Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature

334 Dickens, Charles and beer. Talking to the ghost, Scrooge admits he has been very bad with his poor clerk, Bob Cratchit. The ...

David Copperf ield 335 foundation of his childhood by describing his anxi- eties about his dead father and his uncanny child’s o ...

336 Dickens, Charles practices of the Victorian educational system, which he regarded as abusive of children and adolescents. Da ...

Great Expectations 337 Through its autobiographical form, the novel depicts a world initially perceived by the child through the ...

338 Dickens, Charles Mrs. Joe, and her husband, Joe. Early in the story, Pip’s “expectations” of life are quite low. Mrs. Joe th ...

Great Expectations 339 even then,” and he notes the oppressive gloom of the nearby old brewery. But at the end of the same passa ...

340 Dickens, Charles To learn that that was only in his imagination is a serious blow. Magwitch, too, has been gravely wounded b ...

Oliver Twist 341 young Magwitch; he was born to have no expecta- tions at all. When Pip shows him kindness in the churchyard, he ...

342 Dickens, Charles authorities who regard the pauper children under their protection as mere sources of labor, at best, and as ...

Oliver Twist 343 seek refuge from starvation and physical abuse by escaping into an underworld of crime and violence. Oliver’s f ...

344 Dickens, Charles the novel’s realistic portrayal of pauperism and espe- cially the exploitation of abandoned orphans by stat ...

A Tale of Two Cities 345 DICKENS, CHARLES A Tale of Two Cities (1859) A Tale of Two Cities was first published in 1859, 70 years ...

346 Dickens, Charles feminine propriety, is actually her way of keeping a record of antirevolutionary targets. She performs this ...

A Tale of Two Cities 347 Unlike the other characters in the novel who are left behind to enjoy the rewards of their heroic actio ...

348 Dickinson, Emily Revealing the identity of Madame Defarge may help us understand her impulse for revenge, but it does not go ...

poems 349 The theme of death informs the highly indi- vidual structure of Dickinson’s poems. Their often stark brevity and heavi ...

350 Dickinson, Emily range of mental suffering through images of des- erts, ice caps, earthquakes, storms, and whirlpools, as we ...

Out of Africa 351 going” champions the exhilaration to be had when the soul makes a journey from the “headlands” (a pun on the m ...

352 Dinesen, Isak that she provides the reader with a true portrait of Africa and its people. The memoir is not written in chron ...

Out of Africa 353 nature is both a friend and foe to the narrator. Dine- sen fundamentally views Africans as living closer to na ...