![]() It doesn’t end well for him - he is eventually murdered by her maid.Ī petty parish beadle in the workhouse where Oliver spends much of his time, Bumble symbolizes Dickens’s contempt for the workhouse system.Īn eccentric barber, landlord, and bird lover, this character later inspired A Christmas Carol. This unscrupulous lawyer to the Dedlock family learns of Lady Dedlock’s secret past and tries to take advantage of it. Luke Honeythunder is the boisterous and overbearing philanthropist and the guardian of Neville and Helena Landless. Luke Honeythunder ( The Mystery of Edwin Drood) Daughter Fanny, son Wackford, Jr., and the missus are each more cruel than the last. The Squeers run Dotheboys Hall, an orphanage for unwanted boys whom they mistreat horribly. Wackford Squeers is the patriarch of this conniving, weasel-like pack. Polly is a ray of hope in the face of poverty and hardship. Polly Toodle is Little Paul Dombey’s nurse who gets fired after taking him to visit her dingy apartment in London’s poorest area. Choosing to become an actor, he changes his name to Waldengarver. Wopsle is a parish clerk when we meet him in this classic story, but he doesn’t stay one for long. The noble Sloppy later has a hand in exposing nasty Silas Wegg. One of Dickens’s many orphan characters, Sloppy lives with Betty Higden and is taken in by the Boffin family. Some claim Dickens modeled him after Leigh Hunt, another writer of the time, which, not surprisingly, caused a bit of animosity. He claims he knows nothing about money management and uses it as an excuse to never pay for anything. ![]() The obnoxious and manipulative Skimpole presents himself as a naïve man of childlike innocence. He and the Marchioness expose the evil Brasses, Swiveller inherits money from his aunt, and the couple live happily ever after. Swiveller wants to marry the lovely Nell Trent but ends up with the Marchioness instead. Though the name sounds a little sinister, Dick Swiveller is not a villain. An utter bounder.ĭick Swiveller ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) Bounderby is callous, self-centred and ultimately revealed to be a liar and fraud. Gradgrind’s daughter Louisa, some 30 years his junior, in what turns out to be a loveless marriage. Given to boasting about being a self-made man, he is loud, obnoxious, completely self-centered, and the novel’s most snobby and status-obsessed character. Josiah Bounderby is a business associate of Gradgrind. His name is now used to refer to someone who is hard and only concerned with cold facts and numbers. Thomas Gradgrind is the notorious headmaster who is dedicated to the pursuit of profitable enterprise. In honor of his two-hundredth birthday today here’s a few personal favorites. We all know what a Scrooge is, for example.ĭickens is reckoned to have created and named 989 such characters during his career. Sharp depiction of the eccentricities and personality traits of characters was distilled into caricature and then given names so perfectly apposite they became defining personality terms. This extraordinary ability to characterize was Dickens’ real genius. The Pickwick Papers went on to become the first modern publishing phenomenon, spawning bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books, and other merchandize that today would be regarded as classic branding. The relationship between the idealistic and unworldly Pickwick and the astute, street smart Weller has been likened to that between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Weller arrives on the scene in chapter 10 and transforms the story. ![]() Dickens’ first novel, The Pickwick Papers, was written in serial form and, by all accounts, the early installments weren’t doing so well. He isn't exactly right about why.It was one character, Sam Weller, who made Charles Dickens famous. Language: English Words: 32,295 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 28 Kudos: 72 Bookmarks: 21 Hits: 1393ĭavid Copperfield finds the prospect of Uriah Heep marrying Agnes Wickfield utterly abhorrent. Mr Wickfield's remarriage to Clara Copperfield ruins that prospect in several ways at once. Uriah Heep would have married Agnes Wickfield for financial security and never felt himself emotionally involved by any of it.
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