English 211: Fiction
Discussion Question 2
Directions: Choose ONE of the following questions and write an answer. Be sure to use specific details and direct quotes from the novel to support your ideas. Your answer should be 2-3 paragraphs long. This question is due no later than Thursday, Sept. 24.
Your responses to other students' answers are due by midnight on Sunday, Sept. 27. In order to get the full 20 points, you MUST respond thoughtfully to at least 3 or 4 other people's postings.
We will be using the ETUDES Discussion Board for this class. Click on the link below to get to the ETUDES portal, sign in, and then click on the tab for this class. You will find the "Discussion and Private Messages" link on the left side of the screen:
Remember: This discussion question is worth a possible 20 points. Late answers will receive 0 points. Points will be assigned according to the thoughtfulness of your answer, not by whether it is "right" or not, since sometimes there is no "right" answer. Just be sure your ideas are supported by the material in the novel.
Dickens, David Copperfield OR Oliver Twist
1. Arnold Kettle, in An Introduction to the English Novel, says, of the Victorian novelists, that "...the great novels of the nineteenth century are all, in their differing ways, novels of revolt. The task of the novelists was the same as it had always been--to achieve realism, to express...the truth about life as it faced them. But to do this, to cut through the whole structure of inhumanity and false feeling that ate into the consciousness of the capitalist world, it was necessary to become a rebel." Do you see either David Copperfield OR Oliver Twist as a "novel of revolt"? If so, against what ideas or values is it rebelling?
2. In Charles Dickens, His Life and Work, Stephen Leacock asserts that David Copperfield is an uninteresting, undeveloped character: "...there is, so to speak, no such person, David is merely the looking-glass in which we see the other characters, the voice through which they speak." Do you agree with his evaluation of the character?
3. Both Robert Newsom (Charles Dickens Revisited) and Sylvere Monod (Dickens the Novelist) complain that Oliver Twist is an unconvincing character because he is too good to be true. No child, they argue, who was raised in such a terrible environment could possibly have turned out as pure and principled as Oliver. Do you agree that Oliver is an unconvincing character?
