Hello. In our previous lesson, we explored how Charles Dickens masterfully uses setting and atmosphere in Great Expectations to deliver powerful social commentary. We saw that his London and his Kent marshes are not just backdrops, but moral landscapes that reflect the virtues and vices of Victorian society.
Today, we will broaden our analytical lens to place Dickens within the wider European realist movement. Our objective is to compare his approach to social realism with that of his major French contemporaries, Honoré de Balzac and Gustave Flaubert. By doing so, we will identify the common threads that unite realism across national borders, as well as the distinct characteristics that define the English and French traditions. This comparative analysis will deepen your understanding of realism as a complex, multifaceted literary mode.
The "French Dickens": A Shared Vision
The comparison between Dickens and Balzac is so foundational that critics have long referred to Balzac as the "French Dickens," and, in turn, Dickens as the "English Balzac." This highlights a shared ambition to capture the totality of their respective societies in fiction.
Let's begin by exploring the basis for this comparison. The following guide provides several key points of connection.
French Dickens (Literary Nickname) – Study Guide | StudyGuides.com
This resource directly explains the literary nickname "French Dickens" and outlines the core similarities between Balzac and Dickens in their approach to realism.
Please read the following sections from the study guide. You can navigate by looking for the questions in bold: Start with the answer to "What does the nickname French Dickens signify in literature?" This establishes their shared commitment to "detailed social realism." Next, read the section that answers "What influenced Charles Dickens according to comparisons with the French Dickens?" Note the mention of Balzac's "realistic approach." Finally, read the answer to "What common theme links Balzac and Dickens novels?" This identifies their shared focus on critiquing "industrial and bourgeois society."
As you've just read, both Balzac and Dickens took on the monumental task of documenting the social transformations of the 19th century. Their work is united by a deep engagement with the economic and social realities of their time, particularly the rise of capitalism and its effect on the class structure.
A deeper look at this shared context reveals that their literary projects were profoundly shaped by the economic philosophy of their era.
The Objectivity of Realism: Literature | Encyclopedia.com
This text from Encyclopedia.com explains how the environment of laissez-faire capitalism directly influenced the subject matter and even the publication methods of realist authors like Balzac and Dickens.
Read the section titled Laissez-Faire Capitalism and Realism. Pay close attention to how it describes money as a "despotic master" and how both novelists used serial publication to reach a growing middle-class audience.
This shared foundation gives their work a similar texture. Both authors:
- Chronicled Urban Life: They made Paris and London central characters in their novels, mapping their social geographies with unprecedented detail.
- Focused on Money and Ambition: In Père Goriot and Great Expectations, the pursuit of wealth and status is a primary engine of the plot, corrupting individuals and exposing societal hypocrisy.
- Created Vast Social Canvases: Through interconnected novels (La Comédie humaine) or sprawling individual narratives, they aimed to represent all levels of society, from the lowest criminal to the highest aristocrat.
However, despite these deep similarities, their methods and ultimate aims reveal significant differences.
Balzac the Social Scientist vs. Dickens the Moral Crusader
While both were social critics, their authorial stance and tone differed considerably. Balzac approached his society like a biologist or an anatomist, seeking to classify its "social species" and uncover the laws that governed their behavior.
Balzac's La Comédie humaine was a self-conscious, systematic project to create a complete "history" of French society. His tone is often cynical and detached, presenting the corrosive power of money as an inexorable force.
How Balzac's Uncensored Novels Defined Post-Napoleonic Life | Literary Classics
This documentary segment discusses the central role of money and social dynamism in Balzac's work, highlighting his analytical approach.
Watch the clip from the drawing rooms. The speaker notes that "money in Balzac's novels... is one of the main characters" and emphasizes his achievement in showing the "constant motion of Capital."
Dickens, on the other hand, was more of a moral crusader. While he was a sharp observer of social ills, his work is suffused with a powerful sense of moral judgment and a deep investment in the possibility of human goodness and reform.
Consider the differences in their characters:
- Balzac's "Types": Characters like Goriot, Rastignac, and Vautrin represent social forces and archetypes—the passionate father, the ambitious youth, the master criminal. They are components in a vast social machine.
