The Abuse of the Poor in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens shows notable amounts of originality and morality in his novels, making him one of the most well-known novelists of the Victorian Era and preserving him through his great novels and short stories. One of the reasons his work has been so popular is because his novels reflect the issues of the Victorian era, such as the great disregard of many Victorians to the situation of the poor.
The reformation of the Poor Law in 1834 brings even more unavoidable problems to the poor. The Poor Law of 1834 allowed the poor to receive public assistance only through established workhouses, causing those in debt to be sent to prison. "Workhouses were in existence before 1834, but only the very old, the very sick, or the very young occupied them. The choice was clearly defined: live in a workhouse, find work, or starve to death outside. Many chose death" (Epstein 93) Unable to pay debts, new levels of poverty were created. Dickens recognizes theses issues with a sympathetic yet, somewhat, critical eye, due to his childhood experiences with debt, poverty, and child labor. He notices that England's politicians and people of the upper class try to solve the growing problem of poverty through the Poor Laws and what they presume to be charitable causes, but Dickens knows that these things will not be successful; in fact they are often inhumane.
Dickens' view of poverty and the abuse of the poor can be seen in Oliver Twist, the novel about an orphan, brought up in a workhouse and poverty to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the upper class people. Oliver Twist shows Dickens' perspective of society in a realistic, original
manner, which hopes to change society's views by combini...
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...he workhouse as Dickens does with satire in Oliver Twist.
Perhaps now you have a better view or insight of what Oliver went through. Oliver Twist is just a story. However it holds many good points. Children were never meant to be abused while adults sat around nonchalantly. Dickens wanted the rich hypocrites to have a little taste of what they put out, from a different point of view. He did it in a very lengthy, almost annoying book, but he did it and it was published. Despite the fact that he can be a very exhausting author. He must be given at least some credit for writing an entire book to show the people of his time how cruel and harsh they really were. After all these years one can still read his work, Oliver Twist and have a deep sense of what it must have been like to live in the Victorian Era when poverty was very real and very distressing to deal with.
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.
Charles Dickens' literary works are comparable to one another in many ways; plot, setting, and even experiences. His novels remain captivating to his audiences and he draws them in to teach the readers lessons of life. Although each work exists separate from all of the rest, many similarities remain. Throughout the novels, Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, the process of growing up, described by the author, includes the themes of the character's ability to alienate themselves, charity given to the characters and what the money does to their lives, and the differences of good and evil individuals and the effects of their influences.
Charles Dickens is a famous novelist who was born on February 7TH 1812, Portsmouth England. His novel ‘Oliver Twist’ had been serialized and to also show Dickens purposes, which was to show the powerful links between poverty and crime. The novel is based on a young boy called Oliver Twist; the plot is about how the underprivileged misunderstood orphan, Oliver the son of Edwin Leeford and Agnes Fleming, he is generally quiet and shy rather than being aggressive, after his parents past away he is forced to work in a workhouse and then forced to work with criminals. The novel reveals a lot of different aspects of poverty, crime and cruelty which Dickens had experienced himself as a young boy in his disturbing and unsupportive childhood, due to his parents sent to prison so therefore Charles, who was already filled with misery, melancholy and deprivation had started working at the age of twelve at a factory to repay their debt.
Charles Dickens, an English writer and social critic, lived in England from 1812 to 1870 (Cody). Dickens usually critiques topics important to him or those that have affected him throughout his life. He grew up poor and was forced to work at an early age when his father was thrown into debtors prison (Cody). As he became a popular and widely known author he was an outspoken activist for the betterment of poor people’s lives (Davis). He wrote A Tale of Two Cities during the 1850s and published the book in 185...
Charles Dickens’ novels criticize the injustices of his time, especially the brutal treatment of the poor in a society sharply divided by differences of wealth. He lived through that world at an early age; he saw the bitter side of the social class system and had wanted it to be exposed, so people could see the exploitation that the system rests on. But he presents these criticisms through the lives of characters, Pip and Magwitch.
Charles Dickens’ (1812-1970) father had great financial difficulties. The boy had a rather miserable childhood, and the lad spent much of his time in poorhouses and workhouses. Did poverty overwhelm Charles Dickens? Was his negative environment to blame for an unproductive and fruitless life? No it wasn’t. Dickens retreated into his imaginary world and incisively wrote about the need for social reform in what later became such literary classics such as Oliver Twist and David Copperfield.
Oliver Twist mainly revolves around the mistreatment of orphans and how they were ranked low in society. The story teaches us a lot about how growing up in poverty and being ranked lowly in society makes people do things to harm others when they grow up by becoming thieves, pick-pocketers, or murderers. Oliver Twist takes us to England and while telling us the story of the fictional character Oliver Twist, who was an orphan, Charles Dickens also shows us the hard life of the people who faced poverty in old England. England, as we found out, used to have laws that made life for the poor harder than it already was.
“Oliver Twist” was written in 1838 by Charles Dickens and was originally published as a monthly magazine before being published as a novel that was subsequently read by many Victorians. It was written not only to entertain, but to raise awareness for the many issues in the society of the day related mainly to criminal activity. One of the main problems was based around the differentiation in the class of people in the Victorian era. People from the middle classes were widely known think very little of the lower classes and often considered them the evil of society. He also uses the novel to raise the issues related to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and the way that it involved sending poor or orphaned people like Oliver to ghastly overpopulated workhouses where they were poorly looked after. Dickens also fights against the negative stereotypes of criminals and prostitutes such as Nancy who eventually shows the good in herself to protect Oliver from the hands of the deadly wrath of Bill Sikes.
