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Socio economic effects of industrial revolution
Change lives due to industrial revolution
Socio economic effects of industrial revolution
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Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton and Charles Dicken’s Bleak House show many similarities and differences of poverty and offer slim opportunities to resolve the character’s situation. Addressing these issues in this essay, I shall explore how the characters try to improve their situations along with outside influences that either help make their environment better or worse.
Starting with a historical viewpoint with the Industrial Revolution, which was gathering momentum, having begun life within the heart of Manchester. A steady technological and economical progress was gaining momentum in the Shipping Industry, the Cottage Industry, along with new developments in factories. Due to these improvements made saw an increase in food production, resulting from new investments having been spent on machinery and up grading factories. Further afield, profit from foreign trade and further growth and development in the banking sector, now had the ability to provide flexible credit facilities to those who could afford the repayments.
Comparing Elizabeth Gaskell’s life to that of her main character Mary Barton from the novel Mary Barton, is very similar in that fact that Elizabeth’s mother died when she was thirteen months old, leaving her father to care for his daughter who was then cared for by her aunt. Whilst Elizabeth’s Aunt is described as a cripple and becomes a companion to young Elizabeth, this is then reflected in Mary Barton, the character is shown as Margaret Jennings who is blind, whilst Mary Barton becomes her companion.
Whilst on the other hand, young Charles Dickens experienced poverty first hand, with his family in debt, his father ended up in a Debtors prison unable to pay the debt. At the tender age of twelve ...
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... and his associates, the working environment and the social implications of the working class had a huge effect on the everyday lifes of the working classes; which are seen via these two texts by Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton and Charles Dicken’s Bleak House showed that a darker side still existed despite all the prosperity within England. That a major amount of reforms had to be endured by the likes of Frederick Engels to help improve working conditions and the living conditions for the Working Class to going forward, but sadly it didn’t come soon enough for many people who died because of substandard living conditions, ill health resulting from various fevers that did the rounds, lack of sanitation. But these issues did not just exist in London or Manchester alone, these problems and issues knew no boundaries, as they reached the length and breath of England.
The book The Classic Slum: Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century by Robert Roberts gives an honest account of a village in Manchester in the first 25 years of the 20th century. The title is a reference to a description used by Friedrich Engels to describe the area in his book Conditions of the Working Class. The University of Manchester Press first published Roberts' book in the year 1971. The more recent publication by Penguin Books contains 254 pages, including the appendices. The author gives a firsthand description of the extreme poverty that gripped the area in which he grew up. His unique perspective allows him to accurately describe the self-imposed caste system, the causes and effects of widespread poverty, and the impact of World War I as someone who is truly a member of a proletarian family. His main contention is that prior to the War, the working class inhabiting the industrial slums in England "lay outside the mainstream of that society and possessed within their own ranks a system of social stratification that enclosed them in their own provincial social world and gave them little hope of going beyond it. " After the War, the working class found new economic prosperity and a better way of life, never returning to the lifestyle prevalent prior to the War.
The Industrial Revolution stimulated new ways of advancing technology as it spread throughout Great Britain. The issues raised by the growth of Manchester demonstrate the struggles of the working class and the devastating impact of industrialization on the environment and the will of the
Another chthonic journey that Charles Dickens faced was his working condition and his pay. Dickens worked at a blacking warehouse. The blacking warehouse was in terrible condition. There were rats everywhere, decaying floors and extremely small rooms. From this job he only earned six pints a week, which is very little to live on. With getting so little money he could barely buy the things that were necessary to live on. Once he bought things that he needed he had little to no extra money. He couldn’t buy any fun things to play with or extra food for a bedtime snack, which meant that at times he had have to go without food or other necessary items.
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
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.
When Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, was published in 1853, it did not go unnoticed by critics. The reviews of the period where anything but tepid in tone or opinion in regard to Dickens’ newest novel. Most notably, the critics were concerned with the structure of the novel, characterization, and, in particular, Esther as a plausible character. By singling out reviewers from different publications of the time, it is possible to see what the public in 1853 was reading about Bleak House in regard to these issues.
