In Charles Dickens’s books, Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol, the theme of lack of charity is pronounced. Throughout Oliver Twist, society turns a “cold shoulder” to those in need of help (Miller 30). The Victorian England society prohibits inhabitants of the lower social realms from moving up in society. Rarely do lower class members receive attention, and the attention they do receive is far from par (Reeves). Ebenezer Scrooge, the main character of A Christmas Carol, learns to be charitable through a lesson on the true meaning of Christmas. At the beginning of the book, Scrooge is a grumpy old mad, who only cares about himself, but on Christmas Eve, his visions of ghosts turn his life around (Boan). As a child, Dickens becomes a subject to poverty. When Dickens is twelve years of age, he is sent to work at a warehouse. He is forced to live away from his family for months while his father is in debtors’ prison. Dickens’s life and experiences are his sole inspiration in advocating for the poor ("Charles John Huffam Dickens”). Charles Dickens is responsible for plenty of charitable acts in his lifetime. His books depict his character and his love for people. He is able to sympathize with people struck with poverty because he deals with the same situation in his life. Later in Dickens life, he is gifted with wealth, but never keeps much of the money. He is forced to pay alimony and gives the rest away (Orwell). Oliver Twist is a parody to the Victorian lifestyle. The upper classes do not care about the lower classes because their main concern is money. At this time in British history, laissez-faire capitalist beliefs dominate people’s political views. According to George Orwell, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “…refused to re... ... middle of paper ... ...erary Reference Center. EBSCOhost, n.d. 16 Apr 2011. Miller, J. Hillis. “The Dark World of Oliver Twist.” Modern Critical Views of Charles Dickens. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. 29-69. NLT Study Bible. Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 2008. Orwell, George. “Charles Dickens.” George Orwell: Charles Dickens. Orwell.ru, 11 Dec 2004. 16 Apr 2011. Reeves, Bruce D. “Oliver Twist.” Literary Reference Center. EBSCOhost, n.d. 14 Apr 2011.
With all of the symbolism and moral issues represented in Oliver Twist, all seem to come from real events from the life of its author, Charles Dickens. The novel’s protagonist, Oliver, is a good person at heart surrounded by the filth of the London streets, filth that Dickens himself was forced to deal with in his everyday life. It’s probable that the reason Oliver Twist contains so much fear and agony is because it’s a reflection of occurrences in Charles Dickens' past. Oliver Twist also brought to light the evils of social injustice and the victims of it.
Gross, John. "A Tale of Two Cities." Dickens and the Twentieth Century. Ed. John Gross and Gabriel Pearson. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962. 187-97.
Oliver Twist, a novel written by Charles Dickens during the Victorian Era, chronicles the life of a small young boy. Oliver, an orphan grows up in a workhouse in severe and harsh conditions. Placed under the subjugation of the upper class, Oliver is taken for granted to be corrupt and immoral because he is unlearned and poor. However, this stereotype is soon faulted when Oliver turns out to be an innocent and sympathetic boy whose fate is inadvertently tragic. Even with such disadvantages, it is Oliver’s looks of innocence and lack of evil inside him that enables him to rise out from poverty. His innocence is the tool that allows Oliver to escape life at the bottom of society. It is also the trait that brings many people to pity him and help him. With this enhancement, Oliver is able to eventually trace his family lineage and find his place in society. Charles Dickens is protesting in this book that everyone should have a chance to become successful in life; that even criminals should be allowed a second chance to undo their acts and crimes.
In the abyss of 1837 Victorian London, Charles Dickens recently fabricated the novel, Oliver Twist and it immediately began to spread Dickens’ ideas of social problems in society. Born parentless and immediately manipulated by two criminals, Oliver Twist follows Dawkins and Fagin into the criminal world. In particular, Dawkins and Fagin constantly go after and abuse Oliver. Later on, Monks, Oliver’s older half-brother, tries deceiving him and taking their family inheritance. This graphic and dark exposé of the criminal elements in London clearly served as an eye-opener for Dickens’ audience. Even twenty years later Dickens still exposes unhealthy social conditions in Great Expectations. It is as if in Great Expectations,
Davis, Matthew. "Did Dickens really save poor children and clean up the slums?."BBC News. N.p., 7 Feb. 2012. Web. 25 May 2014.
