Charles Dickens is one of the famous English writers. His world-wide popularity is immense. We are surprised reading his books: every figure in his novels is full of life.
Dickens, himself led a hard life. He had appeared in the role of his heroes for several times. Dickens had to earn his living with great difficulties. He tasted all the ignorance and hard work himself. All these difficulties of his childhood were so close to him that sometimes he thought, that the time had stopped. He always took the side of honest and kind poor people. He struggled for virtue and hated vice. He thought that social injustice could be changed in a moral way. The writer arouses kind and pure feelings, giving the lessons of love for man.
The well known novels by Dickens are “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club”, “The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit”, “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby”, “The Personal History of David Copperfield”.
I was astonished reading “The adventures of Oliver Twist”. Dickens described the life of orphans and homeless people. It seems like a great canvas, describing all the typical features of an orphan: his feelings, sufferings and difficulties. The reader is touched by these scenes, as they are so true to life. After reading the novel I was so excited that I saw a dream, a magic dream. The world was changed into the best. Oliver was one of my classmates, and no one could even imagine that he had been a thief. He studied well and everybody was satisfied by his behavior. He was my close friend. He had great dream to become a lawyer or a doctor. He desired to be a man of career, a man of fortune. I opened my eyes and the dream was gone. I remembered that our class would visit one of the children’s homes in Yerevan. We had been in the same orphanage for several times. All the time, I was there, I couldn’t but think about Oliver. He was so close to me, he was nearby. I could hardly help crying. There were lots of orphans and each of them had hunger of life in his eyes. Some of them were of my age. I thought how different we are. I have parents who solve my problems easily, who do everything for me and these children – lack of love, home. They had to solve their problems themselves. But they have love for life and the right of happiness as me.
Each of these children can easily appear in the street and be changed into a thief. How difficult is for their teachers to keep them: friends, teachers, parents. It’s hard even to imagine. Each of them is an Oliver; each of them can easily become a new hero for Dickens. I thought “What would write Dickens nowadays?” I don’t think that he would write anything else, but “Oliver Twist” as his novel, his hero is very actual even now. We say that life has changed into the best. Everything is new, interesting, charming. But I think, that not so much has been changed, as we have orphans, thieves and homeless people. This is still a problem for each country. The country is strong with his strong people. So we have to change much. I believe that in some years the children will think differently. I hope that they would find something happier for Dickens to write. But now, I can’t think so, as the world is full of sadness, unhappiness, orphans and homeless people. I would like to be a great magician and fulfill my dream. I would never be in the orphanage and would never speak about the orphans and their hard life. Then Oliver would be only one of the heroes of my favourite writer. But, unfortunately I’m not so powerful to change the world so easily. The life is still difficult and I am of the same opinion that Dickens would write nothing but “Oliver Twist” and his hero would be the same Oliver: suffering from hunger, cold and dreaming of a happy family, of a splendid future and brilliant career.