Warning this post might be boring

I know that the title is not the best one, but it may be accurate. I am in process of re-watching the excellent BBC adaptation of Bleak House. And when I mentioned this to my mother, she asked if I like being depressed. Now, to be honest, much of Dickens is depressing. But, I do enjoy watching/reading Dickens. I do enjoy Jane Austen a great deal but much of her books take place in a bubble of the middle class. Very little is written about the struggle to survive (with the possible exception of parts of Mansfield Park). And no one dies in a Jane Austen novel (except for the very beginning of Sense and Sensibility when Mr. Dashwood dies). Dickens, on the other hand, pulls no punches. He writes of the brutality of survival in London during the Industrial Revolution. And more often than not, once some ones falls ill, they aren't long for this world (which is kind of true for Elizabeth Gaskill as well). But despite that, I do think that there is a side of Dickens that is optimistic. There is great evil in his world (and in the hearts of Dickens characters) but at the same time there is goodness and kindness and possibility of redemption. And as the reader, we should recognize this and strive to posses those characteristics.