WBENG answers all questions based on English syllabus

Charles Dickens — David Copperfield Question: Compare and contrast the characters of Dora and Agnes. Ans . In the artistic pattern of the story Dora and Agnes are presented as studies in contrast. Both of them are presented as the objects of love to David, who married them successively. It has been said that the character of Dora is based on Dickens' first love, Maria Beadnell, with whom he had an abortive and unfortunate love-affair at the age of seventeen. The ardours and miseries of the future novelist are represented in the chapters dealing with the David-Dora love-affair. Agnes is drawn after Catherine Hogarth, the dear wife and life-long companion of the mature Dickens, who made a happy home for him. Somerset Maugham has condemned both the characters as "fearfully tiresome". According tb him, "Dora is too silly and too childish and Agnes is too good and too sensible". In this lies the contrast between the two. Dora is the 'child-wife' of David. Her

  Give a critical estimate of Dickens as a novelist. Ans.    In the history of English fiction Dickens came in the right time. He was born in one of the stormiest years in the history of England and spent his unhappy boyhood in London, passing through experiences which were to inspire him all through his life and supplied him the raw-materials which he had worked in the series of his brilliant novels. The industrial revolution was fast changing the face of England. The discovery of the steam-engine had been potent factor in this transformation. A large number of factories had sprung up in the country. England passed from a pre-eminently agricultural country into an industrial one. The rapid growth of town life under the stress of this revolution. was the most dominating factor in the history of the early nineteenth century. The new mode of producticn brought wealth and power to the country and in the process brought about a shift in the centre of gravity in the social life. A new body