A question about a fragment from the work of the English writer Charles Dickens evened the score in the game show with a team of experts.
Elena Yakimova from the city of Mikhailovsk, Stavropol Territory, evened the score with an original question in the fourth game of the spring series “What? Where? When?". The compatriot’s question sounded as follows: “Considerable composure and a considerable dose of prudence are required when capturing her. You should not rush, otherwise you will overtake her; you should not go to the other extreme, otherwise you will completely lose her. The best way is to run lightly, keeping up with the object of pursuit , wait for an opportunity, quickly grab it and smile benevolently all the time, as if it amuses you as much as everyone else. What object of persecution did Charles Dickens write about?
The team captain, Alena Povysheva, decided to answer. After listening to the question twice, the expert suggested that Dickens wrote about a butterfly, but answered that it was about luck.
However, neither the answer nor the assumptions made by other team members during the discussion turned out to be correct. It turned out that it was about a hat. Photographer Elena Yakimova won 90 thousand rubles. The Stavropol player's question evened the score - 5:5. Next came the Super Blitz, which was lost by Alexey Samulev. The game ended with a score of 6:5 in favor of television viewers.
Residents of Stavropol region willingly take part in intellectual game. So, a resident of Georgievsk received 90 thousand rubles per winter game"What? Where? When?".
News on Notepad-Stavropol
The transition from The Pickwick Club, a comic epic in which Dickens's cheerful humor predominates, to Oliver Twist, Dickens's first socially revealing novel, should not seem unexpected; it is a natural moment of creative evolution.
Dickens was prompted to choose the profession of a writer not only by the need for constant work that would meet his creative vocation, vanity and ambition and could provide him with material conditions of existence, but also by the need for influential civic activity. Dickens was convinced of the high social significance of art, as well as the fact that it is capable of fulfilling this purpose when it combines beauty, ideal and truth. “The persistent struggle for truth in art,” he noted, “is the joy and grief of all true servants of art.” To endure this stubborn struggle requires high civic conviction and effective courage. One can consider Dickens's civic and creative motto to be his words: “Where I am sure of the truth, I will not lie with a single person.”
Success, recognition, and finally fame came to Dickens without hesitation or delay, as soon as The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club were published. However, it took steadfastness and courage from him so as not to deviate and not change his conviction and calling. Moving from a completed idea to a new idea, from “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” to “The Adventures of Oliver Twist,” Dickens asserted his right as an artist to choose a topic at his own discretion, to write not only about the “cream” of society, but also about its “scum,” if, he noted in parentheses (in the preface to the new novel), their “speech does not offend the ear”; write about “scum” not as it was in popular literature before him and in his time, without embellishing life, without making evil and vice seductive, but showing the “harsh truth.”
When a contemporary reader of Dickens turned to his novels, expecting to find in them the usual exciting adventures - dizzying "gallops across the heather" and cheerful, welcoming thugs with " high road", disappointment awaited him. Such an “ordinary thread of adventure” that young Korolenko was looking for, as he says in his memoirs, when meeting Dickens, was not in his novels.
Dickens's narrative is based on a succession of events; Adventure episodes, including kidnappings and persecutions, also contribute to the dynamism of the description. One of the brightest and most memorable episodes from Dickens's first novel is the chase episode with the participation of Mr. Pickwick. The shameless schemer, businessman, liar and deceiver Alfred Jingle - in the hope of making money - carried away Miss Rachel, an old maid eager for marriage. The deception is revealed, noise and bustle follow, then a mad chase on mad horses harnessed to a carriage. But the fact of Mr. Pickwick's participation in the chase gives the adventure an unusual character - both funny and pathetic. And the description of the adventure, everything connected with it - people and horses, the place and time of action, the noise and pace of the turmoil, the state of mind and momentary reflection of the main character - everything is conveyed with extraordinary vividness, accuracy and laconicism, so that both details and the overall picture, both background and foreground, are perceived easily and holistically. Such liveliness and freedom of epic storytelling, when the pen is able to capture and in precise words convey diverse objects and phenomena in their tangible materiality and combine everything into a holistic moving image - with the help of description, remarks, dialogue, internal monologue, to combine the sharpness of plot movement and changeability psychological states and make everything expressive and visual - such a narrative stood out against the backdrop of the most striking examples of the highly developed art of English prose and became a model for new searches in adventure literature and in the genre of psychological novel.
