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Charles Dickens Discussion Questions

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  • Question for 1-24
    What do you know, or think you know, about Charles Dickens? I'm interested in what's in your head right now, so don't go looking to find things out about him. Just share some immediate thoughts about the man, his reputation, and any works you may have already read by him.
    27 Topics
    27 Posts
    Last post by MariaKorogodsky View the latest post
    Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:10 am
  • Question for 1-29
    What are your first impressions of Mr. Pickwick? Can you identify some of the things that Dickens's narrator has done to shape the way you view the man at the center of this story?
    4 Topics
    29 Posts
    Last post by John_Keller View the latest post
    Fri May 09, 2008 12:54 am
  • Question for 1-31
    I've put the <a href="http://wiki.geneseo.edu/x/lQN3">opening chapter of <i>Pickwick</i></a> on the wiki for you to begin annotating. (The link should take you right there.) Look for words and phrases in the chapter that do one of the following: (1) point toward ideas and images that become important as the story develops, or (2) reveal something interesting about the way the narrator presents characters and events. Link a word or phrase that does one of these things to a page containing your annotation, or build on an existing annotation. As much as possible, try to connect this first chapter of Dickens's novel with later developments .
    0 Topics
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  • Question for 2-5
    What is the funniest scene so far in <i>Pickwick</i>? Why? If you haven't found anything to laugh at yet, say something about why you don't find the novel funny. If someone else has beaten you to mentioning your funniest scene, try to say something about the scene that hasn't been said yet. Or write about the second-funniest scene, or the third...
    16 Topics
    29 Posts
    Last post by John_Keller View the latest post
    Fri May 09, 2008 1:04 am
  • Question for 2-7
    There's a lot of eating and drinking in <i>Pickwick Papers.</i> What's that all about? Is a character's behavior around food and drink in <i>Pickwick</i> an index of anything else?
    11 Topics
    27 Posts
    Last post by Mike Robertson View the latest post
    Thu Feb 07, 2008 11:25 am
  • Question for 2-12
    Look at the first paper topic listed on the <a href="http://www.geneseo.edu/~schacht/courses/dickenssp08/index.php?pg=papers.html">Papers/Exams page</a> of the course website. Number X of <i>Pickwick Papers</i> - comprising chapters 27-29 - is off limits for this topic. So write a few words about it here. Can you identify <i>one</i> element that gives the number internal coherence and <i>one</i> way that the number contributes to the structure of the novel as a whole?
    5 Topics
    23 Posts
    Last post by TierneyDecaire View the latest post
    Fri Feb 29, 2008 7:49 pm
  • Question for 2-14
    The "feel" of <i>Pickwick Papers</i> seems to change once Pickwick goes to prison. Can you identify some of the elements of Dickens's writing that bring this change about? Is there a shift in the narrator's tone, for example, and if so what are some examples of this shift? Does the reader's attitude toward Pickwick himself change, and if so, how has Dickens brought this change about?
    5 Topics
    15 Posts
    Last post by TierneyDecaire View the latest post
    Fri Feb 29, 2008 7:56 pm
  • Question for 2-19
    Dickens finished <i>Pickwick</i> in 1837. Serial publication of <i>Dombey and Son</i> began almost a decade later, in 1846. The intervening years were eventful ones in both England and Europe. The 1840's were a period of great social turmoil. In Europe this turmoil culminated in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848">revolutionary uprisings of 1848</a> - the year <i>Dombey and Son</i> concluded and the year that Marx and Engels' <i>Communist Manifesto</i> was published. In the early pages of <i>Dombey and Son,</i> is there any indication that the social and political realities of the 1840's will be relevant to Dickens's story?
    7 Topics
    29 Posts
    Last post by MattDubois View the latest post
    Tue Feb 19, 2008 3:45 pm
  • Question for 2-26
    After last Thursday's activity, you deserve a break from forum posting. So no question for tomorrow. On the other hand, if you have some thoughts about <i>Dombey and Son</i> and want to share them, don't hestitate...
    0 Topics
    0 Posts
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  • Question for 2-28
    I will not say what happens at the end of Chapter 16 in case you're not there yet. But you should be. So get there if you're not, then answer this question: How did you react to what happened? How did it make you feel? Were you surprised? Moved? Left cold? And why do you think you reacted as you did?
    7 Topics
    20 Posts
    Last post by TierneyDecaire View the latest post
    Thu Feb 28, 2008 9:39 pm
  • Question for 3-4
    What does Dombey's second marriage add to our understanding of his character or to our understanding of Dickens's themes in this novel?
    4 Topics
    23 Posts
    Last post by John_Keller View the latest post
    Fri May 09, 2008 1:06 am
  • Question for 3-6
    In our discussions so far, we've noted a few times that Dickens seems interested in exploring some of his society's assumptions about gender. Dombey sees his daughter as "a piece of base coin that couldn't be invested." Edith Granger likens the Victorian "marriage market" to prostitution. To what extent do you think Dickens is critical of the way his society has constructed "masculinity" and "femininity" as ways of being and behaving? To what extent do you think he accepts or even perpetuates his society's construction of these identities?
    6 Topics
    20 Posts
    Last post by DanaLogan View the latest post
    Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:35 pm
  • Question for 3-11
    On Friday, I posted <a href="http://wiki.geneseo.edu/x/owt">this entry on Time in <i>Dombey and Son</i></a> to my Engl 358 blog, prompted by a timely article on time in the <i>New York Times.</i> Time is also important in <i>A Christmas Carol,</i> which was published in 1843, three years before serialization of <i>Dombey</i> began. Look at <i>A Christmas Carol</i> with Time in mind. How does Time figure in the story? How is the idea of Time important to what Dickens wants to say about Christmas?
