In American Notes, he describes two New York Irish laborers with their long-tailed blue coats and bright buttons, and says in Chapter VI, "It would be hard to keep your model republics going without the countrymen and countrywomen of those two laborers. For who else would dig, and delve, and drudge, and do domestic work, and make canals and roads, and execute great lines of Internal Improvement?"
The way that the Americans treat the slaves, Indians and immigrants is totally abhorrent to Dickens, but it is not the only aspect of America that he criticizes in American Notes. He also highly disapproves of Americans' personality, cockiness, huge egos, failure to respect other people's privacy, horrible manners as gulping down their food, chewing and spitting tobacco, disrespect for individual integrity and being overbearing personalities.
Overall, of great concern to Dickens is the way this new country was established and what it would become. He had come to America expecting perfection, and sees a country still attempting to work out its identity. He is afraid for its future and what it would become. Selfishness, crassness, and hoggishness, he suggests, are America's real institutions, what governs business, politics, and all of human relationships. He is angry about the Americans' bad manners because they are inconsistent with the democratic principle, which should guarantee equal rights for all. On the other hand, he criticizes those individuals who have blind patriotism for their country and give no thought to any other views.
As Crew (43) notes, page after page of American Notes details the dangers of civil disorder in high places, unthinking acceptance of public brutality, lectures about culture without significant efforts to support a culture. Stated Dickens in his introduction:
My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the influences and tendencies which I distrusted in...
The wide variety of music styles and the wide varieties of people came together for a new experience that redefined a generation and created an understanding that whatever their differences, the similarities were more important. Part of this may well have been the impact of the many assassinations of that time: those at the concert were ready to see the country produce something good and positive. CONCLUSION According to police records,
Hard Times and Dickens as a Social Critic As a prominent author of the 19th century, Charles Dickens would be historically contextualized by a time in which the rights of man and the notion of individuality would be rapidly emergent to the collective consciousness. For many authors, this would provide the opportunity to engage in studies of the human conditions by way of a literary tradition that was increasingly and boldly
This becomes further complex as economic ties blur between the poor and middle classes and the expectations each has about the definition of materialistic success. By belonging to a subculture, however, one can feel part of something larger, insulated a bit from the criticisms and unattainable messages of the upper middle class, and certainly a way to belong and feel important with one's own environment (Siegel and Welsh, 2009,
One cannot build the right sort of house -- the houses are not really adequate, "Blinds, shutter, curtains, awnings, were all closed and drawn to keep out the star. Grant it but a chink or keyhole, and it shot in like a white-hot arrow." The stare here is the metonymic device -- we assume it is stranger, the outside vs. The inside, but for some reason, it is also
Jonathon Haidt agrees with this notion, suggesting that one of the most important realizations individuals can make is that people matter more than money. He states that Dickens captures this sentiment perfectly in that it "captures a deep truth about the effects of facing mortality" (Haidt 140). Scrooge moves from being the "ultimate miser" (141) to a "generous man who takes delight in his family, his employees, and the
"It was a curious childhood, full of weird, fantastic impressions and contradictory influences, stimulating alike to the imagination and that embryo philosophy of life which begins almost with infancy." Paine 14) His consummate biography written in 1912, just after his death claims that Clemens spent the majority of his childhood in the company of his siblings, and the family slaves as his parents where often otherwise engaged, his father and
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