Social and Political Aspects in Kipling and Dickens' Writing Styles

Social and Political Aspects in Kipling and Dickens' Writing Styles

The Victorian period started from 1830 to 1901, and it was known for

various aspects. These aspects are distributed between authors and

writers of this era. The Victorian period is so called due to Queen

Victoria who ruled Britain successfully, and the city of London

expanded from about two million people to six and a half at the time

of her death. Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling are representatives

of Victorian literature; each of them is concerned with specific

social and political issues of that era, and these issues are shown in

their stories. Charles Dickens story is “Great Expectations” and

Rudyard Kipling’s story “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”.

Charles Dickens story “Great Expectations” reflects the values of

social realism and how each deals with the other due to poverty as a

result of little employment. For example, in this story Pip, the

narrator suffers at the treatment of his sister Mrs. Joe who tries to

control him by showing her power over him, because she thinks that he

is young and needs to be disciplined, (This made him hate her and

thought as if she is his enemy), because usually when a person treats

the other badly, the last feels negative about it. This might be an

indication of the social relationship in British families in that era

and that women are used to house work only and arising up their

children, whereas Rudyard Kipling’s short story “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”

reflects the idea of social aspects between animals and humans, and

the way they think and deal with each other. The story’s setting was

in India, and as everyone knows that this country is one of the

poorest countries in the world; so by this we can know that peopl...

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... where Teddy, the small English white

skinned boy, and his family represents British people who live in

India, and treat the Indians as servants. So Rikki and the other

animals worked hard to kill the snake for their master’s sake. So the

conclusion is that the ideal Indian was brave and loyal to the

British.

Finally, a social aspect is based on the relations of people and the

way of their living, whereas the political aspects are based on the

country’s administrative system and the services it provides. The

social and political aspects are the most important issues of a

country, because it is the scale of measuring people’s comfort. I

think that Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling show successfully those

aspects in their stories, in order to keep the reader conscious about

the country’s system and show them the reality of British people and

Indians.