    9 Topics
    25 Posts
    Last post by Mike Robertson View the latest post
    Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:24 am
  • Question for 3-13
    "And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!" Like "Bah! Humbug!", Tiny Tim's observation is one of the lines from <i>A Christmas Carol</i> known even to those who have never read it. What is its importance in Dickens's story? Another way to ask this question would be: How (and how much) does God matter in <i>A Christmas Carol</i>?
    5 Topics
    24 Posts
    Last post by John_Keller View the latest post
    Fri May 09, 2008 1:12 am
  • Question for 3-25
    In <i>Pickwick Papers,</i> Dickens created a narrator capable of adopting a range of voices. In <i>Bleak House,</i> Dickens experimented with dividing narratorial responsibility between a third-person, omniscient narrator and a first-person narrator directly involved in the story. The result is a novel dominated by two main voices. What are they like? How are they different? What are some effects, on the reader, of Dickens's decision?
    4 Topics
    24 Posts
    Last post by Mike Robertson View the latest post
    Tue Mar 25, 2008 10:46 am
  • Question for 3-27
    Novels generate suspense by generating questions. Will he marry her? Whodunit? Will her illness end in death? Looking back over however much of <i>Bleak House</i> you've completed, what questions has Dickens's novel raised in your mind so far?
    3 Topics
    19 Posts
    Last post by John_Keller View the latest post
    Fri May 09, 2008 1:09 am
  • Question for 4-1
    "What connexion can there be," asks the omniscient narrator of <i>Bleak House</i> in Chapter 16, "between the place in Lincolnshire, the house in town, the Mercury in Powder, and the whereabout of Jo the outlaw with the broom, who had the distant light upon him when he swept the churchyard step? What connexion can there have been between many people in the innumerable histories of the world, who, from opposite sides of great gulfs, have, nevertheless, been very curiously brought together?" What is the narrator getting at in asking these questions? How, in general, does the idea of <i>connexions</i> seem to be important to this novel?
    4 Topics
    23 Posts
    Last post by Mike Robertson View the latest post
    Tue Apr 01, 2008 11:10 am
  • Take a Break
    No question for 4-3. See you in class!
    0 Topics
    0 Posts
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  • Question for 4-8
    In what ways is the idea of <i>circulation</i> important to <i>Bleak House</i>? Who/what circulates in the novel, and why/how does this circulation matter?
    5 Topics
    23 Posts
    Last post by Mike Robertson View the latest post
    Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:54 am
  • Question for 4-10
    Instead of answering a question for Thursday's class, identify anything about <i>Bleak House</i> that puzzles or confuses you, and make it the basis of your own question. After posting your question, have a look at those of your classmates. If you think you have a good answer to a classmate's question, and you feel like answering it, hit "reply" and give it a shot.
    14 Topics
    23 Posts
    Last post by Mike Robertson View the latest post
    Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:23 am
  • Question for 4-15
    The beginning of <i>Great Expectations</i> returns us to two familiar Dickensian themes: Christmas and evangelical Christianity. How can everything we've learned so far about these themes help us interpret the Christmas dinner in <i>Great Expectations</i>? To put the question another way: if we didn't know what we know about these themes from works such as <i>Pickwick Papers</i> and <i>Bleak House,</i> what might we miss in reading the opening chapters of <i>Great Expectations</i>?
    5 Topics
    24 Posts
    Last post by Mike Robertson View the latest post
    Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:23 am
  • Question for 4-17
    As the footnote to the last sentence of Vol I, Chapter XIX points out, the final words of this chapter echo words near the end of John Milton's 17th-century epic poem <i>Paradise Lost.</i> The suggestion of this echo is that Pip, in leaving the marshes, is leaving behind a life of innocence, as Adam and Eve left behind the innocence of paradise. How accurate does this suggestion seem to you? In what ways is Pip's life on the marshes a life of innocence? In characterizing his life there as one of innocence, is there anything he may be overlooking?
    6 Topics
    21 Posts
    Last post by CarliAbiuso View the latest post
    Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:45 am
  • Question for 4-24
    Pip leaves the "Eden" of the marshes for the "world" of London. What is London like? How would you compare the London of <i>Great Expectations</i> to that of <i>Bleak House</i>?
    3 Topics
    22 Posts
    Last post by John_Keller View the latest post
    Fri May 09, 2008 1:02 am
  • Question for 4-28
    As we've discussed, Pip begins his story with a description of his "first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things." How must he revise his sense of "the identity of things," including his own identity, in light of the revelation of his benefactor's identity?
    5 Topics
    20 Posts
    Last post by John_Keller View the latest post
    Fri May 09, 2008 12:59 am
  • Question for 5-1
    Dickens composed two endings for <i>Great Expectations</i>. The Penguin edition prints the original ending, which Dickens revised at the behest of his friend and fellow novelist Edward Bulwer Lytton, on pp. 508-509. Which ending do you think is better? How would you justify your preference?
    4 Topics
    17 Posts
    Last post by John_Keller View the latest post
    Fri May 09, 2008 12:56 am
  • Question for 5-6
    For January 24, I asked: "What do you know, or think you know, about Charles Dickens?" Looking back, how well <i>did</i> did you know Dickens? Has this semester's reading and discussion altered your understanding of the man and his work? If so, how? If not, how has this semester's reading and discussion confirmed what you already thought?
    5 Topics
    24 Posts
    Last post by Amber Kellogg View the latest post
    Thu May 08, 2008 11:08 am

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