Question

Dickens fails to portray women in love .discuss

Answer 1

To a modern reader, many of Dickens’s heroines can seem weak, foolish figures of fun. Dickens’s novels date from the 1830s to 1870, when women were legally the property of their husbands, fathers or whichever male relative called themselves “head of the family”. His heroines, including Flora Finching, Dora Spenlow and Rosa Budd – described in The Mystery of Edwin Drood as “wonderfully pretty, wonderfully childish” – are often infuriating to read now. At the time of their creation, however, Dickens was emulating a popular impression of what a well-brought up young lady should be like.

Answer 2

Charles Dickens does not have a single novel in his oeuvre that portrays the theme of women in love.

EXPLANATION:

Charles Dickens is one of the most famous English writers. All his novels are highly popular for their natural and social context. Each deal with a grave issue of society that has to be rectified. Be it Oliver Twist’s theme of child kidnapping and abuse, or David Copperfield’s theme of child labour, Nicholas Nickleby’s dealing with the sorry state of orphanages and schools or Great Expectation’s unjust treatment of the criminals, none have portrayed women in love. Unlike Jane Austen or Thomas Hardy or D.H Lawrence and other novelists of the time, Dickens hardly has heroines.

Even in Hard Times, Dickens portrays the ill-effects of industrialization rather than highlighting love primarily. Thus his novels lack in the portrayal of women in love.