Summary Of A Factory Cripple By William Dodd

William Dodd, a woollen mill worker, recounts his background as crippled man in his detailed autobiography, A Narrative of the Experience and Sufferings of William Dodd, A Factory Cripple. With child labor becoming more common, Dodd and his siblings were sent to work among adults and other children. This displays how poverty and industrialization were becoming more prevalent among the working and middle class citizens. Unlike our previous readings, North and South or Bleak House, reader are provided first hand accounts of how children were treated by authority figures. Readers are exposed to the many consequences appointed to child workers who have not fully developed into their bodies. Some are given limps from abusive, while others have

Characters like Mr. Thornton from North and South were able to rise from poverty into their wealth. Dodd provides readers with an alternative point of view opposing Thornton’s upbringing. As a work of nonfiction, Dodd’s encounters and experiences are more raw and descriptive. From the beginning of the text until the end, Dodd tells readers about how working in mills or factories has impacted his life. Dodd was not always crippled and he explains himself at the time as “ a fine, strong, healthy, hardy boy, straight in every limb, and remarkably stout and active” (Dodd 187) . As a strong and healthy child, he was thrust into industry by his parents. He recalls these “hardships”, and comes to the harsh reality that he “has been made a cripple for life, and doomed to end [his] days in the factories or workhouse” (186). He was subjected to live with his cripples for the rest of his life due to his participation in factory work. Dodd supplies readers with his vast knowledge of factor machines to provide the context of his work

They are brought into the factories and workplaces before they strong enough to bear the pressures of using large machinery. Then they become crippled, limiting their future occupations and presence in society. Without being able to create their own identity, Victorians during this period are exposed to serious obstacles for social growth. As a Victorian writer, Dodd is educating the Victorian society about how he ( and other cripples) will have to struggle for the rest of their lives due to how they were treated at a young age. It is truly disappointing how citizens are forced to undergo such humiliating conditions in order to earn money for their families: “There are a great variety of cripples made by machinery. The most common are those wanting arms and legs, or whose arms and legs have been crushed or torn, and rendered useless” (209). As a part of the 21st century civilization, readers can use Dodd’s narrative to understand that the works of fiction, created by Bronte and Gaskell, do not represent how factory workers are treated. Dodd illustrates the conditions of the factory, as well as, his life in