A-F Charles Dickens Characters
Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit, A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) created numerous memorable characters. Some characters were socially significant, others simply amusing, but each emerges larger than life from the pages of Dickens’ fictional volumes.
His characters often reveal something about the author, his literary style, the society of his era, or human nature in general. Many of the character names are often mentioned, but which of these names sound familiar?
Have these characters from the “Dickens Dictionary” of character names from A-F populated your imagination? Do you know from which novels each originated or the literary or historical importance some acquired?
Artful Dodger
The Artful Dodger, Jack Dawkins, is a pickpocket among Fagin’s mob of child criminals in Oliver Twist. An accomplished member of the child criminals, it is the impish Dodger who brings the naïve Oliver to Fagin.
Although Dodger has acquired his name through his skill of dodging responsibility and arrest, he is eventually convicted of theft and sentenced to being sent to the colony of Australia.
Betsy Trotwood
The great-aunt of the title character of David Copperfield, Betsy Trotwood appears at the time of David’s birth in the first chapter, but she does not play a major role in the events of his life until she adopts him later in his childhood.
She exhibits an abrasive and uncommon personality, and due to being mistreated by her former husband, she initially has a dislike of boys, hoping to act as godmother to a baby girl. However, unlike the Great Expectations character of Miss Havisham, who also dislikes boys due to ill-treatment by the opposite sex, Aunt Betsy alters her opinion, treats David affectionately, and does not seek revenge on all male kind.
Child Tiny Tim
One of Dickens most famous characters, Tiny Tim Cratchit is the sickly son of goodhearted clerk Bob Cratchit in the classic A Christmas Carol. Tiny Tim is one of the many kindly but unfortunate child characters created by Charles Dickens. The goodness and optimism of Tiny Tim in part inspires the positive change in Ebenezer Scrooge, and Dickens wrote a happy ending for Timothy Cratchit.
Tiny Tim is often quoted for saying the famous line, “God Bless Us, Every One.”
Daniel Doyce
Daniel Doyce is a supporting character in Little Dorrit. The novel critiques the evils of both poverty and riches, showing the bodily and emotional effects of families being kept in debtors’ prisons and also depicting the “grand tour” of the wealthy.
Daniel Doyce is a struggling inventor who becomes friends with Arthur Clennam, the gentleman who loves the title female of Amy Dorrit, affectionately known as “Little Dorrit.” Amy has grownup in debtors’ prison due to her father, like Dickens own father, being imprisoned for debt.
Through fraudulently being swindled it looks as if Arthur will also become trapped in debtors’ prison, until Doyce, who has made his fortune in Europe, returns from his travels and pays to free Arthur, leading to the happy ending of the novel.
Ebenezer Scrooge
The main character of A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is a miserly and cold elderly man, who is shown the error of his ways by the ghost of his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley, and the three spirits of Christmas.
The name Scrooge has come to epitomize an avaricious and meanly unfeeling person who does not keep in his heart the spirit of Christmas.
Fagin
Described as disgusting in appearance, Fagin is an elderly man who operates the crimes of a gang of street children. In exchange for Fagin teaching them a trade and keeping a roof over their heads, the children give Fagin what they pickpocket. It is implied that the villainous Bill Sikes is a former pupil of Fagin, and the prostitute Nancy is supposed to have been another of the children taken in by Fagin. Monks, the half-brother of the child Oliver makes it worth Fagin’s while to corrupt the youngling.
Like Scrooge, Fagin is a miser, and his worst fear is death by hanging, which is his eventual fate. It is sometimes argued that the character is anti-Semitic due to Fagin being thought to portray the negative stereotype of Jews.
G-L Charles Dickens Characters
Continuing with G-L Charles Dickens Characters, take a glance at the unusual characters of some of Dickens’ lesser read, but still often mentioned, works such as Bleak House, Hard Times For These Times, The Old Curiosity Shop, and his last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend.
Father Christmas
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