Charles Dickens's Relationship with his Famous Contemporaries

Bronte’s debut novel, Jane Eyre, was an immediate popular success on publication in 1847. Dickens claimed never to have read it, but Slater believes this claim is improbable, (p.282) and Dickens’ next two novels after Jane Eyre both seem to be influenced by it. David Copperfield’s use of first-person narrative, and certain episodes, especially when David is humiliated in front of his class-mates by being made to wear a sign advertising his bad behaviour, recalls Jane Eyre. Bleak House’s Esther Summerson has also been seen as bearing certain similarities to Jane Eyre, though where Jane is headstrong and independent, Esther is placid, subservient and self-effacing. Bronte herself found Esther’s character “weak and twaddling.” (Schlicke, p.56)mark-Wallace

Both Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, and Great Expectations, written by Charles Dickens, have many Victorian similarities. Both novels are influenced by the same three elements. The first is the gothic novel, which instilled mystery, suspense, and horror into the work. The second is the romantic poets, which gave the literature liberty, individualism, and nature. The third is the Byronic hero, which consists of the outcast or rebel who is proud and melancholy and seeks a purer life. The results when all three combined are works of literature like Jane Eyre and Great Expectations. BOTH NOVELS CONVEY THE SAME VICTORIAN IDEOLOGIES COMMON FOR THE TIME PERIOD IN, WHICH THEY WERE WRITTEN. Brontë displays many of her experiences and beliefs through the main character, Jane, in her novel. As does Dickens, he portrays his own experiences and thoughts through Pip, the main character of Great Expectations.

Dickens and Brontë use setting as an important role in the search for domesticity. Great Expectations is a circular book, with Pip finding his childhood home at the end of the story finally filled with happiness and a real family (Chesterton, 102). Pip begins the novel in his village, innocent though oppressed. Moving to London, he becomes uncommon, but also loses his natural goodness. Paying his financial debts and living abroad after losing his “great expectations,” he regains his goodness, or at least. Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Charles Dickens' Great Expectations

Equipped with an edition of Bleak House and little else, Professor Slater began by pointing out that there is a complete lack of evidence that any of the Brontës ever met Dickens, and not much to say about their opinions of him, even though just about everybody in their time read his works. We can speculate, of course, and we do know that Charlotte Brontë was averse to the caricaturing style and was wary of showiness and too much self promotion: reports of all those lavish London dinner parties at the Dickens household, with pineapples studding the table, would have aroused her disapproval.
Nevertheless, significant connections have been made: few important novelists of the nineteenth century were particularly interested in children, or the way they were treated. Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë stand out as different here. Lowood and Dotheboys Hall spring to mind, and Wackford Squeers and Brocklehurst have often been put together (misleadingly) in the same club. The young Jane Eyre could be compared and contrasted with Esther Summerson quite profitably, and it has been argued that Bleak House was an influence on Villette. Professor Slater read a few paragraphs from Chapter 3 in which Esther remembers her childhood doll, the only 'person' she felt able to talk to. Miss Barbary, Esther's strict godmother, later revealed as her aunt, could be lined up alongside Jane's aunt. bronteparsonage