If the starting point for the idea of “The Pickwick Club” was an accident, then the idea of “Oliver Twist” was initially determined by the author’s attitude, journalistic in its pathos and civil in its essence.
Dickens portrayed the world of thieves following Defoe and Fielding, and this is noticeable: he repeats some motives, takes into account some descriptive techniques, and even imitates them. The carefree joker and funnyman Charles
Bates, the witty Artful Dodger can remind one of the “merry fellow and nice fellow” Major Jack, the youngest of the three Jacks, the heroes of Defoe’s novel “Colonel Jack”, and the brutal Sykes - Captain Jack, the eldest of the Jacks, distinguished by “stupid bloodthirstiness”. However, what is more noticeable and significant in this literary dependence is that Dickens, taking into account the experience of his great predecessors, relies on his own experience and experience new era, takes into account the level, possibilities and tasks of the literature of its time, responds to current events and creates a completely original work, a novel that was and remains one of the most popular and readable works English literature.
It was rightly noted by Igor Katarsky in his wonderful study “Dickens in Russia”:
“Children’s images in Dickens’s work can rightfully be called an artistic discovery for European literature XIX century. None of the literature of Western Europe was able to penetrate so deeply into the spiritual world of a child until the last third of the 18th century, before the appearance of Goldsmith’s “The Priest of Wakefield” and Rousseau’s “Confessions” 1 . To this we can and should add: it was not just the “children’s images” created by Dickens, taken separately from each other or in their totality, that were an artistic discovery.
"Children's images" occupied Dickens's imagination throughout his entire life. creative life, they are present in all his novels, from the first to the last, and almost each of these images really testifies to such a deep penetration into the spiritual world of a child that no one else had great writer before Dickens. But to truly appreciate Dickens’s “artistic discovery,” this statement is not enough.
The world of children as a special world and at the same time inseparable from the world of adults, dependent on it and influencing it, the world is diverse, complex, little studied, difficult to comprehend, both fragile and durable, requiring close attention, deep comprehension and sensitive care, such the world was first discovered and recreated in fiction by Dickens. This discovery was recognized and extremely appreciated by small and great writers, most of all those who were disturbed by " damn questions"of the adult world, among them Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are in first place.
Dickens's particular interest in childhood and adolescence was inspired by his own early experiences, his understanding and sympathy for disadvantaged childhood, and his understanding that the situation and condition of the child reflected the situation and condition of the family and society as a whole. Dickens was outraged by the ignorance in the treatment of children in the family and school, as well as by the children's institutions that were disfiguring the souls of children. He wrote about children, guided by the need to change and improve their living conditions, working conditions, education, upbringing with hope and confidence that with a truthful, denouncing and inspiring word it is possible to decisively contribute to all this.
Dickens's heroes from the world of childhood - children and teenagers - are healthy in spirit, morally pure, persistent and courageous, acutely experience conflict situations, are able to withstand sorrows and adversity, respond kindly to kindness, and resist injustice in feelings, thoughts and actions. Often, through their eyes, Dickens looks at the world, at different spheres of social life, at people and nature, and judges everything by the measure of their state of mind, both sad and joyful, influencing the reader by expressing a whole complex of feelings experienced by the hero and empathized by the author. Robert Louis Stevenson is more consistent and complete than others English writers, will accept and develop this Dickensian tradition.
The Adventures of Oliver Twist had not yet been published, but Dickens was already writing new adventures - Nicholas Nickleby. This was the usual practice of Dickens's professional work, continuous work, when one idea gives way to another and book after book comes out.
Dickens's novels were published in parts, in editions, before appearing in separate editions, and the author had to take special care of the entertaining development of the plot and maintain the reader's interest in interrupted reading. Events in Dickens's novels are designed to sharpen the reader's interest, but in essence they are meaningful, connected with different aspects of reality, and can clarify a lot in the hero's life conditions, in his character, in the life of the country and people.
However, the main interest in Dickens’s novels is not generated by events, but by the characters, the strings of characters he created, allowing the reader to imagine what and how the people of Dickens’s time lived, what features of their psychology and behavior turned out to be tenacious, what their social and moral essence was.
In the preface to the novel “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby,” Dickens formulated an important principle for him in creating characters, already prepared by his previous works, but for the first time consistently implemented in this novel. Society, he wrote, “rarely allows the appearance in a novel of a person with clearly defined qualities, good or bad, who remains believable.” Dickens filled many of his novels with such people. They may seem and often seem implausible and simply fantastic, especially if they are considered outside the artistic world he created. For Dickens fiction, like art in general, is a special nature, created on the basis of life and for the sake of life, developing depending on social nature, but also following its own laws - the laws of art.
