How to Study a Charles Dickens Novel (Bloomsbury Study Skills, 105)

This book provides a clear method of study which encourages students to construct their own interpretation of any of Dicken's novels. It helps students to identify a novel's major thematic concerns and interests and to argue a case purely from the evidence of the text. But it also moves beyond a straighforwardly thematic analysis to consider how a novel is put together and how it works. This in turn provides students with a way of identifying the distinctiveness of Dickens's fiction and with a way of structuring an intelligent critical response to any of his novels. Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction: reading a Dickens novel....Pages 1-9 Hard Times....Pages 10-30 Great Expectations....Pages 31-56 Bleak House....Pages 57-79 Martin Chuzzlewit....Pages 80-99 Dombey and Son....Pages 100-127 Writing an essay....Pages 128-137 Back Matter....Pages 138-141