Swisher, Clarice, Ed. “Charles Dickens: A Biography.” Readings on Charles Dickens. San Diego, Greenhaven Press, 1998. Print. 21 March 2014.
Analysis of Fagin's Last Night Alive in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. Combining entertainment with a deep critique of the contemporary socioeconomic system and philosophy, Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist explores the reality that in Victorian London, crime was neither heroic nor romantic. A setting of debauchery, thievery, prostitution, and murder, Fagin's underworld didactically illustrates the "unattractive and repulsive truth" that one's environment--not birth--influences character. Attempting to introduce society to the evil it had created, Dickens penned "Fagin's Last Night Alive," manipulating both his literal and figurative audience, capitalizing on the current sentiments and issues. By typifying Fagin as the absolute evil, Dickens uses contemporary religious temperaments and society's apathy and ignorance, to reveal a reality about the underworld lifestyle that society was not willing to acknowledge--society is somewhat guilty for the underworld's corruption.
Even in today's society people have a hard time writing and even reading about the bad parts of our history. Whereas authors now tend to shy away from the ugly parts of our lives, Charles Dickens did the complete opposite. He wrote about the worse parts of his society such as the orphanages, the lower class, hypocrisy, and the world's brutality. Although he wrote some lighter novels, his most popular were written during his “dark novel period.”
Hobsbaum, Philip. A Reader’s Guide to Charles Dickens. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972.
Rawlins, Jack P. "Great Expectations: Dickens and the Betrayal of the Child." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. 23 (1983): 667-683.
Barickman, Richard, Susan MacDonald, and Myra Stark. “Dickens." In Corrupt Relations: Dickens, Thakeray, Trollope, Collins, and the Victorian Sexual System. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982, 59-110.
Charles Dickens is one of the most popular and ingenious writers of the XIX century. He is the author of many novels. Due to reach personal experience Dickens managed to create vivid images of all kinds of people: kind and cruel ones, of the oppressed and the oppressors. Deep, wise psychoanalysis, irony, perhaps some of the sentimentalism place the reader not only in the position of spectator but also of the participant of situations that happen to Dickens’ heroes. Dickens makes the reader to think, to laugh and to cry together with his heroes throughout his books.
“One of the most widely read English authors of all time...” (Forster 1), Charles Dickens was portrayed with an abundant of popularity compared to his colleagues. His literary works were one of the earliest to display the “underclass and poverty stricken in Victoria London,” his stories of poverty, child labour, and slavery. (Hudson). Oliver Twist was influenced by Charles Dickens’ own childhood, his workhouse experience, and his effects of poverty on his life. In Oliver Twist, Dickens brings to light the harsh reality of poverty to those who would never have experience it, calling for social justice and equality, and shows England’s state of vulnerability while continuously fighting for the poor, oppressed, and
There as been a comparison of other works produced at the same time. This shows an insight into how Dickens wrote it and its first publication as weekly entries of Household Words. It references part of chapter 5 ‘Found’ of Book the Third. It also gives a little background information of Dickens’ interest of education and the strikes that he witnessed on his visits.
While the novel does act as a social commentary on the disparaging treatment of the poor in England, Dickens fails to do more than comment on the situation. The fact that the social classes are fighting for survival against one another provides for the establishment of a further embedded social caste system of us against them. The very poor in David Copperfield, are at times overlooked by even the middle class characters in the novel. While some of the middle class characters do look out for a few of the lower class characters, these actions are taken as a result of their need to feel needed by others. My paper will examine the desire for the author to write a social commentary on class inequality, survival, and the search for happiness at all costs in David Copperfield.