Charles Dickens was a social commentator who often brought attention to the deprivation of the poor. Specifically, in Oliver Twist, Dickens rails against the treatment of the poor in workhouses and the Poor Law of 1834.
While the concept of providing food and work for the poor is idealistically positive, the reality of these workhouses and orphanages differed, and Dickens felt that the misuse of funding, the living conditions, and the treatment of the individuals in these institutions were inhumane and cruel.
In the early chapters, Dickens satirizes Victorian social institutions. Once he is born, Oliver Twist is marked for his position in society:
But now that he was enveloped in the old calico robes which had grown yellow...he was badged and ticketed, and fell into his place at once...to be cuffed and buffeted through the world--despised by all, and pitied by none.
When no woman can be found to care for poor Oliver--"the workhouse authorities replied with humility"--he is "dispatched to a branch-workhouse where" the "offenders against the poor laws" were sent. There the woman in charge "appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to her own use."
Of course, Dickens also draws a sociological link between crime and poverty, as further on in the novel, Oliver is taken into the world of crime with one of literature's depraved villains, Fagin. Sadly, Oliver is exploited time and time again, yet his innate goodness prevails. Like Tiny Tim, Oliver is another example that underscores Dickens's contention that class rank does not have any correlation with integrity or virtue.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
What is the main target of Charles Dickens's social criticism in the novel Oliver Twist?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Why is the fact that the Americans are helping the Russians important?
In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...
-
There are a plethora of rules that Jonas and the other citizens must follow. Again, page numbers will vary given the edition of the book tha...
-
The poem contrasts the nighttime, imaginative world of a child with his daytime, prosaic world. In the first stanza, the child, on going to ...
-
Robinson Crusoe, written by Daniel Defoe, is a novel. A novel is a genre defined as a long imaginative work of literature written in prose. ...
-
In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...
-
Lionel Wallace is the subject of most of "The Door in the Wall" by H.G. Wells. The narrator, Redmond, tells about Wallace's li...
-
"The Wife's Story" by Ursula Le Guin presents a compelling tale that is not what it initially seems. The reader begins the sto...
-
In Celie's tenth letter to God, she describes seeing her daughter in a store with a woman. She had not seen her daughter since the night...
No comments:
Post a Comment