Ego-Centric Parents in The Novels of Dickens

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show EGO-CENTRIC PARENTS IN THE NOVELS OF CHARLES DICKENS. Many of Dickens’ children suffer because of the failure of their parents to play their proper parental role. Dickens himself said his most painful memories of childhood were of his being abandoned by his own parents, and, later, of his mother’s insistence on sending him to work even when the family was out of debt, and young Charles eager to resume his studies. It is no surprise, therefore, that several of the children in Dickens’ novels suffer at the hands of their own callous and uncaring, and selfish and demanding parents. Dickens’ mothers are often ‘odd’ and his father’s ‘bad’. It is indeed true that in Dickens’ novels evil too often threatens to intrude the scenes of fellowship and warmth because of the parents themselves.