Mystery and Suspense in Dickens' Writing

Mystery and Suspense in Dickens' Writing

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812. Most of his books were

written in the mid-eighteen hundreds and some of them include Great

Expectations, Hard Times, and Little Dorrit. The three I will be

referring to are Oliver Twist, The Signalman and A Christmas Carol.

Back in Dickens' time there was a lack of education, a huge wealth

divide between the rich and the poor, and the environment was

unpleasant compared to todays.

Dickens' creates mystery and suspense in his books through techniques

of writing language, the background, the characters, and the weather.

Dickens often has moralistic themes to his books, in A Christmas

Carol, Scrooge changed from being a horrible man who hated Christmas,

into a nice, pleasant gentleman, who came to like Christmas.

One of Dickens' main techniques is his use of language. He used

elaborate descriptions, alliteration, repetition, listing and

onomatopoeia. An example of his elaborate descriptive writing is shown

in 'A Christmas Carol' - "A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping,

clutching, covetous old sinner." Another example of Dickens use of

language is also in 'A Christmas Carol' -"The phantom slowly, gravely,

silently approached." This is an example of tripling, and the word

'gravely' again refers to death. This piece of writing certainly does

create mystery and suspense. In the 'Signalman,' there are many

examples of Dickens' descriptive language, - "a vague vibration in the

earth and air, quickly changing, into a violent pulsation, and an

oncoming rush." Here Dickens uses many adjectives to create mystery

and suspense. Another example is in 'Oliver Twist,' - "face so

distorted and pale and eyes so red and bloodshot." He also uses many

adjectives here.

There are many times in which you can see the characteristic language

of the time in Oliver Twist, where Fagin is referred to as, - "The

Jew." It is obvious to us that this book was written in the eighteen

hundreds as now, it is politically incorrect, to call someone, " a

Jew." In the 'Signalman,' Dickens uses another factor in which is