Biography Of Charles Dickens :: essays research papers

Biography of Charles demonThere is something about Charles heller imaginative might that defiesexplanation in purely biographical terms. Nevertheless, his biography shows thesource of that antecedent and is the best place to begin to define it.The second child of rear and Elizabeth Dickens, Charles was born onFebruary 7, 1812, near Portsmouth on Englands south coast. At that plosive consonant fast oneDickens was stationed in Portsmouth as a clerk in the Navy Pay Office. Thefamily was of lower-middle-class origins, John having come from servants andElizabeth from minor bureaucrats. Dickens get under ones skin was vivacious and generous buthad an unfortunate tendency to live beyond his means. his fret wasaffectionate and rather inept in practical matters. Dickens later used hisfather as the basis for Mr. Micawber and portrayed is mother as Mrs. Nickleby inA Tale of Two Cities.After a transfer to London in 1814, the family plumpd to Chatham, nearRochester, trio long time la ter. Dickens was about five at the time, and for thenext five long time his life was pleasant. Taught to read by his mother, he devouredhis fathers small collection of classics, which include Shakespeare, Cervantes,Defoe, Smollet, Fielding, and Goldsmith. These left a permanent mark on hisimagination their arrange on his art was quite important. dickens also went tosome performances of Shakespeare and make a lifelong attachment to the theater.He attended shoal during this period and showed himself to be a rather solitary,observant, good-natured child with some talent for comic routines, which hisfather encouraged. In retrospect Dickens looked upon these years as a kind ofgolden age. His first novel, The Pickwick Papers, is in part an judge torecreate their idyllic nature it rejoices in innocence and the youthful spirit,and its happiest scenes buzz off place in that precise geographical area.In the light of the familys move back to London, where financialdifficulties overtook th e Dickenss, the time in Chatham must have seemed divine indeed. The family moved into the shabby suburb of Camden Town, andDickens was taken out of school and set to menial jobs about the household. Intime, to help augment the family income, Dickens was given a job in a blacking mill among rough companions. At the time his father was imprisoned for debt,but was released three months later by a small legacy. Dickens related to hisfriend, John Forster, long afterward, that he felt a deep sense of apostasyat this time the major themes of his novels can be traced to this period. Hissympathy for the victimized, his enchantment with prisons and money, the desire