Charles Dickens: Censorship and Slavery

Censorship and Control : Charles Dickens/Slavery.

The reading in which was analysed for the purpose of this presentation, is entitled Charles Dickens, The American South, and The Transatlantic Debate over Slavery, by Jonathan Daniel Wells. The paper deals with the notions of slavery and capitalism, and the relationship between Dickens and his readers. Wells points out near the beginning of his study, that Dickens was employed by African-Americans to attack slavery, but came under critical attack when anti-slavery ideas were not explored. Wells points out that white southerners rejected any content produced by Dickens that dealt with slavery, but implored his styles that focused on the harshness and ill-effects that came into play as a result to Industrial Capitalism. According to the reading, Dickens first experienced the ill-sights of slavery in 1842, during a trip to America. Dickens noted how ‘slave auctions mocked claims to liberty’. As Wells suggests, Dickens had a strong hatred towards slavery, but in a sense was afraid to get involved with its conflicts. Wells argued that ‘white southerners actively sought for the writers approval for slavery, while Dickens on the other hand did his best to hide his disgust, but often with little success’. As the paper progresses, it mentions how in the 1800’s in the American South, the region had participated in transatlantic literary culture – In many regions, but mainly for white southerners, the writers publications had eventually become ‘weapons in the American debate over slavery and sectionalism’. According to Wells, the many writings of Dickens had in many cases, ‘posed a powerful enigma for white southerners, and their attempts to fashion slavery as the best alternative to Industrial Capitalism – If Dickens had ever criticised slavery, many white southerners would reject his thoughts forcefully, and would cast him with fanatical northern and British abolitionists. It is then noted further within the reading how, within both of the writers novels and non-fiction, Dickens would weave a forceful denunciation of slavery and the deleterious effect of bondage on a society’s economy and culture, and thus agreeing with abolitionist assessments of the slave south – Dickens believed that bondage led to depressed economies, sloth, the devaluation of work, and cultural backwardness. Although white southerners would always reject any anti-slavery content, they would also find admiration to the creativity in Dickens.

In the 1830’s, in regard to Atlantic Literary culture – it had seen a dramatic expansion. However as Wells notes, for most European authors, there were no international copyright laws that would protect their property.

This as Wells argued, did not sit well with the growing author, - however it had also in numerous ways, benefitted him as the absence of rules and structure in print culture helped to make readers on both sides of the Atlantic more familiar with one another’s works – Dickens would indeed write in response to transatlantic works he found influential. The 1800’s had very much seen a drastic rise, and acceptance with both intellectual and literary culture, but at the same time, many white southerners still fought against it, and again as Wells notes – southern readers would clamp down on any anti-slavery material such as pamphlets that would have been distributed via mail. As mentioned, white southerners found joy in relation to Dickens’ creativity, most notably with his depictions of society’s lower orders. According to a review posted within the Southern Literary Messenger, and speaking on behalf of Dickens’ lower class representations – ‘he is never indelicate, indecent, nor irreligious…. He translates nature and life’. In Dickens’ later novels, such as Bleak House and Hard Times, themes in which were explored included the harsh working conditions of labour, along with the British court systems – such works were still read by both black Americans and white southerners - southerners in particular, had found deep interest in these works as according to Well’s, ‘they believed that the legal systems of the North and England were designed to buttress the wealthy at the expense of the poor’. Wells notes that although many southerners were angered when Dickens would attack slavery,  it would not dissuade writers and editors from reviewing his works – one southerner had said that ‘Mr Dickens has more readers at present than ever. To many southerners, after the most part of the 1840s in reading Dickens, they concluded that there was little new or striking in his antislavery ideologies – after a certain amount of time, a vast number of southerners felt that Dickens levelled the same critiques of bondage that they had been hearing for so long. In-fact, various critics had even argued that ‘Dickens gathered all his ideas on the subject from the false and distorted representations of Northern abolitionists and fanatics, instead of coming to certain regions himself, to see the conditions of slavery’.

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