They say - and rightly so - that the characters Dickens created were influenced by his passion for the theater and his early, still childhood interest in folk performances. However, this passion found a practical outlet in the method and techniques of representation only because and after reality itself revealed fantastic contrasts and fantastic forms of their expression to his discerning gaze. In the sharp sharpness and opposition of characters in Dickens's novels, his civic passion, his journalistic pathos, excited by the discontent of the masses and the Chartist movement, were expressed. Chartism, according to V.I. Lenin, is “the first broad, truly mass, politically formed, proletarian-revolutionary movement” 2 . The scale and depth, the strength and passion of the critical principle in Dickens's work are associated with this movement, reflecting the discontent and indignation of the working class and the working masses. Dickens sympathized with the workers, but did not share the beliefs of the Chartists, and was opposed to revolutionary violence.
The big city, London, directly influenced Dickens, his idea of the life of capitalist England, influenced his creative imagination, and, one might argue, his principles for creating characters, the fact that in his art world seems fantastic. To specifically feel this impact of the English capital on Dickens, you should carefully read the description of London in the novel “Nicholas Nickleby” and recreate in your imagination the “every second changing, continuously varied panorama” that gave the author the impression of “some kind of wild bacchanalia.”
The sharpness of everyday and social contrasts, the phantasmagoria of moving and frozen forms, the flashy diversity of color shades are reflected in sharply contrasting and bizarre characters. Dickens would not be Dickens if London had not been in his life.
In Dickens's novels there are lines of characters with sharply expressed qualities. The first to introduce the procession of disgusting creatures in human form are Squeers and Ralph Nickleby, figures so vile that they seem fantastic, but they are very real. "Mr. Squeers," according to Dickens, "is a representative of his class, and not an individual." This owner of a boarding school, where unfortunate children are tortured and spiritually crippled, is a typical businessman in the field of education and upbringing. His name became a household name, an expression of practical arrogance and hypocrisy.
Ralph Nickleby, the uncle of Nicholas Nickleby, the hero of the novel, has character traits and life aspirations close to Squeers, but he is a businessman of a different, much broader scope. Squeers's power and authority extend only to the school he owns, to a group of unfortunate children. Ralph Nickleby claims to be omnipotent. Under the influence of the conviction that there is no power higher than the power of money, the thirst for profit, his leading passion, develops in him to the point of mania. For Ralph Nickleby, anyone who does not recognize the power of money, much less protests against it, is an adversary who must be pacified, punished or crushed. “A cunning miser with cold blood,” such is his repentant self-description. Dickens is not satisfied with it, he goes further, points to Ralph Nickleby as an ominous phenomenon of the complete emasculation of the soul due to the power of money and its voluntary recognition, support and praise. Primordial human feelings and principles - love, compassion, honor, conscience, family and civic duty - everything that makes a person human, all this is destroyed in the soul of Ralph Nickleby. A theorist and practitioner of profit, he hides his greedy essence under numerous guises, and the more mysterious and ominous his figure seems, and the atmosphere surrounding him is mysterious and ominous. Similar sinister figures and a suffocating atmosphere are depicted with simple clarity and symbolic generality in Dickens’s next, fourth novel, “The Curiosity Shop.”
Notes
1 Katarsky I. Dickens in Russia. Mid XIX century. M., Nauka, 1966, p. 275-276.
2. Lenin V.I. Poli. collection cit., vol. 38, p. 305.
Journalistic activity was by no means an episode in the writer’s biography. Complete collection Dickens's speeches and articles, which comprise two substantial volumes, indicate that the writer often spoke on public issues. This was organically combined with literary creativity Dickens, which from beginning to end was imbued with the pathos of the struggle against various forms social injustice. As is known, journalistic motives are very significant in Dickens's novels. It is therefore not surprising that he often put down his novelist's pen to write an article or give a speech. Civic feeling and social temperament were organically inherent in Dickens. All his journalism is imbued with a lively interest in what constituted the subject highest value For modern society.
