A Discourse: Charles Dickens, The Making of Immortal Characters

Charles Dickens,
Illustrated London News, 1843.
Illustrated London News,
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Charles Dickens and His Contemporaries: The Making of Immortal Characters

(Speech with Stage Directions, Second-Person POV)

[Pause at podium, look across the audience, take a deep breath]

Ladies and gentlemen,

[gesture toward audience] Imagine, if you will, walking through the bustling streets of Victorian London. [pause] 

You encounter a man counting his coins with obsessive care, a boy fleeing a dark alley, or a young girl frozen in time by a bitter disappointment. [slow, reflective] You know these characters intimately, yet they never lived outside the pages of novels. And yet, you sense their humanity, their flaws, their virtues, their very souls.

You might think these creations sprang entirely from the genius of one man—Charles Dickens—[lean slightly forward, emphasize “one man”]—but today, I invite you to consider something more intricate: that Dickens’s immortal characters are not the products of solitary genius alone. 

[pause, make eye contact] They are, in fact, the culmination of a vibrant literary dialogue, a collaboration across time and space with the writers, thinkers, and contemporaries who surrounded him.

From a photograph by Gurney,
Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons
Charles Dickens, 1868

When you read Dickens, you are encountering a literary mind in conversation. [gesture outward as if embracing a crowd] You are entering a world shaped by Wilkie Collins, whose mastery of suspense and the psychological labyrinth of the sensation novel urged Dickens to explore hidden depths in his characters. [pause, soften tone] 

You encounter Elizabeth Gaskell, whose commitment to social realism pressed Dickens to depict poverty, class, and injustice with unprecedented nuance. [emphasize “Thomas Carlyle”] 

Thomas Carlyle whispers to you through Dickens, reminding you that materialism cannot substitute for moral responsibility. And Charles Lamb, with his gentle humor and reflective nostalgia, teaches you to savor memory and sentiment, even in the midst of moral drama.

Add to this the vibrant rivalry and inspiration of Thackeray, Bulwer-Lytton, and Trollope, and you begin to perceive the full network of influences that gave birth to the figures you know so well.

[pause, tilt head slightly] Let us start with Wilkie Collins, Dickens’s close friend and collaborator. You may recall that Collins popularized the sensation novel, a genre built upon mystery, intrigue, and delayed revelation. 

Now, when you read Great Expectations, you can sense Collins’s hand in the story of Pip. You follow Pip’s journey, wondering about the true identity of his benefactor, feeling suspense as the complex web of Estella’s parentage is revealed. Collins taught Dickens how to sustain this suspense, how to layer psychology onto plot, and how to let a character’s hidden past reshape your perception of them.

[Pause for effect, lower voice slightly.] 

See page for author,
 Public domain,
 via Wikimedia Commons
Magwitch makes
himself known 

Magwitch is no longer a mere criminal; he becomes a man capable of loyalty and love. Estella, once a seemingly cold socialite, reveals vulnerability, tragedy, and the consequences of nurture gone awry. 

Through Collins, Dickens learned that character could emerge gradually, that revelation could serve not merely plot but moral insight.

Yet Dickens was not solely focused on psychological intrigue. [gesture toward audience] Elizabeth Gaskell, whose novels such as Mary Barton and North and South expose the human cost of industrialization, influenced Dickens to deepen his engagement with social reality. 

You see it in Great Expectations, where the transformation of Magwitch illuminates the possibilities of social mobility and the destructiveness of prejudice. 

You see it in Bleak House, in the suffering of Jo, the homeless crossing-sweeper whose plight indicts an indifferent legal system.

Gaskell’s unflinching realism encouraged Dickens to ensure that his characters were not simply moral or comic types but fully situated in the society that shaped them—their virtues, their weaknesses, their struggles intertwined with the structures around them. [pause, sweep hand slowly across audience]

And then there is Thomas Carlyle, the philosopher who reminds you, as you read, that life is more than wealth and status. [lean forward slightly, voice firm] Carlyle’s critique of materialism—the warning that a society devoted to the accumulation of property risks spiritual decay—is echoed in Pip’s journey. You watch Pip pursue gentility, longing to escape his humble origins, only to find that wealth and title do not confer moral worth.

