Fighting Society: Charles Dickens

In many novels, the society created by the author is surrounded by wealth and corruption. Numerous amount of times these settings are produced based on the life in which the author lives. Charles Dickens is no different. In the midst of most of his novels, Dickens exposes the deception of Victorian England and the strict society that holds everything together. In Dickens' novel Our Mutual Friend, a satire is created where the basis of the novel is the mockery against money and morals. Throughout this novel, multiple symbols and depictions of the characters display the corruption of the mind that surrounds social classes in Victorian England.

Dickens uses the needs and wants for people to get an image in their head about what life was really like before the French revolution. "Cold, dirt,

In many ways Dickens was viewed to denounce the Capitalist ethic. However never to found to be Communist/ Marxist it can be stated he was merely anti-materialistic. He felt the social injustice, which was created due to the heavy industry. Most of the mechanized account and in particular p.20 creates such an impression on the reader to think this. Dickens believed that this was a brutal world where everything is “measured by figures” in a Gradgrind gospel of “Fact”.

Throughout Dickens journey through life, the poor laws of Great Britain were closely intertwined. The first major impact that his childhood experiences had on him was his exposure to the factory system. The Industrial Revolution created large urban areas with a central factory that employed most of the area’s people. The factory was full of lower-class people in unsanitary conditions. In the days of Dickens’ factory experience the old poor laws were in effect. This helped Dickens’ situation greatly. His father lived in a fairly nice and sanitary prison, and was given time to find the money he owed. The old poor law system of giving aid to the poor helped to save the Dickens family. When Dickens grew up and was a parliamentary reporter, the new poor laws were about to be passed. Dickens realized that the new poor laws would bring doom to many families. The new poor laws did not help the poor but worsened their condition in order to drive them to work.

The England depicted by Charles Dickens in his “A Christmas Carol” was also the world that influenced Karl Marx, for he was living in England when he wrote the Communist Manifesto. What Marx had to say about the nature of capitalist society and about the struggle between classes can be applied to the idea of economic relations offered by Dickens in his book. Dickens was a social critic as well as a writer and often commented on the social order of his time in his writings. In “A Christmas Carol”, Dickens’ view of the economic structures of British capitalism in the nineteenth century is clearly evident and helps define and shape the character of Ebenezer Scrooge and those who interact with him.

The world in the mid-late 19th century underwent vast economic, social, and cultural change as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Not only was this era characterized by the radical transformation of multiple countries into industrialized powerhouses, it also saw the development of new schools of thought. One of the most prominent movements that emerged during the mid-late 19th century was Realism, in which it called for authors to create literature that depicted contemporary life in a completely detailed manner. English novelist Charles Dickens was highly influential in portraying this new literary mode in many of his works. In my opinion, with the help of his novel The Old Curiosity Shop, Dickens profoundly changed his world of the Industrial Age with his descriptions of the dismal conditions in urban England that paved the way to social and moral reform at the turn of the 19th century.

Dickens shows that the

Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ presents a warning to society through the representation of characters and the journey and transformation of the notorious miser, Ebenezer Scrooge. Dickens warns society of the grim future that awaits humanity if people fail to respond to the plight of the poor. Finally, if Dickens intentions weren’t made clear enough through these examples, his preface says it all. “I have endeavoured in this ghostly little book, to raise the ghost of an idea…May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and

Violence throughout our time has been evident ever since the beginning of our human species. From verbal to physical, one will not go through his/her lifetime without understanding the violent nature of other people. Richard Wilkinson brought up a point that “More unequal societies tend to be more violent” (Wilkinson 2). Wilkinson shows that there is a prominent correlation between income and homicide. Lower incomes shows higher rates of homicide. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens shows how violence can flourish due to the inequality seen in the lower classes. Dickens uses violence to portray that a society filled with inequalities can lead to violence.

Charles Dickens is one of the most renowned British writers with well-known and widespread work. Dickens was born in England in 1812 and died in 1870. During this time, Victorian England experienced an Industrial Revolution, which impacted his life tremendously. New factories and industrial machinery changed many lives of the lower class citizens. The family grew up impoverished and struggled to maintain a good lifestyle. The family’s financial situation was strained as John Dickens, Charles’s father, spent money that the family didn’t have. These societal factors were influential in Charles Dickens’s life, and the same themes present themselves in his works. When an author creates a work, frequently themes of their life events are incorporated into the theme of the book, consciously or unconsciously. Victorian Age industrial-influenced strife was a common theme in Dickens’s life and presented itself throughout Dickens’s books.

Dickens begins the novel with a pro-revolutionary tone. His regard for the idea of the upcoming and inevitable revolution in a positive light is reflected by the atmosphere he sets for the reader. Dickens is able to make his readers pity the peasantry and sympathize with them. Through inclusion of detail, Dickens portrays the plight of the lower class writing, “gloom [gathers] on the scene that [appears] more natural to it than sunshine” (21). This allows the reader to imply that the suffering of the lower class has fallen into a continuous pattern, and they can understand the need for revolution. Additionally, Dickens uses anaphora with the phrase “Hunger [is]” (21). This gives the reader a sense of how much hunger dominates and defines their lives, effectively making their

Since it was first published over 150 years ago, Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations has come to be known as a timeless and remarkably moving work of literature. It is considered to be one of Dickens’ most recognizable works, and is celebrated for its meaningful, universally-believed themes. In order for this novel to be properly understood, a thoughtful analysis of its major themes must be given.

Charles Dickens is one of the most influential writers in history and was “born in Landport, now part of Portsmouth, on February 7th, 1812”(Priestly 5). Despite being the successful writer that he was in life, Dickens had very humble beginnings and because his Father, John Huffman Dickens, “lacked the money to support his family adequetly” , Dickens lived in poverty through out most of his childhood (Collins). Matters only got worse, however, when Dickens’s Father had to “spen[d] time in prison for debt” causing Dickens to have to “work in a London factory pasting labels on bottles of shoe polish” (Collins). It was a horrible experience for him, but it also helped him to no doubt feel pity for the poor, which is

Charles Dickens was one of the most prominent authors of the 19th century. Growing up during the Industrial Revolution Dickens endured a very hard life and used his experiences as a basis for his writings. As a novelist Dickens portrayed the lives of children whose suffering mirrored his own. These novels depicted the lives of the English lower class with intense sympathy just as the realist artist did. Charles Dickens ability to write so vividly by his use of detail attracted many readers. For example, Dickens describes a once good address in London that was taken over by prostitution he writes “Wretched houses with broken windows patched with rags and paper; every room let out to a different family” (Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, 1836). One does not need a vivid imagination to picture the scene he is describing that’s how well he writes with

Dickens's criticism of a money – minded society is quite evident, and his attack against industrialism and materialism is significant in this novel,79 which makes it different from other novels Dickens has written.80 Oliver Twist is a matter of a whole society, persecuted by application of the utilitarian, economic and materialistic doctrines to human relationships that become mechanized and emotionally dead. Edgar Johnson, reveals Dickens's hatred to capitalism, " there is no mistaking Dickens's violent hostility to industrial capitalism and its entire scheme of life. Here he is proclaiming a doctrine not of individual but of social sin unveiling what he now sees as the real state of modern society."81