From the very beginning of his literary career, Dickens declared his task to be serving the interests of society, first and foremost common people. Speaking at a banquet on June 25, 1841, Dickens spoke about the motives that drove his work: “I was possessed by a serious and humble desire - and it will never leave me - to make the world more harmless fun and cheerfulness. I felt that the world is not only worthy of contempt, but that it is worth living in, and for many reasons. I sought to find, as the professor put it, the seed of good that the Creator planted in even the most evil souls. - which is not true, as if it is incompatible with poverty, even with rags..."
This humane disposition is characteristic of both Dickens's novels and journalism. Both Dickens's novels and journalism pursued one goal: to arouse hatred of all manifestations of social injustice and teach people goodness.
Dickens was aware that such large moral, educational and educational tasks were beyond the capabilities of one person. Therefore, for almost all years literary work he gathered around him writers capable of supporting his desire to create literature that would influence the consciousness of the people. Hence Dickens’s constant desire to have a press organ that would appeal to the broadest strata of society.
Dickens first contributed to the weekly newspaper The Examiner. It was one of the most progressive organs of the English press of the first half of the 19th century V. Its founders were brothers John and Lee Hunt. Leigh Hunt led the radicals' struggle against political reaction during the period of the "Holy Alliance". In 1821, Albany Fontblanc became editor of the magazine, and then John Forster, Dickens's lifelong friend and subsequently his first biographer. Dickens contributed to the Examiner, that organ of radical bourgeois democracy, in 1838-1849. Articles from those years are reproduced in this volume.
Dickens wanted to publish a newspaper or magazine himself, to determine the ideological and artistic line of a large mass organ. In 1845, the writer planned to publish a weekly literary and political magazine, for which he came up with the name “Cricket”. This intention remained unfulfilled, but the plan was not fruitless for Dickens. The idea for "The Cricket" gave rise to the idea for the Christmas story "The Cricket Behind the Hearth."
Dreams of a weekly newspaper faded into the background when Dickens received an offer to become editor of the Daily News. Although his faithful friend Forster dissuades him, Dickens takes on the task with ardor. preparatory work. January 21, 1846-. The first issue of the newspaper is published. Her political position was radical reformist. The newspaper advocated the abolition of outdated social institutions and laws, in particular, it sought the abolition of grain duties, which placed a heavy burden on the people. But at the same time, it supported the principle of free trade, which was beneficial to the bourgeoisie. F. Engels wrote that the Daily News is “the London organ of the industrial bourgeoisie” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 1st ed., vol. VIII, p. 439.). The newspaper expressed the positions of the liberal part of the bourgeois class.
To us, who are now familiar with these facts, it seems somewhat inconsistent for Dickens to participate in an organ of such a trend, since the writer’s novels were essentially anti-bourgeois. Comparing this with the fact that Dickens wrote about the bourgeoisie before 1846 in his novels Nicholas Nickleby, The Curiosity Shop, Martin Chuzzlewit, one cannot help but feel that Dickens, having taken on the editorship of the Daily News, found himself involved in affairs of the political kitchen, which always disgusted him. Work in the editorial office began to weigh heavily on him and, quite nervous about the difficulties of his new position, Dickens took a vacation, which actually resembled an escape. He went to Switzerland. John Forster took over the leadership of the newspaper; Dickens limited himself to advice for some time, and then completely moved away from the Daily News.
The episode with the Daily News is typical of Dickens. Although he was always occupied by big social problems, he shunned the intricacies of political struggle. Speaking at a banquet in the United States on February 7, 1842, Dickens openly admitted: “my moral ideals- very broad and comprehensive, not fitting into the framework of any sect or party..." The writer wanted to be a judge of life from the point of view of the highest ideals of humanity. At the same time, his sympathies were on the side of the oppressed and disadvantaged. In the same speech, Dickens expressed this my credo: “I believe that our lives, our sympathies, hopes and strengths are given to us in order to devote them to many, and not to a select few. That it is our duty to shine a bright ray of contempt and hatred, so that everyone can see them, any meanness, falsehood, cruelty and oppression, no matter how they are expressed. And the main thing is that what occupies a high position is not always high, and what occupies a low position is not always low."
Dickens is a staunch supporter of popular art and literature. That is why he could not accept the aesthetically sophisticated art of the Pre-Raphaelites (see the article “Old lamps instead of new ones”), while the moralizing art of the artist Cruikshank was close to him both in its realism and democratic ideological orientation (“Children of the Drunkard” by Cruickshank). The place of the writer in public life was very clearly defined by Dickens in a speech at a banquet in honor of literature and art in Birmingham on January 6, 1853. Having devoted myself to the literary profession, I, said Dickens, “are firmly convinced that literature, in its turn, must be faithful to the people , is obliged to passionately and zealously advocate for his progress, prosperity and happiness."
