Charles Dickens Research Paper

Literature, time and time again, has proven itself to be a nearly universal medium. Stories bring people together, and can be used to change the minds or viewpoints of significant demographics. Perhaps this is the reason that there are so many examples of literature being used both to communicate and also to protest ideas, and call for change in society. Regardless of the reason, this is an incredibly common practice. There are copious examples of literature having been used as a universal social platform to enact change throughout history.

The Encyclopædia Britannica defines a social problem novel, or protest novel, as a “work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through

Charles Dickens is to this day considered “one of the most important social commentators who used fiction effectively to criticize economic, social, and moral abuses in the Victorian era” (“Charles Dickens Critic”). Dickens is a novelist in the 1800s, who writes a number of novels criticizing British society, including The Pickwick Papers, A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, and Oliver Twist, among several others. Through writing these novels, he is relatively successful in “exposing the ills of the industrial society including class division, poverty, bad sanitation, privilege and meritocracy and the experience of the metropolis” (“Charles Dickens Critic”). The purpose of Dickens’s work is to call attention to the living conditions of the poor and underprivileged in England, and the discrepancy between these conditions and those of the upper class. Dickens, in keeping with the definition of protest literature, is pointing out flaws in his society and calling for

For example, I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai is a work of protest literature that was written recently. This book is an autobiography which follows Malala’s life from its beginning to present day, but begins with the shocking scene of a teenaged Malala being confronted by an armed man on her school bus, who asks her who she is and “shoots her in the head” (Arn). Malala is shot because of the fact that she is a girl in Pakistan who is trying to go to school. Miraculously, she survives. She goes on to become an activist for women’s educational rights, as she has always noticed the restrictions placed on women and wants to remedy them (Arn). This book is an example of protest literature because it, like all other protest literature, calls for social change. It calls for a change in the way that society treats and oppresses women, and in this way it is used to further Malala Yousafazai’s activism and motivate readers to act against the injustices committed against