The workers had terrible lives because of low wages and inability to advance in social class. According to an article written by Louise Curth, ”In many cases, the factory owners tended to consider their employees as little more than commodities. The men, women, and children who filled those roles were generally subjected to long hours, low wages, and poor working conditions”. This shows how the factory owners treated their workers. The factory owners thought of the workers as an item rather than an actual human.
Dickens wants people to recognize the mass effect society has on shaping human nature. Dickens, like many characters in his books, had a fair share of miserable, childhood experiences. During the Victorian Era, Dickens was raised in a middle-low class family and had to work in a factory to support his family. Dickens despised factory work because of the “stenches of rotting wood, cement, and blacking corks” (Shephard). He lived the factory life, which allowed him to experience the “pressures of living alone, missing his family, and scrounging for food often had him in tears” (Shephard).
This means that poverty has been in the Durbeyfield family for two generations or more. Tess’ family is part of the working class. However, her father has a poor work ethic or desire to support his family properly (Hardy 30). He did the bare minimum to keep his family and drinking habits alive. He sq... ... middle of paper ... ...ovel was too gloomy due to Tess’ working class situations, but Hardy was as accurate as he could be in regards to the hardships that the working class endured (Milberg Kaye 145).
Charles Dickens' Exploration of the Victorian Society's Awful Treatment Of The Children Of The Poor In Victorian times life was very hard for the poor. The rich looked down on them when mostly they didn't understand the hardships the poor had to face in day-to-day life. The industrial revolution led to rapid growth of cities, which meant poor housing and great overcrowding occurred making the poor people's live worse. The French Revolution created fear in Britains Government causing a stronger justices system and the poor law. The poor law said that poor people were to be provided for by the workhouse.
6) gives an example of minimum expenditure that an individual needs for meeting all daily essenti... ... middle of paper ... ...brings out daily sufferings of factory workers and their emotional condition. Overall both the essays shows the similarity of working in a factory with poor wages and some advantages of working in a factory, but one of them raise awareness among its consumers about the products and the other tells its audience about the day to day sufferings of its workers in a factory condition. Both essays brings out the reality of factory works and its working condition. They show examples of low wages that factory workers get for their all hard work. Authors mention about positive side of working in a factory by which the workers get benefited.
The owners of the factories got very rich and the workers were extremely poor. The desperately poor unemployed people were rounded up and put into an institution called the workhouse. The local authorities (or parish) ran the workhouses extremely cheaply with inmates only getting enough food to keep them alive. Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist to try and expose this treatment of the poor to his readers. Oliver Twist was extremely unfortunate to be born into the workhouse and the book charts some of his early life.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens In the book ‘ A Christmas Carol’, Dickens describes the poor, how they were treated unfairly and how they were thought as animals rather than human beings. Dickens portrays the rich as ignorant and selfish people that think they are bigger than the world itself. Charles Dickens new a lot about poverty, as his parents were not earning enough money to pay of debts, which meant that Dickens himself had to leave school at the age of 12 to work in a factory. He had a terrible experience; he had felt what it was like to be poor, to have no hope for the future and worked long hours in a dirty factory. Charles dickens used Scrooge to symbolize the minority of the population that are inconsiderate & rich.
“The workhouse would become the only kind of help offered to anyone seeking assistance, and the standard of relief there should be worse than the standard of living of the poorest labourer outside” (Richardson 226). This new law caused an outrage because it never differentiated between work-shy and disabled, sick and well, and infants and elderly, so they were all treated the same. This created a life of poverty for more people, because the help that people received was minimal compared to the help that they needed and sought. Dickens was actively opposed to this Poor Law. In fact, “Dickens is known to have had many arguments with a newspaper’s Editor about the politics of the Poor Law” (Richardson 233).
His sympathy with the poor stemmed from his childhood and his father's inability to stay out of debt. Hard Times is Dickens' shortest novel and is considered by many to be a satire, the story revolves around the hard-headed disciplinarian Mr Thomas Gradgrind. Through the thinking of this character, Dickens examines the utilitarian philosophy of the time and exposes some of the hypocrisy of those in positions of power. The novel is set in the fictional city of Coketown. The city may be based on Dickens' own experiences of Preston where the industries and factories are similar to those of Coketown.
"Workhouses were in existence before 1834, but only the very old, the very sick, or the very young occupied them. The choice was clearly defined: live in a workhouse, find work, or starve to death outside. Many chose death" (Epstein 93) Unable to pay debts, new levels of poverty were created. Dickens recognizes theses issues with a sympathetic yet, somewhat, critical eye, due to his childhood experiences with debt, poverty, and child labor. He notices that England's politicians and people of the upper class try to solve the growing problem of poverty through the Poor Laws and what they presume to be charitable causes, but Dickens knows that these things will not be successful; in fact they are often inhumane.