The Industrial revolution had many benefits such as the introduction of mass production, which allowed for the price of consumer goods to plummet, yet as with most changes, there are both supporters and non-supporters. Consequently. the first people who started to feel the negative effect of the Industrial Revolution were skilled artisans such as cloth workers. This is best exemplified in the Yorkshire Cloth Worker’s Petition.
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.
Fred (Scrooge’s nephew) said, “His wealth is of no use to him. He don’t do any good with it”. Fred notices that Scrooge doesn't give to the world, and that makes his riches useless. If the upper class has so much money to give but chooses to disregard the poor, nothing in this world will change. That is why poverty was such a big deal to Dickens because it is a worldly problem that could be better if people who can give, weren’t so selfish.
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
Charles Dickens argues in his writing A Christmas Carol that the poor was being treated cruelly and the rich does not care for the poor. Pg 34 “We should make some slight provisions for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at this present time”. This statement shows that the poor and destitute were not provided with anything and they suffered a lot. ”If they would rather die they better do it, and decrease the surplus population”.
Nearly half of all kids born into poor families remain poor for at least half of their childhood according to the Urban Institute. Charles Dickens communicates problems such as the criminal justice system in his book Great Expectations; although significantly improved since the 1860’s, the percentage of people born into poverty that remain in poverty has always been high due to a lack of opportunities and prejudice in the justice system. Dickens highlights these issues by using the characters within his book to critique societies inequalities between social statuses. Through the successive careers of Compeyson and Mr. Jaggers alongside the collapse of Magwitch, Dickens highlights how the failures of the criminal justice system further create
The play, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, explores the theme of poverty through its portrayal of the heterogeneity
Up until the mid-19th century, attitudes towards poverty was dominated by elitist views. Just like the elitist themselves, people in poverty were expected to solely take care of themselves. Social or economic factors were not seen as one of the issues that caused poverty; however, it was rather seen as something people were born with- like a defect they were birth with. They believed poverty was caused by the bad habits of the poor; for instance, their preference for gambling and drinking or through their own simple laziness (The British Library, 2018). This is because many Victorians didn’t understand poverty entirely.
Humble beginnings. Scrooge truly started from the bottom. He was not born into wealth and started without a dime. He was born to poor farmers and started working as a young boy to earn money. A true Dickensian existence he lived as he and his family were poor.
Dickens used careful context in that quote, he capitalized “Poor” as if it were a proper noun. He brought attention to what was important, and what was important was certainly the poor. E. Scrooge then replied “Nothing!” but the man thought he only wished to be anonymous. “…I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry.”
In fact, Charles dickens also once lived in the same desperate poverty state as the Cratchit Family. “Despite his parents’ best efforts, the family remained poor... He felt abandoned and betrayed by the adults who were supposed to take care of him”(Biography.com Editors). “The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, for example, was intended to end relief to any able-bodied person and make the remaining charity as minimal as possible to deter all but the most desperate from requesting such aid”(Geva Theatre Center, Rochester NY). This shows that even Charles Dickens felt neglected because he was very poor and in debt, having no support from the wealthy or other people.
Even though Bob had a very low wage, he and his family were happy. I think that Dickens was trying to encourage all of the people who lived in poverty to try and do their best to be happy. A cultural relationship that influenced the story was family. Many of the main families
Workhouses then serve as a symbol of the fixed hypocritical values of both the English system and the middle-classes as the former set in motion a number of reforms to improve the marginalised side of society (which failed), and the later thought that poor people were born with inherent negative qualities and that their destiny was far from improvement and dignity; instead, they were intended to a more immoral, criminal world. On the other hand, middle-classes possessed more virtuous values and then, deserved a more promising and comfortable conditions of life. Then, the hypocrisy behind workhouses can be found in its authorities: Mr Bumble and Mrs Mann. Such was the suffering experienced by Oliver during his early years that he decides to escape from that horrible world and rather decides to leave his future in destiny’s hand. He had to choose: the workhouse conditions or
Factory life was hard, especially on children who were hired because they could be paid less than their adult counterparts: “Their smaller size made children useful for certain tasks, such as mending broken threads or climbing on machinery to extract something impeding its operation.” From Dickens’ time spent working in a factory at a young age, it is easy to see where he got his ideas for descriptions of the factories and the people who worked there. Hard Times, shows the growing gap between the poor, the middle, and upper classes with descriptions of the working and living conditions of the poor compared to their richer counterparts. Dickens’ childhood trauma of working in the factories as a child can be read throughout Hard Times in the descriptions of the factory and
People lived in dirtied and swarmed urban communities with little or zero sanitation. Charles Dickens survived this time and in his book, he caught the consequences this change had on the people. He writes an account of the effects
