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Charles Dickens Research Paper

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In the time of Charles dickens, 204 million people followed the Christian beliefs. This is around 20% of the 1000 million people of the world population. In the 19thcentury, more and more people became religious. From 1850 to 1890 religion adherence rates grew by 12%. Christianity being the most popular religion meant that Dickens could use quotes or stories from the bible because his readers would understand the reference. The most disliked religious group were the Jews, so Dickens also took advantage of that to create negative characters in his book. In his writings, Charles Dickens shows his dislike of evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism, but, especially in his fiction, he is very hesitant to make professions of a specific faith beyond …show more content…

In Victorian times, society was strictly layered not only into rich and poor, or even upper, middle or lower class, but hundreds of sections. People were expected to “know their place”, and the church taught them to be happy with what class you were in. Dickens didn’t like the effects of social class. At the time, many people were becoming aware of the need to improve the condition in which the poor found themselves. Dickens was a great supporter of social reform- especially in schools and prisons. The social classes of England were newly reforming. There was a stirring disorder of the old hierarchical order, and the middle classes were growing every day. Added to that, the upper classes’ composition was changing from simply hereditary aristocracy to a combination of nobility and an emerging wealthy commercial class. The definition of what made someone a gentleman or a lady was, therefore, changing at what some thought was an alarming rate. In Dickens’ time, there was little to no social mobility and nobody really travelled from where they were born, you died in the place and class into which you were born. Cases like the one pip experienced in the book would have been rare and almost unthinkable due to the limited interaction between the classes and the degree of superiority felt by someone of higher class towards one of a lower

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The author, Dickens used his characters like the three spirits and tiny time to make arise to certain problems in England at the time. The major problem was people giving out food to the poor, making that population growth and there wasn't enough food to supply each person. So the rich people like Scrooge didn't like that. Foster then went on to say that Dickens picked

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In the nineteenth century, Dickens was writing a forgettable epic works. "Dickens beliefs and attitudes were typical of the age in which he lived” (Slater 301). The circumstances and financial difficulties caused Dickens’s father to be imprisoned briefly for debt. Dickens himself was put to work for a few months at a shoe-blacking warehouse. Memories of this painful period in his life were to influence much of his later writing, which is characterized by empathy, oppressed, and a keen examination of class distinctions.

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Through the use of the supernatural, as well as natural world, Dickens manages to employ a reason for change by arguing that greed is an inhumane tool of power utilised by the wealthy. Moreover, Dickens argues that generosity is a quality that is severely lacking throughout humanity, before concluding by reassuring his audience that change is achievable. Thus, it is a profound message throughout ‘A Christmas Carol’, that despite the doings of the Industrial Revolution, an assertive effort must be made to bring an end to the social injustice present in their

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1) In one of Charles Dickens’ most famous stories, A Christmas Carol, he drops hints about his views on society during Victorian England, which was the period that Dickens lived in. 2) Throughout the novella, Dickens implies his thoughts on social justice that was around him; several pieces of evidence are provided and they all paint a picture of the way the higher class citizens overlooked and disregarded the poorer members of society. In addition, Dickens indicates the way of change that he desired for the rich. 3a) Initially, Dickens uses Scrooge as an example of the wealthy civilians throughout his time due to the fact that Scrooge refuses to donate to the poor and suggests the prisons, Union workhouses, The Treadmill and Poor Law as options

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When Charles wrote A Christmas Carol, he wrote it as a form of protest because he was very bothered with the aspect, healing, and the prosperity of adolescents, continually amid the most defenseless components in the general public. As well as Dickens exclusive comprehensions for writing A Christmas Carol, he felt that he needed to expose the vast rift between higher and lower working classes in Victorian Britain. Dickens cared about changing things around him such as children going to school. In the mid-nineteenth century more than 100,000 youngsters in London never went to any kind of school and the kids that did go to school were in schools that were run by private owners just so they could make a buck or they went to old run-down schools.

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The world of Charles Dickens "If they would rather die,…they had better do it and decrease the surplus population." - Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol This is a quote from the book A Christmas Carol, said by a character named Scrooge. Scrooge was the main character and was created by Charles Dickens to basically portray what most people during that time thought of the poor and unfortunate people. Scrooge doesn’t think twice about the poor and unfortunate, and frankly doesn’t care, but one Christmas eve night the ghost of Christmas past, present, and future come to visit him and completely changes his mind on the poor and unfortunate and he ends up helping them.

