THE CRIMINAL AND THE RESPECTABLE: CRIME IN DICKENS AND BALZAC

Abstract

Charles Dickens and Honore de Blazac, both were interested in the world of criminals. Dickens was interested in questions of prison reform while Balzac himself knew details about the Paris underworld, the hierarchies, idioms etc. Indeed their novels Great Expectations and Old Goriot deal with the criminal world and criminal elements. What is interesting about these novels is the response both these novelists give to the element of crime. In both of these novels there is a critical understanding of the aspect of crime. There is awareness about the all-pervasive nature of crime. Crime is no longer seen as confined to dens of robbers and thieves. Indeed both these novels implicate those spaces which are seen as opposed to the sordid world of crime. The taint of crime does not seem to escape any character in both these novels