The one thing that Trollope has over Dickens, and it is a huge thing, is that Trollope writes believable, sympathetic, intelligent women. Trollope cares more about women than Dickens ever did. While Dickens focuses on the major social crusades, Trollope spends time on how society can affect individuals in marriage. Here is, he is examining how a arranged marriage would affect the parties involved, especially the woman. Trollope's focus on the upper class or the more education is no less important than Dicken's focus on the working conditions. It is near impossible to dislike a book that describes a character thusly, “He was a great buyer of pictures, which, perhaps, he did not understand, and a great collector of books, which certainly he never read. The entire world respected him, and he was a man to whom the respect of the entire world was an s the breath of his nostrils” (Vol 1, 309). The main problem in this book about love and forgiveness is that the two wronged men are far to saint like. Perhaps this was intentional, not to show that men are better than women; but to show men what the correct reaction is. (Dickens would go with the first option, but Trollope is far more sympathetic to his female characters). I would have liked more of exploration of the character of Alice; does she do what she does because she has no choice? Is Trollope trying to show the reader the limits of a woman in terms of choice? Regardless, Dickens might have focused on the poor, but Trollope does offer a far more detailed look at the women of the time.
Chris' Fish Place
Thoughts on things, mostly books.
The one thing that Trollope has over Dickens, and it is a huge thing, is that Trollope writes believable, sympathetic, intelligent women. Trollope cares more about women than Dickens ever did. While Dickens focuses on the major social crusades, Trollope spends time on how society can affect individuals in marriage. Here is, he is examining how a arranged marriage would affect the parties involved, especially the woman. Trollope's focus on the upper class or the more education is no less important than Dicken's focus on the working conditions. It is near impossible to dislike a book that describes a character thusly, “He was a great buyer of pictures, which, perhaps, he did not understand, and a great collector of books, which certainly he never read. The entire world respected him, and he was a man to whom the respect of the entire world was an s the breath of his nostrils” (Vol 1, 309). The main problem in this book about love and forgiveness is that the two wronged men are far to saint like. Perhaps this was intentional, not to show that men are better than women; but to show men what the correct reaction is. (Dickens would go with the first option, but Trollope is far more sympathetic to his female characters). I would have liked more of exploration of the character of Alice; does she do what she does because she has no choice? Is Trollope trying to show the reader the limits of a woman in terms of choice? Regardless, Dickens might have focused on the poor, but Trollope does offer a far more detailed look at the women of the time.
