The Portrayal of the Under Classes in Oliver Twist
During the early 1800s a great number of people were living in extreme
poverty. Dickens had grown up in a poor family. As his childhood was
so awful he wrote the novel 'Oliver twist' as a protest towards the
way the poorer community were treated.
This period of time was torrid for the underclass population,
particularly the children. Orphaned children had only two choices.
They could both live and work in workhouses or to live a life of
crime. As the poor law was introduced most children were forced into
workhouses. Dickens was strongly opposed to this routine. Conditions
were abysmal, children were punished severely, ' for a week after the
commission of the impious offence…. Oliver remained a prisoner in the
dark solitary room.' Eventually the starvation and mental turmoil
would turn the children into 'violent social outcasts'. Not only would
the children be mentally abused, but the unrelenting workhouses were
also extremely violent places to be. As I mentioned children from the
poorer community would have two choices. If the children were lucky
enough to escape the workhouses then a life of crime would be the only
way for them to survive.
Oliver is first bought by an undertaker, but escapes to London where
he is thrown together with a band of thieves run by the sinister
Fagin. This business was more rewarding for the children. They would
be fed, clothed and would have more freedom outside of the workhouses.
Although you would think resorting to crime would be the best option
it came with grave consequences. Criminals in this era would be
mercilessly punished for the c...
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...d than the poor, but in
Dickens' opinion they are in no way any different than the lower
class, so there fore should not be treated any differently.
Dickens' novel condemns the world of the Poor Laws by describing in
great detail the life of an orphan, gang of thieves, and other horrors
of this type of civilization. Basically Charles Dickens wanted to get
the point across that there is no difference between upper and lower
class citizens. To do this he makes Mr Bumble sound like a fool, and
to create sympathy for the poor he describes the harsh treatment of a
magistrate. Charles Dickens felt that people from both classes should
have been treated the same, because they weren't he wrote this novel
as a protest and to show how the under classes were the same as
anybody else, but were just brutally discriminated against.
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.
Strained Relationships, Resentment and Indignation Between the Classes in Great Expectations Great expectations is a profound story. It contains the theme of love,
as he is enraged by his crime. As his terror leads him to his rage he
Dickens saw it as his role to write about the plight of the poor and
Set in the Victorian era, Sense and Sensibility and Oliver Twist, parallel but also contrast in many key elements. In both movies, mannerisms, class distinction, and the child's role in society were reflected by both writers. Through these analysis, I was able to achieve new insight into the conditions of the Victorian era.
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.
The beginning of Oliver Twist's story was created from memories which related to Charles Dickens' childhood in a blacking factory ( which was overshadowed by the Marshalsea Prison ).4 While working in the blacking factory, Dickens suffered tremendous humiliation. This humiliation is greatly expressed through Oliver's adventures at the orphanage before he is sent away.
along with the rest of his family to work in a factory to help repay
Importance of Social Class in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations Social class played a major role in the society depicted in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. Social class determines the manner in which a person is treated and their access to education. Yet, social class does not define the character of the individual. Many characters were treated differently because of their social class in Great Expectations. Seeing the contrast between how the poor and the rich were treated will give a clearer understanding of how much social class mattered.
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' Exploration of the Victorian Society's Awful Treatment Of The Children Of The Poor
...ntation of the distinctions between the social classes. Dickens uses Pip’s relationships with Estella, Joe, and Magwitch to show how the lower class is judged by social status or appearances, instead of morals and values. The lower class is looked down upon and taken advantage of the upper class, and this is prevalent in the novel Great Expectations.
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
... 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
In a lot of ways, the nineteenth Century depicted in Great Expectations is epitomic of the particular period. A lot of societal aspects correlate with the events in the book and especially the dynamical structure of the society. And even though the picture most people have of a Victorian society is set up in different compartments and highly contrasted one, the actualities of the time speak of an England adapting to industry and the ideals of the Enlightenment period. Dickens’ treatment of England at the time “is based on the post-Industrial Revolution model of Victorian England” (Google Scholar). He ignores the aristocratic air associated with it and instead pursues a standpoint focused on commerce. Still and all, we get the sense of how pivotal, or rather, central, this notion of compartments is to the plot of the story, especially with regard to social class. And this leads to the point; the class system of the nineteenth century. Unlike modern England and the modern world, generally, the earlier 19th century version had more defined social classes because values and beliefs about what made people who they were had, just like the physical structures, been morphing in comparison.