The beginning of the Nineteenth Century yielded many technological advances that took their toll on the world. Great Britain’s economy began to thrive with these advances that led to efficient production lines, railways, and, most importantly, the ability to make better technology. Though at the time these advances seemed to improve many aspects of daily life, Charles Dickens only saw the negative effects that this new way of life imposed upon unsuspecting families. As a victim of the Industrial Revolution, which left many of the working class, including his own family, in a horrible state of living, Dickens grew up in a wretched environment brought on by an advancing society. His early life led to his ambitions of escaping the poverty that gripped his family. His talent for writing proved to be his escape, and he quickly became “a titan of literature.” Dickens constantly used details from his own life to create characters and settings. It is said that “Dickens was himself a Dickens character, bursting with an inordinate and fantastic vitality” (Johnson VII). In his two stories, “The Chimes” and “Going into Society”, Dickens pulls pictures from his past to give the reader a vivid view of the gloomy reality that occurred in everyday life for the working class. As his main principle in helping the poor, Dickens often included the Christmas theory in his works, which he uses to combat Individualism in England’s society. Charles Dickens’s entire writing career was devoted to fighting society’s oppressive treatment of the lower class by applying the Christmas theory of charity to everyday life.
Charles Dickens' Exploration of the Victorian Society's Awful Treatment Of The Children Of The Poor
Charles Dickens is the author of many well-known classics such as A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, Great Expectations, and David Copperfield, but he was a man of humble beginnings. Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth, England as the second of eight children. Though they had high aspirations for success, Dickens’ family remained poor, and his father was even imprisoned for debt. When Dickens’ entire family was sent to work in a downshodden boot-blacking factory, he felt that he had lost “his youthful innocence… betrayed by the adults who were supposed to take care of him. These sentiments would later become a recurring theme in his writing”(biography.com). This life did not last long, as he was soon able to return home, after
Charles Dickens is well known for his distinctive writing style. Few authors before or since are as adept at bringing a character to life for the reader as he was. His novels are populated with characters who seem real to his readers, perhaps even reminding them of someone they know. What readers may not know, however, is that Dickens often based some of his most famous characters, those both beloved or reviled, on people in his own life. It is possible to see the important people, places, and events of Dickens' life thinly disguised in his fiction. Stylistically, evidence of this can be seen in Great Expectations. For instance, semblances of his mother, father, past loves, and even Dickens himself are visible in the novel. However, Dickens' past influenced not only character and plot devices in Great Expectations, but also the very syntax he used to create his fiction. Parallels can be seen between his musings on his personal life and his portrayal of people and places in Great Expectations.
hungry, jobless men, women, children with few if any prospects reduced to a fate not only marginal with respect to its "socioeconomic" character but also with respect to its very humanity. 575. The 'Standard' is a 'Standard'. As a result, an ideological dichotomy is created within Dickens that reveals a more liberal stance towards crime in his fiction, than in his non-fiction writing. If there is one common thread between his fictional and non-fictional writing, it is a deep obsession with crime and law.
An orphan named Oliver Twist is forced into robbery, but with the help of kind friends, he escapes into a better future. Oliver Twist, another famous book from Charles Dickens, portrays a young boy named Oliver Twist is born in a workhouse, brought up in a child farm, and returns to the workhouse. There, he almost starves to death, but then he is brought to Mr. Sowerberry; but he escapes because he is mistreated, and walks to London, where he meets Fagin. Fagin gives him a place to stay and food, but he also teaches Oliver how to steal. When other people see Oliver running, they think he’s a thief and brings him to jail. Mr. Brownlow and Mrs. Bedwin notice that Oliver isn’t that kind of person, and house him kindly. When Oliver finally goes out with expensive books and clothing, Fagin takes him back, for fear that he will tell. Sikes, a burglary partner with Fagin, forces Oliver to go and help them steal, but the owner of the house shoots Oliver in the arm. Sikes runs away without him, so Oliver goes back to the house, and surprisingly, the owners of that house, Rose Maylie, her family, and others, treat him kindly because he did it against his will. With his new patrons, he again meets Mr. Brownlow, who had formed a bad opinion of Oliver after he left so abruptly. Later, Nancy, who works for Fagin, meets Rose and tells them what she knows about Oliver’s past. Later, she gets killed by Sikes for telling them, and he is haunted by this murder. Dialect and different types of characters make Oliver Twist all in all more interesting and striking to read.
Throughout the novel, the use of satire increases the readability of the text, intriguing readers’ thoughts, and, ultimately, emphasizing the adverse social condition; thus making the novel appealing. When Oliver was born, Dickens wrote, “Now, if, during this brief period, Oliver had been surrounded by careful grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses, and doctors of profound wisdom, he would most inevitably and indubitably have been killed in no time” (Dickens Chapter I). Dickens is connoting the fact that those who are in adversities would fight for living, while those who are not don’t even need to fight, highlighting the social inequality that exists at that time. Other than that, Dickens described that authorities’ reaction to “let the paupers go to sleep” as “a novel illustration of the tender laws of England”, using a sarcastic tone to make the point that paupers were not expected to sleep in that time, underscoring the ruthlessness that those who are in lower class were suffering not only in the novel but also in the corrupted society during Victorian Era (Dickens Chapter II). Dickens successfully illustrated a brutal society that once existed. Other than the innuendos, the way that the author delivers the story also makes the novel remarkable. Throughout the narration, Dickens constantly “tells” the story in the first person. For example, Dickens writes: “As I purpose to show in the sequel whether the white waistcoated gentleman was right or not, I should perhaps mar the interest of this narrative (supposing it to possess any at all), if I ventured to hint just yet, whether the life of Oliver Twist had this violent termination or no” (Dickens Chapter II). Using “I”, Dickens provides a sense of reality to the reader by “telling” the story with his personal interpretation, instead of just having the reader to “read”