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.
Through attention to detail, repeated comparison, shifting tone, and dialogue that gives the characters an opportunity to voice their feelings, Elizabeth Gaskell creates a divide between the poor working class and the rich higher class in Mary Barton. Gaskell places emphasis on the differences that separate both classes by describing the lavish, comfortable, and extravagant life that the wealthy enjoy and compares it to the impoverished and miserable life that the poor have to survive through. Though Gaskell displays the inequality that is present between both social classes, she also shows that there are similarities between them. The tone and diction change halfway through the novel to highlight the factors that unify the poor and rich. In the beginning of the story John Barton exclaims that, “The rich know nothing of the trials of the poor…” (11), showing that besides the amount of material possessions that one owns, what divides the two social classes is ability to feel and experience hardship. John Barton views those of the upper class as cold individuals incapable of experiencing pain and sorrow. Gaskell, however proves Barton wrong and demonstrates that though there are various differences that divide the two social classes, they are unified through their ability to feel emotions and to go through times of hardship. Gaskell’s novel reveals the problematic tension between the two social classes, but also offers a solution to this problem in the form of communication, which would allow both sides to speak of their concerns and worries as well as eliminate misunderstandings.
middle of paper ... ... Understanding the relationship between environment and morality—indifference and depravity—Dickens evaluated what the system does to a person, how it classifies, how it deforms. Fagin manages the underworld, connoting corruption as an entertaining, enjoyable, and artful game not only because of his intrinsic craftiness, but also because it is the only way he knows to survive. Exploiting his audience's attitudes, Dickens shaped a character with religious stereotypes to ensure that his readers could recognize the absolute evil it had bore through its ignorance and apathy--poverty is a product of a societal environment. Work Cited Dickens, Charles.
It is difficult to decide what is worse, the work done in the mines or the housing to which the miners returned to at night. The especially cruel truth. is the fact that the rent of a family of six living in two barren rooms, two hundred yards from an outdoor privy, extorted most of the household wages. Orwell 's urgent prose does not let anyone turn a blind eye to the facts. Although Orwell wrote from the perspective of a “participant observer” it still resonates today 's concerns about the effects of poverty on people 's everyday lives and dreams.
The Industrial Revolution was a key point in history that led to new manufacturing processes that became the base of all modern day factories. The big issue that came along with these ground breaking manufacturing processes was that the workers were forced to work is terrible conditions. The issues that working classes faced is depicted in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton, which is a story about a woman in the working class during the time of the Industrial Revolution and all of the hardships she faces. Gaskell uses this novel to highlight a lot of the hardships that the working class people were forced to face at this point in history. Elizabeth Gaskell’s
With imagery revealing the poor straits and desperation of the peasant class of France, Dickens influences the reader to pity them. He writes, “The cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a momentary gleam had driven from his sacred countenance, the darkness of it was heavy—cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, want were the lords waiting on the saintly presence—nobles of great power all of them; but most especially the last” (Dickens 22). Through hunger, want, etc. being personified and compared to nobles through language such as “nobles” and “lords”, Dickens shows the extent of the suffering of the peasants, their deserving to be pitied, and the human nobles’ apathy towards them. The peasants of Saint Antoine suffer in the 1770s, and the town’s name is made into a play on words with “saintly presence”, with the cloud of cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want looming forming the imagery of irony. Another description of the peasants’ plight is revealed in the quote saying, “Ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sign Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere...Hunger was the inscription on th...
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 ...
The Following essay will examine how class is represented in the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Both in this novel and many others, which are based around the time of the 1800’s, class is a major part of life which in turn made your life’s path completely dependent on what class or background you were brought up in. This was majorly the case in Great Expectations and especially in the life of Pip. After reading Great Expectations there are many arguments
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