The above applies equally to the artistic creativity and journalism of Dickens. In his articles and speeches he strictly followed these principles. If from our point of view the writer’s program may seem somewhat general and vague, then in Dickens’s practice the position he took always led to a struggle against very specific forms social evil.
It is enough to read his essay “A Night Scene in London” to be convinced of the absence of any “abstractness” of Dickens’s humanism. He shows here the terrible abysses of poverty, the very bottom of London, a poverty that cannot be worse. His description is imbued with anger against social orders that allow such terrible humiliation of a person.
Dickens was humane, but he did not at all believe that evil should go unpunished. The reader will find in this book a series of articles devoted to the sensational case of the rogue Drouet, whose school in its horrors was many times greater than Squeers's institution, described in the novel "Nicholas Nickleby." The writer is outraged by the class court, which allows impunity for those who profit from the suffering of the defenseless (see the articles “Paradise in Tooting”, “Farm in Tooting”, “The verdict in the Drouet case”).
At the same time, recognizing the need for harsh measures against criminals, Dickens resolutely opposes the barbaric custom of public executions that persisted at that time, as well as death penalty in general (“On the death penalty”, “Public executions”). Dickens's voice in these articles sounds in unison with the speeches of the great French humanist writer Victor Hugo (Claude Gue, The Last Day of a Man Condemned to Death).
Dickens also touched upon such consequences of public poverty as prostitution. However, his “Call to Fallen Women” sounds naive, because the solution to the problem was not the desire or unwillingness to take the path of morality, but the fact that the capitalist order doomed women to sell their bodies.
Dickens ardently supported all initiatives that could help educate the people and alleviate their plight. Evidence of this are his speeches at a school evening for workers, at the opening of a public library, and in defense of a hospital for poor children. He supports professional organizations whose goal is to protect the interests of people creative professions- Society of Musicians, Theater Fund, Newspaper Fund. Dickens fought especially hard to establish international copyright (see Dickens's speech at a banquet in his honor in Hartford (USA) on February 7, 1842). Finally, as a writer, he brought a touching tribute of gratitude to the workers of printing houses and proofreaders (speeches in the society of printers and in the association of proofreaders).
The idea of creating his own literary and social magazine did not leave Dickens even after he became disillusioned with newspaper work. He began publishing such a weekly magazine in 1850 under the name Household Words. In his “Address to the Readers,” Dickens formulated the goals and principles of his journal activities. The magazine was not supposed to provide direct responses to the political issues of the day. Its main function was cognitive and social-educational. But at the same time, Dickens, as always, resolutely distanced himself from utilitarian aspirations: “Neither the utilitarian spirit nor the oppression of brute facts will be allowed onto the pages of our Home Reading,” declared Dickens the publisher. And Dickens the writer declared such a magazine program that It is worth quoting, because it is important not only for understanding the direction of the magazine, but also for the entire aesthetics of Dickens’s work. The value of this declaration lies in the fact that it characterizes it perfectly. the most important features Dickens's artistic method, whose realism was free from naturalistic tendencies and tended towards romance.
“In the breasts of people young and old, rich and poor, we will carefully cherish that spark of fantasy that necessarily glimmers in any human breast, although in some, if it is nourished, it flares up into a bright flame of inspiration, while in others it only flickers slightly, but never fades away completely - or woe to that day! To show everyone that in the most familiar things, even those endowed with a repulsive shell, there is always hidden something romantic that just needs to be found; to reveal to the diligent servants of the madly spinning wheel of labor that they are not at all doomed to languish under the yoke. dry and immutable facts that the consolation and charms of imagination are available to them; to gather both the highest and the lowest in this vast field and awaken in them a mutual desire to know each other better, a benevolent readiness to understand each other - this is why “Home Reading” is published - wrote Dickens. To these words of his we will add: this is why he wrote his works.
Dickens recruited writers who accepted this program to participate in the magazine. The most famous among them were Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Lever, Bulwer-Lytton and the young Wilkie Collins, who became one of Dickens's closest friends and collaborators. The magazine has won a significant number of readers among the people. Since the summer of 1859, “Home Reading” was renamed “All the Year Round”. The old employees were retained, the program remained the same: “the merging of the gifts of imagination with the true features of life, which is necessary for the prosperity of any society” (Announcement in “Home Reading” about the proposed publication “ All year round"). Dickens participated in the publication of "All the Year Round" until his death.