- Dickens's Caricatures and Moral Centers: Dickens also creates "types," but they often verge on caricature (Pumblechook, Wemmick) to heighten his satire. Crucially, his novels almost always contain moral anchors—characters like Joe Gargery or Biddy—who embody virtues like loyalty and compassion, offering an alternative to the corrupting influence of society. Dickens's realism is frequently blended with sentimentality and a theatrical, symbolic quality (the fog on the marshes, the decaying Satis House) designed to move the reader emotionally and ethically.
In short, Balzac dissects society to show how it works; Dickens exposes its injustices to make you feel they are wrong.
Flaubert's Revolution: The Impersonal Artist
Gustave Flaubert marks a pivotal shift in the evolution of realism. If Balzac was the social historian and Dickens the moralist, Flaubert was the pure artist, for whom the primary goal was not social documentation or reform, but aesthetic perfection and authorial objectivity.
This introduces the crucial concept of impersonality.
The Objectivity of Realism: Literature | Encyclopedia.com
This passage explains the influence of positivist philosophy on realism and introduces Flaubert's radical idea of the impersonal author.
Please read the first half of the section titled Positivism and Realist Literature. Focus on Flaubert's belief that "great art is scientific and impersonal" and his desire to be a "magnifying mirror of external truth," removed from his own creation.
This principle of impersonality represents a fundamental break from both Balzac and Dickens.
- Balzac's Voice: Balzac, the analyst, frequently inserts himself into the narrative to explain the workings of society, to offer philosophical asides, and to guide the reader's understanding.
- Dickens's Voice: Dickens's moralizing authorial voice is ever-present. His prose is charged with emotion, irony, and direct appeals to the reader's conscience.
- Flaubert's Absence: Flaubert sought to erase the author, to make the story seem as if it were telling itself. His primary tool for this was a refined style and the use of techniques like free indirect discourse (which we studied in Madame Bovary), which blurs the line between the narrator's voice and the character's thoughts.
This change in method was accompanied by a change in subject. While Balzac and Dickens tackled the grand dramas of their capital cities, Flaubert demonstrated that realism's true power could be found in the meticulous, almost microscopic, examination of the mundane—the "dullest details" of provincial bourgeois life. For Flaubert, the drama was psychological, found in the "spores of mildew growing on the soul."
A Comparative Framework
To consolidate these distinctions, here is a summary of the three authors' approaches to realism:
| Feature | Honoré de Balzac | Charles Dickens | Gustave Flaubert |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scope | Panoramic society; a "human comedy" | A moral and social slice of Victorian England | Focused psychological study of an individual |
| Authorial Stance | Social scientist, historian, analyst | Moral crusader, social reformer, sentimentalist | Impersonal observer, objective stylist |
| Key Technique | Detailed description, social "types" | Symbolism, caricature, atmospheric setting | Free indirect discourse, precise style ("le mot juste") |
| Tone | Cynical, analytical, deterministic | Moralistic, satirical, often sentimental | Detached, ironic, objective |
| Primary Subject | The power of money, class ambition, social decay | Class injustice, moral hypocrisy, individual goodness | Bourgeois mediocrity, the poverty of spiritual life |
Conclusion
In this lesson, we have placed Dickens's social realism in its European context, comparing it with the French models of Balzac and Flaubert. This comparison illuminates the different paths that realism could take.
Here are the key takeaways:
- Shared Ground (Balzac & Dickens): Both were pioneers of social realism, using the novel to create vast, detailed chronicles of 19th-century urban society, with a particular focus on the corrosive effects of money and class.
- Dickens's Distinction: Dickens's realism is uniquely characterized by its strong moral purpose, its use of sentimentality and caricature, and its masterful deployment of symbolic atmosphere to critique society.
- Flaubert's Evolution: Flaubert represents a turn toward a more "scientific" and aesthetic realism. He championed authorial impersonality, shifted the focus from the social panorama to the psychological microcosm, and made stylistic precision the ultimate goal.
Understanding these three figures gives you a robust framework for analyzing the major currents of 19th-century realism. Each represents a distinct answer to the question of how literature should engage with reality.
In our next lesson, we will journey to another great national tradition: Russian realism. We will begin our study of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, exploring how Russian writers took the psychological turn we see in Flaubert and infused it with profound philosophical and spiritual questions, creating a form of realism that is uniquely their own.