Charles Dickens' Old People

Abstract

Charles Dickens, rare among authors of any period, presented a host of elderly and old characters in his novels and stories. More than 120 such characters were identified, distributed among four levels of involvement (protagonist to minor role) and six categories of behavior (warm and sympathetic to villainous and threatening). The two-thirds male, one-third female characters tended to be concentrated at the minor, rather than major, levels of involvement in plots, but they represented a great range of behavior. Dickens' old people were fully engaged in life and society and were not age-stereotyped.