Charles Dickens: The Influences Of The Victorian Era

The Influences of Charles Dickens Although it was a time for peace, prosperity, and freedom, the Victorian era did not come without hardships and doubt. In the age of Queen Victoria, otherwise known as the Victorian era, the British people’s long struggle for personal liberty was accomplished and democratic government became fully entrenched (qtd. by McCoy and Harlan, The Victorian Age, 99). The Victorian culture could be seen as a “fiercely contested imagine space,” as well as fraught with “contradictory” aspects. This can be under the impression that theories of origin led to despair, and the perception that humans had no free will (Moran, “Victorian Literature and Culture”). But along with treachery and despair came new beginnings that even we as a people associate with today. Author Ilana Miller states that the Victorian era was a complex age that, despite its hardships, began new literary and cultural experiences (“The Victorian Era”). Charles Dickens, the most …show more content…
He had been returning from a holiday in Paris with his new lover, Ellen Ternan, and her mother when the accident occurred (Cody 1). Though he survived, the incident scarred Dickens psychologically for the rest of his life. It was later learned that the manuscript for Our Mutual Friend also survived the incident. The crash influenced Dickens to write a short ghost story about a fictional crash similar to that of Staplehurst; however, it is possible that the story was based on the 1861 Clayton Tunnel Accident (qtd. in Lewis, Dickens and the Staplehurst Rail Crash, 104) rather than Staplehurst. There is also evidence that the crash took so much of a toll on Dickens that it was one of the reasons why his life was suddenly cut short. After working a full day on his unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens collapsed and died on June 9, 1870, five years to the day of the Staplehurst crash. His epitaph reads as