In your imagination, what was Britain like in the early 19th century? elegance? gentleman? British style? Or is it darkness, corruption, materialism? Obviously, the social landscape of a particular period cannot be summed up in two words.
However, a great and interesting work can give us an immersive sense of the social situation in early 19th century Britain, that is, Dickens's famous book "Pickwick's Biography".
Pickwick's Tales was originally just a few comic strips that Dickens had written, but after several issues of serialization, these words became unprecedentedly popular with readers and gradually became the protagonists, and the comics appeared only as illustrations, eventually forming such a literary masterpiece.
The main line of the book can be divided into two points, one is the battle of wits between Mr. Pickwick and the swindler Ginger, and the other is the entanglement of Mr. Pickwick and the landlady's marriage, and the whole story can be summarized as Mr. Pickwick's adventure with his three members.
At the beginning of the story, the "Pickwick Society" chaired by Mr. Pickwick is holding a meeting, which decides to set up the "Pickwick News Branch", and the chairman Mr. Pickwick will leave London with three members, Tapman, Winkel and Snowgrass, and travel around in order to increase their knowledge and enrich their knowledge. A series of hilarious stories followed.
At the beginning of the trip, Pickwick and his party were besieged by a group of coachmen.
It turned out that Pickwick was very curious about the coachman's work during the ride, and recorded while asking questions, so that the coachman regarded him as an official secret agent, and without saying a word, he greeted Pickwick and his party with his fist. Fortunately, a young man who could speak the word broke the siege for them and traveled with them to their destination. This young man is the charlatan Ginger.
Ginger has the unique tricks of a charlatan, and he instigates the drunken Trumpman to take Winkel's dress so that he can join Trumpman in the local ball, and compete with people at the ball, resulting in The next day Winkel being mistaken for a provocateur at the dance, and almost encountering a life-and-death duel.
After Pickwick and his party became acquainted with the wadel family of local gentry, Ginger hooked up with Mr. Wadel's sister, the wealthy old maid Miss Wadel, and tricked her into eloping. When the enraged Pickwick and Mr. Wadel caught up with them, Ginger bargained with them again, and abandoned Miss Wadel after collecting £120.
During this negotiation, Pickwick met Sam Weller, a servant at the White Hart Inn. The man was industrious and brave, witty and kind, which Made Pickwick very fond of and wanted to hire him as his retinue. After returning to London, Pickwick talked to the landlord Mrs. Bardell about his ideas, but his old-fashioned and euphemistic words mistook the landlady into thinking that he was proposing to him, and even fainted in his arms in excitement, causing a misunderstanding.
Subsequently, Pickwick and his party arrived in the town of Itansville, a loyal and ancient patriotic town with absurd electoral scenes. The "Blue Party" and the "Light Yellow Party" in the town are hostile to each other, and no matter where they are, whenever the people of the two parties meet, there will be some quarrels. The two sides constantly attacked each other in the newspapers, disturbing the peace of the people of the whole town.
Shortly after the election, Pickwick met Ginger again at a banquet, and at this time he used a different identity and pseudonym to deceive the local area. Pickwick tried to poke him, but was one step behind, allowing Ginger to slip into the crowd.
Soon, Mr. Pickwick received a summons from the court accusing him of breaking the contract. It turned out that two greedy lawyers, Dow Sun and Fogg, had come forward on Mrs. Bardell's behalf, saying that he had promised to marry her and asked Mr. Pickwick for £750 in damages.
Mr. Pickwick was so disgusted by this legalistic lawsuit that he was able to pay the fine but was unwilling to give in to the false accusation, so he was unfortunately imprisoned by the debtor. Sam, a brave and kind servant, in order to take good care of his employer, resolutely tries to put himself in prison so that Pickwick's prison life will not be too difficult.
Unexpectedly, the two lawyers, seeing that Mr. Pickwick was slow to pay the fine, and the landlady could not pay the legal fees, threw the landlady into the debtor's prison. When the crowd saw this, they persuaded Mr. Pickwick to consider himself unlucky and pay a fine to settle the matter. The kind Mr. Pickwick accepted everyone's advice and paid a fine to get himself and the landlady out.
After his release from prison, Mr. Pickwick mediated the love between the two members, which led to two beautiful marriages. Ginger was also inspired by Mr. Pickwick's good deeds to change from evil to righteousness and become a new person. Mr. Pickwick, who had achieved great merit, took his loyal servant Sam to live in seclusion in a villa on the outskirts of London, and spent his happy old age.
In this book, Pickwick undoubtedly represents the traditional English gentleman. He is naïve, upright and slightly old-fashioned, kind-hearted but suffers losses everywhere, but no matter what kind of setbacks he encounters, he maintains an optimistic and cheerful attitude.
His servant Weller, the representative of the people at the bottom, was well versed in the rules of society, witty and sleek, and in the process of helping his master out of trouble again and again, it is not difficult for us to find the unique qualities of each side, and the two sides are interesting and have their own charm.
The swindler Ginger and the two well-intentioned lawyers are the most obvious villains in the book. Their existence reflects the bad social atmosphere that existed in British society at the beginning of the 19th century, such as greed for money, love of vanity, imperfect legal system, judicial system becoming a tool for profiteers, etc., such figures not only have important practical significance, but also allow us to understand the social environment at that time more comprehensively.
Other characters in the book also have their own characteristics, such as the landlady who wants to marry Pickwick, the manipulator behind the election in Itansville, the hypocritical priest, etc., some of these characters are shrewd, some stupid, some are vain, some are simple, and all kinds of distinctive characteristics outline a strange appearance of sentient beings.
As a representative work of Dickens's early years, "Pickwick' Tales" was influenced by the British reform trend at that time, and the overall style was full of optimism. Despite the criticism of social problems, the author finally gives a happy ending. Obviously, such an ending is almost a fairy tale. But we must maintain the same integrity and enthusiasm as Mr. Pickwick, call on conscience, embrace reality, and maybe one day the happy ending will become a reality.