You witness Dombey’s cold obsession with business and social standing, and you understand, through Dickens’s dramatization, Carlyle’s insistence on moral responsibility, authenticity, and human connection. [emphasize, slow pace] 

Sydney Carton, in A Tale of Two Cities, offers perhaps the most Carlylean lesson: self-sacrifice and ethical courage imbue life with true meaning. Carton becomes immortal because his moral courage transcends the page, teaching you the weight of human responsibility.

Yet even as Dickens grappled with suspense, realism, and moral philosophy, he did not abandon sentiment. [smile, softer tone] Charles Lamb, in his essays of Elia, modeled for Dickens a voice suffused with warmth, reflection, and affectionate humor. 

F.A. Fraser, Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons 
Pip is ashamed of Joe
at Satis House, by F. A. Fras

When you hear the adult Pip reflecting on his childhood, or when you read Mr. Micawber’s struggles with charming optimism, or when Scrooge’s eventual transformation warms your heart, you are experiencing Lamb’s influence. 

Lamb taught Dickens—and, through him, you—to see the ordinary and the eccentric, the joyous and the sorrowful, with equal care, to allow memory and affection to shape moral understanding.

And let us not forget the broader literary landscape in which Dickens thrived. [pause, gesture widely] Thackeray, with his ironic realism, challenged Dickens to ensure psychological credibility in characters such as Lady Dedlock or Bella Wilfer. Bulwer-Lytton, with his melodramatic flair, pushed Dickens to heighten drama and narrative stakes, even intervening in revisions like the ending of Great Expectations. 

Trollope’s attention to everyday life—the ordinariness of household routines, the steady virtues of characters like Agnes Wickfield or Joe Gargery—reminded Dickens that the extraordinary must coexist with the ordinary for characters to endure.

Each of these interactions—competitive, collaborative, or reflective—helped Dickens forge a literary style capable of sustaining the extraordinary breadth of his character gallery. [pause, let words sink in]

Now, as you reflect upon this, you see that Dickens’s genius lies not in solitary inspiration but in synthesis. From Collins, he took suspense and psychological complexity; from Gaskell, social realism; from Carlyle, moral depth; from Lamb, sentiment and reflective warmth; from his broader literary context, narrative balance and credible ordinariness.

He did not simply mimic; he transformed, merged, and elevated these influences into characters who feel both timeless and immediate. Miss Havisham, once frozen in bitterness, resonates because you understand her history and psychological layering. Pip captivates because his growth is both socially contextualized and morally charged. Scrooge endures because his journey combines ethical awakening with emotional resonance.

In this synthesis, Dickens teaches you an essential lesson about literature: [pause, slightly raise voice] that creativity thrives in dialogue. Immortality in fiction is rarely achieved in isolation. It emerges when a writer listens, observes, experiments, and converses—whether through friendship, rivalry, or admiration—with the voices around them. Dickens’s characters live because they are the products of this literary conversation, yet they remain entirely his own.

[pause, step slightly forward] They are at once particular to the Victorian moment and universal across time, embodying fears, virtues, follies, and joys that you recognize as distinctly human. You are walking through a literary ecosystem where suspense, realism, moral philosophy, sentiment, and narrative craft converge. [emphasize “converge”] You are witnessing characters forged in the fires of collaboration, reflection, and dialogue, reaching across the decades to speak to your heart, your conscience, and your imagination.

This is the secret of their immortality. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the enduring legacy of Charles Dickens: that through his keen engagement with the voices of his contemporaries, he created characters who continue to live, breathe, and teach us about the human experience—[pause, soft smile] timeless companions on every journey through literature.

[pause for applause, bow slightly]

Thank you.