What Is The Theme Of Poverty In Charles Dickens

- Pip begins to treat Biddy as an inferior as he feels he is in a

Throughout history, a divide has always existed between the rich and poor in society. However, during the Industrial Revolution in Victorian England, this rift reached its peak. The working class labored for long hours and received miniscule wages, whereas the bourgeoisie grew abundantly wealthy through the labor of the working class. Published in 1848 and 1854 respectively, Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto and Charles Dickens’ Hard Times both comment on these troubles. While Hard Times is a novel which tells a story and The Communist Manifesto is a short publication which tries to bring about social change, both writings offer a sharp critique of the class antagonism brought about by capitalism at the height of the Industrial

Social class systems in the nineteenth century were comprised of the upper class, the middle class, the working class, and the underclass. The different social classes can be “distinguished by inequalities in such areas as power, authority, wealth, working and living conditions, life-styles, life-span, education, religion, and culture” (Cody). The poor, also known as peasants, were usually mistreated and segregated from the wealthy, or those of higher class. During his time, Charles Dickens “seen as a champion of “the poor” by some of the poor themselves” (“What was”). It is said that one of his greatest achievements “was to bring the problem of poverty to the attention of his readers through introducing varieties of poor persons into almost all of his novels, and showing the “deserving” majority of the poor, bravely struggling against the forces arrayed against them” (“What was”). This is clearly evident in A Tale of Two Cities. During the nineteenth century Victorian era, social class systems were a common excuse for the division and mistreatment of many individuals, as evidenced in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

At first, Austen reveals the tensions between the working class and the upper class and emphasizes the rigid social structure that existed in nineteenth century London. The rigidity of the social structure can be attributed to the fact that “no class exists for itself but is bound by reciprocated rights and duties to classes above and below” (Kilger 359). Although the classes are separate and very distinct from each other, they still all depend on one another to thrive and succeed. However, this was definitely not the case during the

The Industrial Revolution, which began in England, brought on many advancements in the production of textiles. This revolution that improved the manufacturing industry’s ability to produce goods in mass quantity with less labor should have been a way that the industrial worker’s lives improved. However, the opposite occurred. Engels describes a competitive working environment where workers competed to make enough money to survive with their families. Their survival only led to more suffering of neglect, poverty, and squalor. Engels book, Condtion of the Working Class in England, 1845, is a detailed account of the proletariat who were oppressed by the bourgeoisie. Engels wrote a dismally detailed account of the working class place during the Industrial Revolution in England, placing the workers in the cities as subhuman, expendable, and economically less expensive to maintain than a slave.

Oliver twist is one of the well known novel during the Victorian era. Charles Dickens, a nineteenth century writer mentions the the story of the young boy named Oliver twist in England and the advantures that happen to him.the novel theme up with many interrelated ideas.it is concentrated with the miseries of poverty and the spread of its degrading effects through society,Many evils are awaken in the society because of poverty for instance hunger, homelessness illiteracy etc.which was shown clearly in the novel.one of the worst consequences of poverty and being deprived of life’s essential is crime,with all of its corrosive effects on human nature.in the Victorian era,poverty experienced was extreme in case of the working classes.the

We see that Charles Dickens recognizes the poverty in the people. He describes the people as “… men with bare arms, matted locks, and cadaverous

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.

While the upper class reaped all the benefits of the industrial revolution and lucrative religious ventures, the lower class citizens were being treated like animals. The revolution into industry sent poor farmers into the cities looking for jobs that were controlled by the wealthy upper class. Immediately these people were exploited, being given long hours, low wages, and horrible living arrangements. The working class citizens were being exposed to conditions of “filth, ruin, and uninhabitableness, with the defiance of all considerations of cleanliness,

People often lived and worked in family unit, presenting everything by their own hand. Porter (1999) points out that around 75% British lived in the village, and most people ensure their life by farming. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, this situation no longer continued. The new law required that all owner’s of gazing grounds must afford the expense for fence, which lead to many farmers go bankrupt, at the meantime, many hand weavers unemployed because the new machines capability of produce big amount outputs (Stearns, 1998). Consequently, it forced many people find jobs in new factories, and moved to cities where the factory located (Porter, 1999). It is also important to state that although they worked for long hours, they only get paid little money. As they could not afford the higher living expenses in big cities, they had to move into the slum house. It is necessary to point out that over 12,000 people lived in 1,400 houses, nearly one family shared per room (included about nine people at average) (Engles, 1968: 62). This lead to several distress like air pollution, typhoid and cholera to threaten people’s lives (Stearns, 1998). Dean (1983: 104) also describes that the living conditions were fearful, in the course of early year of Industrial Revolution, over half of children aged under five years old dead because of the infectious

Social class differences were a major contributor to the story line and the lasting effect of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Social classes has a broad set of criteria that the majority of people think determines class. Dickens uses class differences for various reasons but most importantly, he uses them to show how he felt about those differences. Additionally, the fact that the differences that Dickens displays in the book are similar to today's class variations, makes Great Expectations and its theme of class, influential to this day. Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations perfectly illustrates the Victorian era’s class differences and shows where Dickens compassions laid.

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

It was a topic best swept under the rug during this time and the upper classes really had no clue as to the horrible state of living these people had to go through to survive. Oliver Twist was an alarming call for the upper class. He creates an amalgamation of grim realism with merciless satires He describes the issues like the failure of the charity, purity of corrupt city, the countryside idealized , disguised or mistaken identities etc . The society and class concept which is made by the upper class of the society that gave birth to class consciousness; similarly poverty to criminals. There was so much development that people hired poor kids to work. The building of criminals cannot be totally blamed to them it was the circumstance who made them chose this path. Poverty is a prominent theme in this novel. Although the text, he describes the theme, describing slums so decrepit that whole row of houses are on the point of ruin. The use of symbolism is widely seen. Also, the ending of the characters are differentiated, the people who were good and suffered had happy ending and apparently the other people who were bad had sad

Throughout the Industrial Revolution, the lower class’s population continued to increase as more and more people became poor and fell into poverty. Although the upper class was prosperous and wealthy, they failed to assist the struggling population; this only made the problem worse. As the issue of poverty became more critical, it became a topic that authors commonly wrote about. George Orwell, Charles Dickens, and Jonathan Swift were authors who presented the problem of a poor community and a neglectful upper class to the people through the use of allegory and satire. This helped to easily convince and influence their readers. Through the use of satire and allegory, George Orwell, Charles Dickens, and Jonathan Swift effectively address the pressing issue of the upper class’s ignorance and mistreatment towards the lower, struggling class.

Charles Dickens came from a working class background and was taken away from his family to work in a dirty, filthy warehouse. Some of his brothers and sisters died when they were young. He did not have a good childhood. All his work, his novels were based on the main characters being poor, working class, uneducated with some sort of disability.