ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
Charles Dickens 5 Why Did Dickens Books Based In America Do So Poorly 12 Views
Share It!
Description:
What important part of America did Dickens not understand? We're going to guess NASCAR, but that's just us.
Transcript
- 00:00
Thank you We sneak Charles dickens why did dickens books
- 00:10
based in america do so poorly Ah la shmoop the
- 00:13
general consensus on something like the nonfiction american notes and
- 00:18
the way it ended up appearing in something like martin
- 00:20
chuzzlewit is that for all of his philanthropy and for
Full Transcript
- 00:24
all of hiss meaning well dickens was not a very
- 00:28
good politicians speak and didn't actually understand politics terribly well
- 00:32
certainly didn't understand the american system and just sort of
- 00:35
nascent republic way of too many things So for example
- 00:40
while dickins aboard slavery he was an abolitionist he thought
- 00:44
slavery was terrible He also did explicitly or implicitly think
- 00:49
that the servant class still should remain in its place
- 00:52
African americans had a certain place and shouldn't rise above
- 00:55
a certain level So while he believed in freedom he
- 00:57
also kind of reinforced these thieves class distinctions that's one
- 01:01
reason why those two works are not not taking well
- 01:03
The other reason which in some ways is even more
- 01:06
significant because of the people who study dickens that's just
- 01:09
a bad novel It's messy it's not well written it's
- 01:13
not well thought out there are scenes that seem really
- 01:15
perfunctory and just not not integral into to a good
- 01:20
plot What important part of america did dickins not understand
- 01:26
How did dick in st slaver And why did his
- 01:28
views hurt his popularity His spelling was bad too who
- 01:33
spells color with a u
Up Next
They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...
Related Videos
Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an American classic. Hope you're not expecting any exciting shower scenes though. It's not that kind of book.
Do not go gentle into that good night. In fact, if it's past your curfew, don't go at all into that good night. You just stay in your good bed and...