The desire to make literature a means of spiritual unity of the people runs through all the activities of Dickens - writer and publisher. This position placed him in a very special position in the era of sharp class antagonisms that characterized that part of the 19th century when he lived and worked. The idea of a class world, asserted by Dickens, was an attempt by a humanist writer to find such a solution social contradictions, which would help avoid unnecessary cruelty and bloodshed. The writer appealed to the workers not to resort to extreme means of struggle. So, in particular, he wrote one article in which he condemned the railway strike. The article was published in the magazine "Home Reading" on January 11, 1851 (not included in this publication). Considering the behavior of the striking workers to be reckless, Dickens, however, in no way wanted to discredit the working class or use the strike to slander the working people, as the reactionaries did. Dickens states that "in spite of what happened, the English workmen have always been known as a people loving their country and completely worthy of trust." He protests against the demands of the embittered bourgeoisie, who insisted on the publication of laws on repression against workers. “How is it possible,” wrote Dickens, “how can one now, reasoning calmly and soberly, treat the English craftsman as a creature working under pressure, or even suspect him of needing one? he is a noble soul and kind heart. He belongs to a great nation, and his good reputation spreads throughout the whole earth. And if we should generously forgive the mistakes of any human being, we should forgive him too."
This episode is indicative of Dickens the humanist. His idea of a class world was undoubtedly illusory. But Dickens’s position cannot be identified with the position of bourgeois liberals and opportunists; the Writer was motivated by sincere love for working people and naively believed that his preaching of reconciliation of warring social forces could actually be realized. Dickens’s position cannot be compared to the views of defenders of the bourgeoisie also because, both in his artistic works and in his journalism, he mercilessly criticized the ruling classes. A significant part of his articles is devoted to exposing the vices of those who held political power in the country in their hands. Dickens's articles against the ruling elite of England belong to remarkable examples of militant political journalism. They are distinguished not only by their courage, but also by their brilliant literary form.
With what brilliance he ridicules the system of education of the sons of aristocrats and capitalists in the parody “Report of the Commission examining the position and living conditions of persons engaged in various types of mental labor at the University of Oxford.” The writer exposes the class nature of caste education of those who are subsequently handed over and political power, and spiritual leadership of the people. He proposes to rename the academic degrees granted by the university and call the nation's certified leaders "Bachelors of Idiocy," "Masters of Fabrication," and "Doctors of Ecclesiastical Idleness."
The ruling class always surrounds its power with an aura of holiness and infallibility. For this purpose, all kinds of solemn rituals are created, designed to arouse reverence among the people for those in power. The democrat Dickens was deeply disgusted by the comedies of all kinds of ceremonies that were developed by generations of rulers. The writer ridicules the prim rituals created by the ruling clique, which seeks by such means to place itself above the people. The article "Reflections of the Lord Mayor" exposes the emptiness and hypocrisy of the decorous ceremonies adopted by the ruling classes.
In the article “Islandisms,” Dickens states, not without bitterness, that all sorts of features that are generally considered to be the national characteristics of the English are unnatural and at odds with common sense. What upsets the writer most of all is that some part of the nation has believed in such “islandisms” and grovels before the nobility, considering it servility before power and wealth. national trait.
In the pamphlet-type article "Why?" Dickens attacks the admiration of the military (“Why do we rush with cries of delight around an officer who did not escape from the battlefield - as if all our other officers escaped?”), on the insignificance of bourgeois politicians (“Why should I be ready to shed tears of delight and joy that Buffy and Boodle are at the helm of power?"), at the notorious English judicial system ("I wonder why I am so happy when I see learned judges making every effort to prevent the defendant from telling the truth?") .
Dickens is deeply indignant when patriotic significance is attributed to something that the people do not care about, when national dignity is associated with all kinds of prejudices and unjust orders. He was an opponent of the fruitless and ruinous Crimean War for the country, in which “Britain so delightfully exercises her dominion over the seas that with every wave of her trident she kills thousands of her children, who will never, never, never be slaves, but very, very, very often remain fools" ("For Dogs to Eat").
