Contents

Dickens plots are shapeless bags which contain something for everybody. Discuss.

“Dickens may not construct a story well but he tells it admirably”. Discuss.

Dickens is regarded as a very poor improviser of plot How far do you agree with this view ? Discuss with special reference to ‘Oliver Twist’.

Discuss the plot-construction of the novel ‘Oliver Twist.

Dicken’s plots are shapeless and incoherent. He is a bad inventor of plots. His early novels are like shapeless bags. There is incoherence and lack of artistic unity in his plots. The plot is the reakest part of his novels. His plots lack organic unity. They are full of innumerable crudities and improbabilities. A number of episodic stories are at first introduced; they are sometimes melodramatic and are not closely related to the main theme. The narrative is rambling and incoherent and there is much that is irrelevant and superfluous. His plot is subordinated to the characters. It has to adopt itself to tharacters who have no organic connection with it. His plots generally are improbable. They do not grow out of natural human situations. His situations are improbable and unnatural.

His stories are not well-contrived. Some of Dickens‘ best-novels are marked by his poverty of invention. There is much in his novels which is conventional, as for instance the long-lust heirs, mistaken identity, disguised lovers etc. His closing scene are forced and improbable. Abuse of coincidence makes his plots artificial and unnatural. Excessive direct moralising is superfluity. Dickens’ story suffers from a tedious superfluity. These are reason for these defects. The conventional element in his plot is the outcome of his liking for the theatre. His novels carry glaringly marks of haste and lack of revision. He lacked intellectual ability. He cared much more for character than for plot or incident. ‘Dickens may not construct the story well but he tells it admirably” says David Cecil. He catches the attention of the readers. His scenery is charming, dialogue admirable and incidents thrilling and exciting. Over-abundance of wit and humour are there to delight and entertain.

Dickens was a bad constructor of plots. His plots are all shapeless and incoherent, and lack in unity. We remember, the early novels are like shapeless bag which contain something for everybody and parts which one does not like can more or less be ignored. We remember the early novels not as wholes but by episodes. (Allen). His plots lack artistic unity. There is incoherence. His plots are not organic wholes. The crudities and improbabilities of his plots are astonishing. A number of episodic stories are introduced. Often Dickens’ plot is subordinated to character. Very often he leaves a great many threads loose till the very last chapter; and then finds there is no enough time to tic them up neatly. The main strands are knotted roughly together, the minor wisps are left hanging forlornly.”

His plots are improbable and unconvincing. They do not grow out of plausible human situtaions. There is much that is improbable and unconvincing in his plots. Throughout his novels there is no real pressure on reality, no logic of cause and effect. There are unnatural situations. His stories are not contrived. Another weakness of Dickens, plots arises from the fact that he could never acquire the art “of skilful revolutions of circumstances, which for the purpose of his story, he has kept long concealed.” (Gissing). His clusing is forced and unnatural. His moral purpose makes his closing scene often unnatural and improbable. There is abuse of coincidence in his novels. There is superfluity. There is too much moralising. He often wrote against time.

“Dickens may not construct the story well, but he tells it admirably with the first sentence he grips the attention of the readers, and does not let it go till the very end.” – David Cecil