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Pip doesn’t work often so he has this money for nothing, young and foolish he spends it all. Finally , Pip wants to be in the upper class and when he tries to flirt with his dream girl Estella she shoots him down right away because he is in the middle class. Pip finds his best friend Joe to blame, saying that if he was in the upper class so would I. This book, demonstrates the justice system as cruel, Stereotypes relating to economic class and loyalty to the people that mean the most

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Dickens wants the audience to change or help someone else change, be that person’s wake up call, be that person’s past, present, and future spirit. Dickens is trying to change the world so it’s a better and happier place for the youth. I occasionally have this feeling inside of me when I just really want to help someone. Whether someone drops something or they need a direction for their lives a helpfulness overcomes me. This feeling that overwhelms me is the same feeling I gain after reading A Christmas

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As a prolific Victorian writer of novels, plays, novellas, and non-fictional prose including letters, Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) became known all over the world for his remarkable characters, his mastery of prose, and his depictions of the social classes, customs and values of his times. Some believed that he was a staunch defender of the working classes and has often been celebrated as a champion of the oppressed and the downtrodden. But it has sometimes been noted that both in his journalism and fiction he expresses attitudes that can be interpreted as racist and xenophobic. He opposed slavery but defended colonialists against their native attackers and opposed suffrage for blacks on grounds of cultural superiority. Questions have been raised as to whether Dickens believed in biological determinism or was instead a cultural chauvinist.

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468 Words | 2 Pages

Charles Dickens was an author of the Victorian era, but not only that he was a social critic where he criticised society and poverty. One of the cruelty Charles fought for was the use of child labor. He also brought up the social structure and how it separating the nation into three groups. Victorian era gave us some of the best authors but had a slew of problems regarding the social structure and how they treated people.

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855 Words | 4 Pages

Moreover, Dickens thought that one’s position in society could be changed by self-improvement. Then, one’s environment may be decisive to shape your way of being but not to change who you really are. In fact, Oliver’s stay with the Maylies challenges this argument. Whereas Oliver was supposed to be helped and thus, improve, in the city, it is precisely here the moment in which we see the worst side of Oliver: he has no voice, he has no decent opportunities, he is victim of middle-classes prejudices, and so on. Otherwise, in the countryside, where he is supposedly to be a waste for society (not having any opportunity to self-improvement), he finds his true nature, having his own opinion and showing the purest side of Oliver.

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725 Words | 3 Pages

Pip is ashamed of his clothing and at how dirty he is. His hands symbolize the working class. “…my young mind was in that disturbed and unthankful state that I thought long after I laid me down, how common Estella would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith: how thick his boots, and how coarse his hands. I thought how Joe and my sister were then sitting in the kitchen, and how Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in a kitchen, but were far above the level of such common things” (Dickens 10). Pip compares his life to the upper class and sees nothing but the lack of appearance.

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Charles Dickens is an influential author for all ages. He has written many books that children know very well, including A Christmas Carol, with the character, Ebenezer Scrooge, finding his love for Christmas again. Dickens has also written some more mature books with topics that relate to our world today, such as Great Expectations, were the young boy, Pip, deals with an abusive family. In Charles Dickens books, we read many different themes that all have one thing in common: good v.s. evil. Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth, England, United Kingdom to his parents John and Elizabeth Dickens, and was their second child, they would go on to have eight children.

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1499 Words | 6 Pages

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, deals with the issue of social injustice in a class driven society during the Victorian Era. Our protagonist, Pip, strives to break the barrier and escape his social class. He strives to become a “gentleman”, despite lacking the wealth, education and birth right associated with one of this time. But following his eventual attainment of these things, he discovers perhaps his climb of the social ladder, wasn’t really worth it in the end. Robert G. Strange suggests Pip’s lower class circumstance has repressed him in an established society (Strange).

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He took what he saw and wrote books based on the troubles of the struggling class. In, “Great Expectations” Pip grew up poor, but had an opportunity to become a gentleman. Along the way in his life Pip had many friendships, the relationships of Pip and Joe, Estella, and Miss Havisham changed over the years and affect these individuals. Pip is raised by his sister and her husband, Joe after his parents pass away.

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