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The starving orphan seeking a second helping of gruel.
忍饥挨饿的孤儿寻求着第二份果腹的薄粥。
The spinster wasting away in her tattered wedding dress.
未婚待嫁的老姑娘在破旧的婚纱中虚度时光。
The stone-hearted miser plagued by the ghost of Christmas past.
铁石心肠的守财奴饱受过去之灵的折磨。
More than a century after his death, these remain recognizable figures from the work of Charles Dickens.
即便是在离世一百多年之后，查尔斯·狄更斯作品中的人物依旧特点鲜明。
So striking is his body of work that it gave rise to its own adjective.
他的作品如此的引人注目，让他的写作风格自成一派。
But what are the features of Dickens's writing that make it so special?
但是狄更斯作品的哪些特征使它如此特别呢？
Dickens's fiction brims with anticipation through brooding settings, plot twists, and mysteries.
狄更斯的小说让人满怀期待，作品贯穿着思维严谨的设定，曲折的故事情节以及神秘性。
These features of his work kept his audience wanting more.
这些特性激发了观众的求知欲。
When first published, his stories were serialized,
当第一章发行后，作品就开始连载了，
meaning they were released a few chapters at a time in affordable literary journals and only later reprinted as books.
也就是在读者买得起的文学期刊上每次发行几个新章节，只有完结之后才会整理并刊印成书。
This prompted fevered speculation over the cliffhangers and revelations he devised.
这引发了人们对他设计的扣人心弦的情节和所揭露真相的狂热猜测。
Serialization not only made fiction available to a wider audience and kept them reading,
连载不仅让作品面向更广大的读者，让他们保持阅读兴趣，
but increased the hype around the author himself.
而且也为作者本身做足了宣传。
Dickens became particularly popular for his wit, which he poured into quirky characters and satiric scenarios.
狄更斯因为他的才智变得尤其出名，他将才智完全倾注于离奇的人物以及戏剧化的讽刺之中。
His characters exhibit the sheer absurdity of human behavior, and their names often personify traits or social positions,
他塑造的角色展示了人类行为中极为荒谬的一面，这些角色的名字往往能展现出个人特点或社会地位，
like the downtrodden Bob Cratchit, the groveling Uriah Heep, and the cheery Septimus Crisparkle.
像受压迫的鲍伯·克拉契，卑躬屈膝的赖亚·赫普，以及活泼的赛普特姆斯·克里斯帕可。
Dickens set these colorful characters against intricate social backdrops, which mimic the society he lived in.
狄更斯在复杂的社会背景中设立了色彩鲜明的人物形象，这是对他所生活的社会的一种写照。
For instance, he often considered the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution.
例如，狄更斯经常思考工业革命所带来的改变。
During this period, the lower classes experienced sordid working and living conditions.
在工业革命时期，底层社会居民的工作和居住环境十分恶劣。
Dickens himself experienced this hardship as a child
狄更斯自身在孩童时期就经历过这般苦难，
when he was forced to work in a boot blacking factory after his father was sent to debtors' prison.
在他的父亲因欠债而锒铛入狱后，他就被迫进入皮靴染色厂工作。
This influenced his depiction of the Marshalsea prison in Little Dorrit, where the titular character cares for her convict father.
这影响了他在长篇小说《小杜丽》中对马歇尔希监狱的描写，其中名义上的角色就负责照顾她的囚犯父亲。
Prisons, orphanages, or slums may seem grim settings for a story,
故事中监狱，孤儿院或者贫民窟这些背景看起来残忍，
but they allowed Dickens to shed light on how his society's most invisible people lived.
但却使狄更斯能够揭示当时社会中最容易被忽视的人群的生活。
In Nicholas Nickleby, Nicholas takes a job with the schoolmaster Wackford Squeers.
在《尼古拉斯·尼克贝》中，尼古拉斯与学校校长瓦克福德·斯奎尔斯共事。
He soon realizes that Squeers is running a scam
他很快意识到，斯奎尔斯在经营着一个骗局，
where he takes unwanted children from their parents for a fee and subjects them to violence and deprivation.
