THE POPULARITY OF CHARLES DICKENS'S NOVELS AS REFLECTED IN THEIR TEXTUAL AND MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS: A STUDY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD, BLEAK HOUSE AND GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Abstract

This thesis aims to study the ways in which Charles Dickens’s novels contribute to his success and long-established reputation through three novels, David Copperfield (1849), Bleak House (1852) and Great Expectations (1860), by focusing on the narrative as the prominent element of Dickens’s novels, specifically, on the aspect that his narrative is adaptable to various cultural forms. The argument is made based on the reception of his novels in two different periods, during Dickens’s lifetime and two centuries after his death, by examining his employment of the nineteenth-century popular entertainment such as serialisation, illustrations, theatrical melodrama and the individual themes of each novel. His reputation in the twentieth century is seen through the combination of his narrative and the said nineteenth century devices. In fact, his novels demonstrate a great affinity to the forms and structure in film, though, his novels were written before films had emerged. As a proof of his popularity, Dickens’s narratives have adequately the bequeathed film industry in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that, as a result, filmmakers tend to remain faithful to the original texts in their adaptations. Therefore, the faithful film adaptations extend to his enduring reputation. This thesis will elaborate on Dickens’s reputation as timeless because of his skilful use of narrative techniques in plots, settings and characterisation that can be adapted in any cultural form and reinforce his fame even after two centuries have passed.