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Charles Dickens' Exploration of the Victorian Society's Awful Treatment Of The Children Of The Poor
In Victorian times life was very hard for the poor. The rich looked
down on them when mostly they didn't understand the hardships the poor
had to face in day-to-day life.
The industrial revolution led to rapid growth of cities, which meant
poor housing and great overcrowding occurred making the poor people's
live worse.
The French Revolution created fear in Britains Government causing a
stronger justices system and the poor law.
The poor law said that poor people were to be provided for by the
workhouse. The Government felt that introducing workhouses would save
parishes money and deters people from claiming unfairly. The
workhouses saved money but the conditions were made as unpleasant as
possible and increased the suffering, which meant that the lives of
the poor were endangered further.
Dickens emphasises the plight of the poor through conditions in the
workhouses and through Oliver's journey.
Dickens shows the mistreatment in the workhouses but also makes jokes
of the officials in charge. He uses characternyms ' Bumble' and
malapropisms to show the officials as misunderstood, clumsy, ignorant
people. Which emphasises his feelings toward the poor.
Dickens shows the mistreatment of the poor children by using emotive
language and some pathos. "Please, Sir, can I have some more?" The
officials see this as a disgrace, this also shows how Dickens felt
about the workhouse officials. To ask for more in Victorian times as a
poor child was looked down on and Dickens uses an emphasis on the
naivety and innocence of the children to make the reader feel empathy
for Oliver.
The narrator highlights the hardships of the children throughout the
novel. He again uses characternyms to emphasise how the officials are
very clumsy 'Bumble.' From the beginning of the novel Dickens shows
the officials misunderstood of the quality of life for the poor and
uses satire and sarcasm. Mrs Mann is an excellent example of being
misunderstood about the hardships of children.
Explore how Dickens makes his readers aware of poverty in A Christmas Carol One of the major themes in "A Christmas Carol" was Dickens' observations of the plight of the children of London's poor and the poverty that the poor had to endure. Dickens causes the reader to be aware of poverty by the use and type of language he uses. He uses similes and metaphors to establish clear and vivid images of the characters who are used to portray his message. Dickens describes his characters like caricatures. Dickens exaggerates characters characteristics in order to make his point and provide the reader with a long living memory.
Charles Dickens born February 7th 1812 – 9th June 1870 is a highly remarkable novelist who had a vision to change wealthy people’s scrutiny on the underprivileged and by fulfilling the dream he writes novels. Furthermore, I think that Dickens wrote about poverty as he had experiences this awful incident in his upbringings.
In this essay, I will argue that one of the underlying motives in Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is the reinforcement of Christian values in 18th century Victorian England. Dickens was very concerned with the accepted social norms of industrialized England, many of which he felt were very inhumane. Christian values were challenged, largely due to the recent publication of Darwin's Origins of a Species, and philosophy along with literature was greatly affected. In 1859, the industrial age was booming, making many entrepreneurs rich. However, the majority of the lower economic class remained impoverished, working in unsafe and horrific environments as underpaid factory workers. Additionally, child labor was an accepted practice in Victorian England's factories. Dickens, who worked, as a child in a shoe polish factory, detested this social convention with such strength that only one with experience in such exploitation could.
Here, Dickens focuses on the word “suffering”, to reinforce the idea that being wealthy, which is related to being better than other, a materialistic view of society is not what gives happiness, but the surroundings and
love does not exist in this world then the people who live on it will
In the novel Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens utilizes the theme of neglect to illustrate the upper class's disdain for the poor. Upon the discovery of the Monk's hideout, Dickens describes the "collection of mere hovels...hastily built with loose bricks" as observed by Mr. and Mrs. Bumble. The term "hastily" implies the original construction occurred without any thought or care, and the phrase "loose bricks" indicates the absence of an adhesive element to hold these shelters together. The "hovels," or squalid dwellings, serve as a metaphor for the workhouses, as both originated without care, thoughtfulness, or a solid and cohesive foundation. The lack of concern during the inceptive assembly allows the buildings to fall into disrepair, adding
law meant that all poor people had to go to a workhouse. I think the
Our Mutual Friend, Dickens' last novel, exposes the reality Dickens is surrounded by in his life in Victorian England. The novel heavily displays the corruption of society through multiple examples. These examples, that are planted within the novel, relate to both the society in Dickens' writing and his reality. In order to properly portray the fraud taking place within his novels, Dickens' uses morality in his universe to compare to the reality of society. He repetitively references to the change of mind and soul for both the better and the worst. He speaks of the change of heart when poisoned by wealth, and he connects this disease to the balance of the rich and the poor. This is another major factor to novel, where the plot is surrounded by a social hierarchy that condemns the poor to a life of misery, and yet, condones any action that would normally be seen as immoral when it occurs in the aristocracy. It expands on the idea that only an education and inheritance will bring success in society, with few exceptions. Lastly, Dickens expands his opinions of society through his mockery of ...
his time. It is through the use of profound imagery that he is able to
He was born in 1812, his family were very poor, his father who was a
Rawlins, Jack P. "Great Expectations: Dickens and the Betrayal of the Child." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. 23 (1983): 667-683.
Charles Dickens' Picture Of Childhood in Victorian Times Great Expectations is set in early Victorian England, a time when great social changes were sweeping the nation. The Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had transformed the social landscape, enabling capitalists and manufacturers to amass huge fortunes. Although social class was no longer entirely dependent on the circumstances of one's birth, the divisions between rich and poor remained nearly as wide as ever. London, a teeming mass of humanity, lit by gas lamps at night and darkened by black clouds from smokestacks during the day, formed a sharp contrast with the nation's sparsely populated rural areas. More and more people moved from the country to the city in search of greater economic opportunity.
The death of God for many in the Victorian era due to scientific discoveries carried with it the implication that life is nothing more than a kind of utilitarian existence that should be lived according to logic and facts, not intuition or feeling – that without God to impose meaning on life, life is meaningless. Charles Dickens, in Hard Times, parodies this way of thought by pushing its ideologies and implications to the extreme in his depiction of the McChoakumchild School.
... to the many children who have gone through life unheard, opening society's eyes to the inhumane conditions that the poor children are forced to live through. Dickens does so by writing a "story of the routine cruelty exercised upon the nameless, almost faceless submerged of Victorian society" (Wilson 129). Dickens' work of social reform is not limited to Oliver Twist for "a great and universal pity for the poor and downtrodden has been awaken in him which is to provide the
killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet more famous cow who