The constant object of Dickens's satire, both in novels and in journalism, is bureaucracy, the soullessness of the state machine, this costly burden for the people. The unforgettable pages about the Ministry of Red Tape in Little Dorrit were prepared by the kind of sketches found among Dickens's articles. One of these articles is “Red Braid”. "Red Braid" adopted in English language allegory to denote bureaucracy. Dickens condemned the government bureaucracy not only for parasitism. He rightly saw in it the main obstacle to reforms and changes urgently needed for the people: “Neither from iron, nor from steel, nor from diamond can one make such a strong brake chain as the Red Braid creates.” This Red Band is not at all harmless. Inactive, when it is necessary to do something useful for the people, she shows extraordinary agility as soon as the opportunity arises to cause them harm.
A supplement to this article is another - "Penny Patriotism", written in the form of a clerk's story about his career and the activities of the department in which he serves. Dickens emphasizes here that all the ills of bureaucracy come not from small clerks, but from high-ranking bureaucrats. The article concludes with an unequivocal conclusion: “You cannot expect good from any highly principled reforms, the entire principle of which is directed only at junior clerks. Such transformations are generated by the most penniless and most hypocritical patriotism in the world. Our state system is set upside down, with its roots to the sky. Start with them , and then the small branches will soon come into order by themselves.”
Dickens spoke out against the roots, that is, against those who run this bureaucratic state machine, in his articles more than once. Among his anti-government pamphlets, "Mr. Bull's Sleepwalker" and "The All-British Jokebook Project" are especially interesting. In the first of these articles, to characterize the government (cabinet of ministers), Dickens resorted to the following metaphor: “Mr. It should be forgotten that it is assembled from pieces of the most diverse origin and quality; however, I must admit that they are poorly fitted to each other and Mr. Bull’s “office” is ready to fall apart at any moment.” The collection of jokes offered by Dickens is a satirical miniature, or rather several miniatures, ridiculing the entire dominant system and the ruling class.
It is known that Dickens was opposed to the revolutionary overthrow of the social and state system that existed in his time. But he did not at all want to preserve it forever. Disagreeing with revolutionary methods, Dickens undoubtedly wanted greater and more serious changes. At the same time, he always persistently emphasized that reforms must begin from the top - with a change in the ruling system and a change in rulers, the principle of selecting these latter. He openly expressed these views in articles and outlined them especially clearly in a speech delivered at the Association for the Reform of Government (June 27, 1855). He resorted here to likening the government to a troupe performing a play under the direction of the prime minister. This was Dickens's response to the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, who had called the Association's meeting at the Drury Lane Theater an "amateur performance." “The official performance, which the noble lord has condescended to direct, is so unbearably bad, its mechanism is so cumbersome, the roles are distributed so poorly, there are so many “faces without speeches” in the troupe, the directors have such large families and such a strong tendency to promote these families to the first roles - not because of their special abilities, but because these are their families - that we were simply forced to organize an opposition. “The Comedy of Errors” in their production looked so much like a tragedy that we didn’t have the strength to watch it.” School of Reforms..."
Dickens rejects the charge that reformers want to pit one class against another, and repeats here his concept of class peace, but at the same time he warns that if the ruling elite does not understand the need for fundamental change, they themselves will invite disaster. “I think I will not be mistaken if, in conclusion, I say that the stubborn desire to keep at all costs old rubbish, which has long outlived its usefulness, is, by its very essence, more or less harmful and harmful: that sooner or later such rubbish can cause fire; that, if thrown into a landfill, it would be harmless, but if you stubbornly cling to it, disaster will not be avoided.” This idea was persistently explained by Dickens. She constituted the germ of the novel's plan about french revolution- “A Tale of Two Cities”, where Dickens, using the example of France, warned the ruling classes of England that neglect of the needs of the people and unscrupulous exploitation of them could lead to an explosion similar to the one that occurred in 1789 (Note, by the way, that in the article “On the Judges’ Speeches” there are interesting thoughts about the causes of the French Revolution, echoing what is said in the quoted speech.)
