Charles Dickens' Reflection on Society in Hard Times, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, and David Copperfield

Charles Dickens' Reflection on Society in Hard Times, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, and David Copperfield

In this essay I will be examining how and why Dickens chose to comment

on the society in which he lived through his novels. I will be

examining ‘Hard Times’, ‘Oliver Twist’, ‘Nicholas Nickelby’ and ‘David

Copperfield‘.

Charles Dickens was considered to be one of the greatest English

novelists during the Victorian period, and during this period,

novelists had a tradition of commenting on issues affecting society

through their work. They chose to express their views like this so

people would realise exactly what is taking place in the town or

village they are living in.

Charles Dickens had a very disturbing childhood, members of his family

were sent to prison and he was sent to work at the age of twelve in a

Blacking Factory; he became miserable. He escaped from this by writing

fictional texts in school; he then developed his existing skills and

made rapid progress. From the entire trauma he went through, he

decided to express his pain through his words.

The education system was extremely poor. Only children with working

parents would be educated, whereas poorer children would have to work.

In the novel ‘Hard Times’, the education system was firm, harsh and

stern;

‘Quadruped. Graminivorous…Age known by marks in mouth.’

This straight-to-the-point definition of a horse suggests that the

teacher spoon-feeds the young, tender, innocent children with useless

facts. The word ‘Graminivorous’ highlights that these children are

being turned into adults mentally because he ‘fed‘ the innocent

children with facts that adults will normally know. Everything is so

simplified for him, the teacher does...

... middle of paper ...

... was irony that Dickens used here: the

word ‘parlour’ suggests that it is a pleasant home but what’s going on

inside is totally the opposite.

In conclusion, Dickens has used his works successfully to comment on

society because all of the issues that were affecting all classes of

people, he included them so we could really understand what went on

during the Victorian times. I have learnt a lot from this, about how

people lived and how they were treated. I have learnt that these two

periods of time were totally different to each other. The novel that

had the most impact on me was Nicholas Nickelby; this is because

Dickens made us feel sympathetic for the characters, he made me feel

as if I was there as one of the characters because this novel was so

convincing. I really felt a lot of sympathy for the children who had

to suffer from this inhumane cruelty.