The reversal of Innocence: Somers, Dickens, and a Shared Oliver

Dickens Studies Annual. Essays on Victorian Fiction

CUNY University Press

Lugar: New York ; Año: 2005 vol. 36 p. 319 - 319

0084-9812

here are several noticeable similarities that allow us to identify the presence of Dickens in the short novel Un retrato para Dickens [A Portrait for Dickens] (1969) by the Uruguayan writer Armonía Somers. Apart from the obvious sign in the title and explicit elements in the girl's story, there are further aspects that stand out both as clear connections and as notable differences. The homage that Somers pays (in the form of a type of parody) to Dickens, master of the realistic novel, is directed toward meanings that also combine the symbolic with the experiential. Some connections, however, can be analyzed, not only in strictly literary terms, but also in their articulation with a facet of the writer that has not been examined by critics. This aspect can, I believe, illuminate areas of her literary creation from another perspective, one based on her personal reality and her pedagogical activities and investigations.