We will conclude the review political views Dickens with reference to a speech he delivered in Birmingham on September 27, 1869. In it, Dickens the reformist appears skeptical notes. One feels that he no longer has any illusions about the possibility of achieving serious changes from the ruling elite. He expressed his thoughts with a quotation from Buckle's History of Civilization in England. Hopes for reform are nothing more than chimeras. A reasonable person should know “that almost always legislators do not help society, but retard its progress, and that in those exceptionally rare cases when their measures lead to good, this is explained by the fact that, contrary to usual, they listened to the spirit of the times and turned out to be only servants of the people, as they should always have been, for their duty is only to provide public support for the wishes of the people and to clothe them in the form of laws." Declaring his complete solidarity with these words of Buckle, Dickens, in the same speech, expressed the same idea even more clearly and simply. His “political creed,” he said, “consists of two articles and does not refer to any individuals or parties. My faith in the people who govern is, in general, insignificant; my faith in the people who are governed, in general, is infinite ".
Dickens's journalism does not consist of declarations alone. Dickens used all his literary skill to express the views that he wanted to convey to the people. Although we call his journalistic works articles, they are by no means homogeneous in genre. Only a very small number of them are written in direct declarative form. Most of the articles belong to varieties of the genre that the British call “essays”. These are almost always articles written in a humorous or satirical manner. Letters from imaginary persons, parables, satirical allegories, novellas, fantasies - these are some of the forms used by Dickens in his articles. I would like to draw the readers' attention to some articles by Dickens that are not mentioned here, interesting not only for their content, but also for their form. These are “Thoughts of the Raven from the Happy Family”, “Friend of the Lions”, “The Whole Pigs”, “Please, leave the umbrella!” “Few people know,” “Why?” Satirical allegory is also a frequent technique in Dickens’s journalism. In addition to the above-mentioned articles of this type, one cannot help but pay attention to the “essay” “Nimble Turtles,” which is a small satirical masterpiece directed against the conservative bourgeois. .
Dickens's journalistic works, published in this volume, expand and enrich our understanding of the humanistic nature of Dickens's worldview and creativity.
A. ANIKST
The hat helped the Stavropol resident win 90 thousand rubles. Photographer from Mikhailovsk Elena Yakimova defeated the experts of the “What? Where? When?” club, who were unable to correctly answer the question of our fellow countrywoman.
The riddle from a resident of the Stavropol Territory was uttered in the 10th round of the program, when the experts beat the viewers with a minimal advantage.
Considerable composure and a considerable dose of prudence are required when capturing her. You should not rush, otherwise you will overtake it. You should not go to the other extreme, otherwise you will completely lose it. The best way is to run lightly, keeping up with the object of pursuit, wait for an opportunity, quickly grab it and smile benevolently all the time, as if it amuses you no less than everyone else. Attention, question: what object of persecution did Charles Dickens write about? - the presenter announced the task.
This seemingly simple and at the same time very confusing question was asked by our fellow countrywoman to the experts.
Luck! - almost without hesitation, suggested one of the experts.
Photographer... - another doubted this, thinking that the answer should be related to the profession of a TV viewer.
Butterfly? - another team member put forward her version.
A lot of options immediately arose, experts put forward assumptions, immediately rejected many and continued to reason.
It seems to me that this is something inanimate! We weren’t told about some kind of object we are talking about,” another team member thought.
Meanwhile, one of the players listed the signs of the “object of persecution” that were heard in anticipation of the question asked.
Let’s start with a simple one: a butterfly,” the only girl on the team suggested again.
Then it’s more likely a snake,” another participant objected.
Fortune? - asked the third question.
In the stream of assumptions it was difficult to even hear everything.
Maybe this is love if we are talking about a girl?
And the muse? Badly?
Muse, I don’t understand why...
Because if a writer has a bad muse...
Then those gathered at the round table began to remember what they knew about Dickens, about the problems of his works. And again assumptions about family, muse, wealth, victory, luck began to arise. Experts were most inclined towards the latter option.
Before announcing the team's decision, the participant asked the presenter to repeat the question.
After listening to the task again, she thought about it and took a long pause.
I really want to answer that it is a butterfly, but I don’t believe in it. Let’s assume it’s luck,” the girl replied.
The gong sounded.
And now, attention, the correct answer. Alena, please tell me,” the presenter turned to the respondent, “why “smile complacently, as if it amuses you no less than everyone else”? That is, everyone around you laughs when you do this...
The hat, of course... - the representative of the team of experts answered upset, while the other player dejectedly tapped his forehead.
Dickens described the chase for the hat, the presenter confirmed.
Having won this round, Elena Yakimova received 90 thousand rubles.
BY THE WAY
Stavropol residents have repeatedly won against experts in “What? Where? When?” For example, a resident of the regional center received 30 thousand rubles back in 2009, and an electrician from Georgievsk