Characteristics of Tragi-Comedy in Charles Dickens's Novel Oliver Twist

Abstract

The English novelist Charles John Hoffman Dickens (1812-1870) is well known for scholars and students of English literature. His name is always accompanied to some( classics) in the history of the English novel such as: ( Oliver Twist( 1839), David Copperfield (1850), Hard Times ( 1854 ), The Tale of Two Cities ( 1859 )Great Expectations (1860) and other novels. He is one of the most professional novelists of the Victorian age; rather, he is regarded by many critics as the father of the realistic trend and the greatest novelist of his age.
 In his fiction, Dickens created some of the world's best-known fictional characters that became prototypes not only in English but in world literature as well. Oliver Twist presents a unique depiction of evil and good characters in English society through a highly serious and powerful conflict full of dramatic events like a traditional tragedy, but the line of action turns to satisfaction and happy end just like a work of comedy. This paper claims that the novelist employs the dramatic genre: Tragi-comedy into a novel by mixing elements of both tragedy and comedy. Although the action in the novel is highly tragic and full of miseries and evil plots, the novel ends happily.