ANGELS AND MONSTERS. THE IMAGE OF WOMEN IN CHARLES DICKENS
ANGELS AND MONSTERS. THE IMAGE OF WOMEN IN CHARLES DICKENS

Summary/Abstract: Dickens created most of his female characters under the influence of strict Victorian gender codes. As well as the norms and traditions of Victorian social structure, Dickens’ personal experience with women also played a major role in the formation of his female characters. Although, Charles Dickens’s female figures illustrate this ideology of womanhood they also subvert that ideology because his female figures can be divided into two types: the angelic female figures who are associated with the devotion to domestic and maternal duties and the dangerous female figures who are associated with sexuality/passion. Angelic women play multiple roles at a time as a lover, nurse, daughter, adviser, wife, mother, and nurturer. The female characters, who try to break the chains of conventionality, who do not conform to the ideal of feminity go through sufferings and conflicts. Modern readers tend to criticize his stereotyped characterization of women, his vision being considered sexist, sentimental and derogatory. Even though there are similarities between the female characters he created, one can easily see that they follow a great diversity and there are significant changes in his treatment of female characters, as they may gradually grow out of the stereotypes and become individualized, developing characters.

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