I've been watching the dramatizations of Charles Dickens novels on PBS. There was Oliver Twist, in two installments; and more recently, The Old Curiosity Shop.
Dickens depicts a world—early 19th century London—with a lot of poverty and ruthless social conditions, like prisons and workhouses for the poor or for people who don't pay their debts.
In addition to this background, which anyone would find depressing, Dickens' characters are a great bunch of scoundrels--liars, cheats, robbers, even killers. So it's a sordid, vicious society full of vicious individuals with no scruples.
You want to say, Thank God I don't live in that world! At least on the surface our world seems to be more humane and less draconian. But human nature has not changed. If you look at the news, and see the dealings of politicians and bankers and Wall Street traders—there are still plenty of scoundrels in the world. It might be just as dismal to contemplate our world. After all, Dickens' world is fictional, and we may well let ourselves believe that Dickens' time and place was not as bad as he depicted it to be.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
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