby Rudge (1841), Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4) and A Christmas Carol (1843).
Background(oliver twist)
Oliver Twist is notable for Dickens' unromantic portrayal of criminals and their sordid lives.[1] The book also exposed the cruel treatment of many a waif-child in London, which increased international concern in what is sometimes known as "The Great London Waif Crisis". This was the astounding number of orphans in London in the Dickens era. The book's subtitle, The Parish Boy's Progress alludes to Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and also to a pair of popular 18th-century caricature series by William Hogarth, "A Rake's Progress" and "A Harlot's Progress".
An early example of the social novel, the book calls the public's attention to various contemporary evils, including the Poor Law that stated that poor people should work in workhouses, child labour and the recruitment of children as criminals. Dickens mocks the hypocrisies of the time by surrounding the novel's serious themes with sarcasm and dark humour. The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose account of his hardships as a child labourer in a cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s. Obviously, Dickens' own early youth—he was vulnerable, and a child labourer—must have also entered.
Introduction
In Oliver Twist, Dickens mixes grim realism, and merciless satire as a way to describe the effects of industrialism on 19th-century England and to criticise the harsh new Poor Laws. Oliver, an innocent child, is trapped in a world where his only options seem to be the workhouse, Fagin's thieves, a prison or an early grave. From this unpromising industrial setting, however, a fairy tale also emerges: In the midst of corruption and degradation, the essentially passive Oliver remains pure-hearted; he steers away from evil when those around him give in to it; and, in proper fairy-tale fashion, he eventually receives his reward—leaving for a peaceful life in the country, surrounded by kind friends. On the way to this happy ending, Dickens explores the kind of life an orphan, outcast boy could expect to lead in 1830s London.
Poverty and social class
Poverty is a prominent concern in Oliver Twist. Throughout the novel, Dickens enlarges on this theme, describing slums so decrepit that whole rows of houses are on the point of ruin. In an early chapter, Oliver attends a pauper's funeral with Mr. Sowerberry and sees a whole family crowded together in one miserable room.
This ubiquitous misery makes Oliver's encounters with charity and love more poignant. Oliver's workhouse origins place him at the nadir of society; as an orphan without friends, he is routinely despised. His "sturdy spirit" keeps him alive despite the torment he must endure. Most of his associates, however, deserve their place among society's dregs and seem very much at home in the depths. Noah Claypole, a charity boy like Oliver, is idle, stupid, and cowardly; Sikes is a thug; Fagin lives by corrupting children; and the Artful Dodger seems born for a life of crime. Many of the middle-class people Oliver encounters—Mrs. Sowerberry, Mr. Bumble, and the savagely hypocritical "gentlemen" are worse.
Symbolism
Dickens makes considerable use of symbolism. The many symbols Oliver faces are primarily good versus evil, with evil continually trying to corrupt and exploit good, but good winning out in the end. The "merry old gentleman" Fagin, for example, has satanic characteristics: he is a veteran corrupter of young boys who presides over his own corner of the criminal world; he makes his first appearance standing over a fire holding a toasting-fork; and he refuses to pray on the night before his
execution.The London slums, too, have a suffocating, infernal aspect; the dark deeds and dark passions are concretely characterised by dim rooms, and pitch-black nights, while the governing mood of terror and brutality may be identified with uncommonly cold weather. In contrast, the countryside where the Maylies take Oliver is a pastoral heaven.
Food is another important symbol; Oliver's odyssey begins with a simple request for more gruel, and Mr. Bumble's shocked exclamation, represents he may be after more than just gruel.
The novel is also shot through with a related motif, obesity, which calls attention to the stark injustice of Oliver's world. When the half-starved child dares to ask for more, the men who punish him are fat. It is interesting to observe the large number of characters who are overweight. Toward the end of the novel, the gaze of knowing eyes becomes a potent symbol. For years, Fagin avoids daylight, crowds, and open spaces, concealing himself in a dark lair most of the time.
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