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Write a note on the blend of realism and idealism in the novels of Dickens.

The term realism has two meanings according to Earnest Baker. First, it means depiction of things as they are, or as they appear to be, secondly, it means the art of making anything that may be imagined as appearing to be real. Baker also states that a writer may make the impossible appearances as probable. He states further that Dickens possesses the second kind of realism. Dickens is a great innovator in the sphere of realism. He has a moral purpose. He is not a stern. realist life which he knew was selected by him as the subject of his novels and in this respect he was a great innovator.

His realism suffers from two limitations. He cannot be realistic person speaking in his natural tone. His characters are made subservient to his moral purpose. His characters, are “wonderfuly like the real thing.” but they are, “a little refined and humoured.” Reality is idealised in his novels. Because his idealism sometimes enables him to lead into misrepresentation of facts.” There is avoidance of the painful and the unpleasant. So reality is falsified. He fails to bring out the effect of environment of character. As he seldom or never take into account the effect of environment on character. His morality often courses unreality. He always teaches a moral lesson. But his morality is of the simple kind. Those who are virtuous are rewarded in the end and those who are wicked and bad are punished. The rogue reaps a he sows. Poetic justice is met out at the end and justice is exhibited tempered with mercy. his art is made visible to all mankind. The characteristic virtues and shortcomings of the homely English race are there.

Dickens, realism is peculiar. His realism depicts his age. It reveals his temperament and the needs of his age. Dickens’ realism is like that of child. The child while living in the real world always has his dreams and fantasies. So has Dickens, it is in this sense that his realism is peculiar. His realism incorporates both fact and fiction, joy and sorrow this world and the world beyond the material reality Hugh Walker considers Dickens more of an imaginative and romantic hovelist than a realist. Dickens is a realist in the sense that he makes imagined things look real. According to Hugh Walker, Dickens is not al realist in the strict sense, on the contrary, his work is the romance of the streets of London. Yet he is a realist and not a romanticist. because his is not a dreamy or airy world, there are no ghosts and fairies, no supernatural things and gods appearing on his pages. Dickens is a realist not by opposing romanticism. In this respect he is different from the modern realist who have a tendency of reaction against the romantic tendency. His realistic setting and reflections of the conditions of his age further make him a realist of a high order.