他通过支付费用从而得到那些父母欲抛弃的孩子，暴力对待这些孩子们并剥削他们。
Oliver Twist also deals with the plight of children in the care of the state,
《雾都孤儿》同样也讲述了州孤儿院的孩子们的困难处境，
illustrating the brutal conditions of the workhouse in which Oliver pleads with Mr. Bumble for food.
描绘了冷酷无情的贫民习艺所，在这里，奥利弗向庞贝尔先生乞求食物。
When he flees to London, he becomes ensnared in a criminal underworld.
当奥利弗逃到伦敦后，却又陷入了地下犯罪的圈套。
These stories frequently portray Victorian life as grimy, corrupt, and cruel.
这些故事频繁描绘了维多利亚时代阴冷，腐败以及残酷无情的现实。
But Dickens also saw his time as one in which old traditions were fading away.
但是狄更斯同样也注意到在他所处的时代，老传统正日渐式微。
London was becoming the incubator of the modern world through new patterns in industry, trade, and social mobility.
伦敦凭借工业，贸易以及社会流动能力的新模式，渐渐成为现代社会的孵化器。
Dickens's London is therefore a dualistic space: a harsh world that is simultaneously filled with wonder and possibility.
于是狄更斯笔下的伦敦成为了二元化的世界：一面是艰难困苦的世界，另一面充满着希望与无限可能。
For instance, the enigma of Great Expectations centers around the potential of Pip,
例如，《远大前程》里的奥秘就是围绕着主人公皮普的潜力，
an orphan plucked from obscurity by an anonymous benefactor and propelled into high society.
主人公是一名孤儿，默默无闻的他受到一名匿名神秘人帮助，进入了上层社会。
In his search for purpose, Pip becomes the victim of other people's ambitions for him
在他寻求真相的过程中，皮普成为了其他人野心的替罪羊，
and must negotiate with a shadowy cast of characters.
必须与阴影下的角色做出妥协。
Like many of Dickens's protagonists, poor Pip's position is constantly destabilized,
与很多狄更斯笔下的主人公一样，可怜的皮普的地位瞬间土崩瓦解，
just one of the reasons why reading Dickens is the best of times for the reader, while being the worst of times for his characters.
这就是为何拜读狄更斯的作品对读者来说是最美好的时代，同时对他笔下的角色来说是最悲惨时代的原因之一。
Dickens typically offered clear resolution by the end of his novels, with the exception of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
狄更斯通常在小说的结尾给出清晰的结局，除了《艾德温·德鲁德之谜》。
The novel details the disappearance of the orphan Edwin under puzzling circumstances.
该小说详细描述了孤儿艾德温在谜一般的环境下消失了。
However, Dickens died before the novel was finished and left no notes resolving the mystery.
然而，狄更斯本人却在小说完成前去世了，没有留下任何信息来辅助解决这个谜题。
Readers continue to passionately debate over who Dickens intended as the murderer,
读者们继续激烈的争论谁是狄更斯笔下的杀手，
and whether Edwin Drood was even murdered in the first place.
以及是否艾德温·德鲁德在第一次出场就被杀死了。
Throughout many adaptations, literary homages, and the pages of his novels,
在许多改编版本，文学致敬以及小说的字里行间中，
Dickens's sparkling language and panoramic worldview continue to resonate.
狄更斯引人入胜的文笔以及全景版的世界观持续产生着共鸣。
Today, the adjective Dickensian often implies squalid working or living conditions.
时至今日，形容词Dickensian仍然暗指污秽的工作或是肮脏的生活环境。
But to describe a novel as Dickensian is typically high praise,
但是形容一部小说为Dickensian，通常来说是较高的称赞，
as it suggests a story in which true adventure and discovery occur in the most unexpected places.
因为它展示了发生在意料之外的地点的真实冒险和发现。
Although he often explored bleak material, Dickens's piercing wit never failed to find light in the darkest corners.
尽管狄更斯经常探寻阴森冷酷的世界本质，但他那利刃般的思绪总能在最黑暗的角落发现光明。
