The Theme of Social Responsibility in Victorian England

How does dickens explore the theme of social responsibility in

Victorian England?

Charles dickens wrote ‘A Christmas Carol’ for a certain reason, and

that reason was that he wanted to make people aware of the terrible

situation the children of the poor were in. He visited a school in

1843 and was appalled by what he saw there. It was a school for the

poorest children to teach them basic reading and writing skills. The

children’s employment commission had also shocked him. At first

dickens had the idea of writing a pamphlet called ‘an appeal to the

people of England on behalf of the poor mans child’ but soon realised

that seen as he was the most popular novelist of the time people would

take much more notice he wrote about the terrible conditions in a

story.

Dickens travelled the streets making observations of the city so that

he was able to describe to the readers the sights, sounds and smells

of it. He wanted the readers to experience everything how the children

would.

Victorian London was a place of extremes, in the 1800’s the population

was around 1 million...