English Literature Theme Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

English Literature Theme - Essay ExampleMoreover, his personal circumstances did not afford him university terms. Consequently, most of what he had learned he had had to teach himself. However, it was through his culture, both formal and informal, that he was able to rise in life. From being taken out of school because his father could not even out for it, to being courted to take trips across the pond to conduct lectures, speeches and readings, his was a case of remarkable social elevation through letters. Possibly for this reason, education is often rig in Dickenss writings, as he was a firm believer in the ability of proper education to improve lives and as a way to avoid social catastrophe (Schlicke, 1999 442). In his novel Our Mutual Friend, one can clearly see this association between Dickens and education through the characters of Charley and Lizzie Hexam as they each are profoundly affected by their experience or inexperience with proper education.In his portrayal of educa tion in Our Mutual Friend, Dickens describes a prevalent example of a school of his times, to which the poorer classes of society were obliged to send their children. This can be seen in the scathing quarrel he utilises in Chapter 1 Of an Educational Character in Book the Second The school at which young Charley Hexam had first learned from a hand the streets being, for pupils of his degree, the great Preparatory Establishment in which very much that is never unlearned is learned without and before book was a miserable loft in an unsavoury yard. Its atmosphere was oppressive and disagreeable it was crowded, noisy, and confusing half the pupils dropped asleep, or fell into a state of waking stupefaction the other half unplowed them in either condition by maintaining a monotonous droning noise, as if they were performing, out of time and tune, on a ruder sort of bagpipe. The teachers, animated only by good intentions, had no