The main points for discussion: historical context, the history of originality of novel, the main ideas, themes, motives, symbols, characters, particularities of styles.
What is the significance of The Pickwick Papers in the development of Ch. Dickens’s literary career?
Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers.
Symbols
Food
Food is very important in The Pickwick Papers. It represents abundance, comfort, and happiness. Dickens spends a lot of time describing the meals eaten by the Pickwickians. Several characters—Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Tupman, and Mr. Weller, not to mention Joe the servant boy—are described as being overweight. At the time, people would see that as a sign of prosperity rather than a health issue, and Dickens provides meals to match.
Clothes
Clothes in The Pickwick Papers function as a symbol of a character's identity. Interestingly, the focus is far more on men's clothes than on women's. In Chapter 2 the narrator states that "Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire." Mr. Pickwick is one of these men who is not "over-scrupulous;" in fact he is so often described as wearing gaiters that when he leaves them off to dance at Christmastime, his friends are shocked (Chapter 28).
Historical context
Social Class and the Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution began in the late 18th century, but its effects continued to grow and impact England decades later. New technologies, and new methods of doing business, such as mass production in factories, changed the world. Manufacturing was largely unregulated, which led to dangerous working conditions, the mistreatment of workers, child labor, and other social issues. Many goods were mass produced for the first time, and a new wealthy class of factory owners began to grow. There was a new potential for upward mobility—no longer was inherited wealth the only way to grow rich—but that wealth was often gained by exploiting workers.
England had always been a society with very clear class distinctions, but that was starting to change. In England there were the nobles and titled individuals (upper-upper class), wealthy non-noble people (upper class), financially stable people (middle class), working people (lower-middle class), and the poor (lower-lower class). Prior to the Industrial Revolution, it was extremely difficult to move between classes. As factories grew, it became possible for middle or lower-middle class people to earn enough money to move up in society. This social mobility sometimes set up confusing situations because it was hard to determine to what class someone belonged.
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In general people would be judged based on how they spoke, their level of education, their clothes and possessions, and their house (if they had one). But in post-Industrial Revolution England a factory owner might be a very wealthy man with fancy clothes and a beautiful home who still spoke in a "lower-class" accent and had limited education. Mr. Pickwick and his friends are taken in by Alfred Jingle, for example, because Jingle speaks in an "upper-class" manner and loads his conversation with references that an upper-class person would use.
Charles Dickens himself was a middle-class person, but he had great sympathy for a certain percentage of the lower-class people. Dickens clearly divides poor people into "good" and "bad" ones. The "good" ones deserved help and may be poor because of bad luck or mistreatment by people in power; the "bad" ones were out for what they could get, ready to steal or be violent if it served their purpose. In The Pickwick Papers, the "good" poor far outnumber the bad, but at least some of Dickens's characters are aware that the "bad" are out there.
Dickens had personal experience with the mistreatment of workers and with the desire of lower class people to obtain middle class status. While The Pickwick Papers does not explore the sufferings of workers as explicitly as some of Dickens's other works, it is nevertheless a product of this era and its class distinctions. Dickens saw his novels as a way to encourage social change, and he was more successful than many of his contemporaries at calling attention to the suffering of the poor and industrial workers.
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