Charles Dickenss Our Mutual Friend Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Charles Dickenss Our Mutual Friend - Essay ExampleHe uses a kaleidoscope of characters to illustrate the various kinds of rearing, or lack of, and there is an underlying irony in his moving picture of many of his warmheartedness class characters.One of the greatest contrasts Dickens draws upon during the novel is between education and m wholenessy. In the capital of the United Kingdom society Dickens describes, for many, education does not matter as much as money. As secular Bella Wilfer exclaims at the end of Book III And yet I have money always in my thoughts and my desires and the whole life I place before myself is money, money, money, and what money can ease up of life1 through with(predicate) his characterisation of individuals, such as Mr and Mrs Veneering, Dickens reveals how money can by you material possessions and social placement exactly it cannot buy you educationMr and Mrs Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new provide in a bran-new quarter of London. E r eallything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, alone their friends were new, and their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new (OMF, 5)The VeneerinThe Veneerings are described as faintly ridiculous. They epitomise the frenzy of straitlaced commodity culture.2 Newness is the defining feature of the Veneerings. They are associated with surfaces and their nouveau riche world which is starkly contrasted to that of the riverside, described in the novels opening scene. (Chavez, 20) The middle classes are satirized by Dickenss description of Podsnap, his analogous arch-bourgeois.3 Podsnap is defined by routines and restraints Getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past fiver and dining at seven. (OMF, 121) Podsnap is an example of one whose wealth an d arrogance separates him from the rest of society He never could make out why everybody was not quite satisfied, and he felt conscious that he set a brilliant social example in being particularly well satisfied with most things, and, supra all other things, with himself. (OMF, 120) Dickens reveals that despite being well off, Mr Podsnaps world was not a very large world, morally no nor even geographically. (OMF, 121)Due to the consumerism of Victorian society, Dickens does not depict education as a means of giving the working class a chance, especially if they are solo being taught to abide by an erroneous set of rules. Instead, Dickens would appear to prefer a to a greater extent humanistic form of education. During a speech he gave in 1844, Dickens stated If you would reward honesty, if you would go for encouragement to good, if you would stimulate the idle, eradicate evil, or correct what is bad, education - comprehensive liberal education - is the one thing needful, and the o ne effective end.4Dickens uses a number of characters to illustrate this view of education. Characters such as Bella Wilfer, Silas Wegg and Eugene Wrayburn are all lacking in social and moral education. Bella is obsessed about marrying money but is reformed through her education from Mr Boffin. The Boffins are humble people whose inheritance causes