Charles Dickens Research Paper

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812. Dickens was born at the height of the Industrial Revolution, a time which brought great change to Victorian society. Population in urban areas (London's, in particular) soared. The overpopulation led to a lack of employment; soon poverty and crime increased. In response, the Poor Laws were put into effect. The Poor Laws established baby farms and workhouses to provide aid for those in poverty, and those who could not find work. Rather than provide money or pay in a form of welfare, they provided food and housing. As a child, Dickens experienced the hardships of poverty and neglect of aid that he would write about in his works later in his life. Charles Dickens strongly disagreed with the
Poor Laws, and expressed negative imagery of its institutions and those who ran them. Charles Dickens's personal experiences with the underprivileged and government neglect of these people in English society led to his book Oliver Twist. This book became an invitation for British society to take action and aid the poor and working classes with methods other than workhouses. Charles Dickens's experiences with poverty as a child, and his first-hand accounts of workhouses and other effects of the Poor Law Amendment Act he witnessed later in his travels as a journalist, shape events, characters, and settings in Oliver Twist. When Charles Dickens was twelve, in 1824, his father was imprisoned in a debtor's prison. Charles was the only member of this family allowed to leave; outside the prison walls, Dickens was working at a blacking factory. His experiences in and out of the debtor's prison and blacking factory greatly influenced Oliver Twist. Dickens's father was put into a debtor's prison, Marshalsea, and his family came with him, in 1824, only three years after his role as a naval office clerk was phased out. Dickens was the only one let out, so that he could work in a blacking factory. It was here that he met Robert Fagin, a man who worked with him. Charles Dickens took the liberty of using his name later in life, as a character in Oliver Twist. Robert Fagin was kind to him, and helped him—filled empty blacking bottles with hot water and made a bed out of straw for Dickens—when he was in pain and unable to work (Charles Dickens was frequented with painful back spasms as a child). Robert Fagin becomes the satanic character in Oliver Twist when he walks home with Dickens one day. It is here that he soon can become aware of Dickens's hidden poverty. However, Charles Dickens lies to him and tells him that he lives in a separate house. Charles is traumatized by and ashamed of the debtor's prison, and possesses an immense fear that someone will find out about his family's situation. The non-fiction Fagin is too close to finding out that Dickens and family live in a debtor's prison. This traumatized Dickens, and haunted him until he would develop Fagin into a satanic character in Oliver Twist. Dickens shows a sheer cunning as he deceives Fagin into believing he lives in another home. Charles then takes it to another level, both to satisfy his flair for the dramatic and to reassure himself that he has fully deceived Fagin. This parallels the Artful Dodger's own flair for the dramatic, as he boasted to the cops and other criminals about his high rank in the criminal underworld. He tries to appear as a big-shot criminal, rather than the petty thief he is. As a young boy in the blacking factory, he is very similar to Oliver Twist as he claims to be very "delicate, soon hurt, bodily or mentally" with a "certain striking sensitiveness about him." (Smiley, Charles Dickens, 38) He shares these traits with Oliver, as Oliver is a meek child in a workhouse. Dickens was frequently criticized by his co-workers as he was immobilized from the back spasms that frequented him. He was accused of faking his pains and called lazy. When Oliver is referred to as an orphan, the mere thought triggers an emotional breakdown, at which point he begins crying. Charles Dickens's experience in the blacking factory and the debtors' prison shaped his views into his adult life, spurring him to take action by incorporating realistic negative views of the oppressive forces in society. The Poor Law Amendment Act established workhouses, run by parish beadles (who often were not qualified for the job) and a workhouse board (that received no salary) that made no effort and displayed no concern for the welfare of the inmates; rather, they showed a larger concern to the funds of the parish, a quality of workhouses Charles Dickens fought to increase awareness of.
"Inmates' only possessions were their uniform and the bed they had in the large dormitory. Beds were simply constructed with a wooden or iron-frame, and could be as little as two feet across. Bedding in the 1830's and 1840's at least, was generally a mattress and cover, both filled with straw." (1834 Poor Law) Rooms of only about twenty square feet could accommodate upwards on thirty people. Charles Dickens, after reporting (his writings A Walk in A Workhouse, and A Paupers Palace) on a visit to a workhouse, felt that workhouses were legalized cruelty of the poor. "Innocent children are shut up with tramps and prostitutes." (1834 Poor Law) The ill, insane, and able-bodied were all kept in the same quarters. Some workhouses had no separate sick ward for children, despite that "it did perversely happen in eight and a half cases out of ten, either that it [a child in the workhouse] sickened from want and cold, or fell into the fire from neglect, or got half-smothered by accident; in any one of which cases, the miserable little being was usually summoned into another world, and there gathered to the fathers it had never known in this." (Dickens, Oliver Twist, 6) Dickens's Christian values disagreed with the quality of workhouses to separate husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and men and women of all ages to discourage breeding and the poor people's "natural" urge for incest. (1834 Poor Law) "They made a great many other wise and humane regulations, having reference to the ladies, which it is not necessary to repeat; kindly undertook to divorce poor married people, in
consequence of the great expense of a suit in Doctors' Commons; and, instead of compelling a man to support his family, as they had theretofore done, took his family away from him, and made him a bachelor!" (Dickens, Oliver Twist, 13-14) Complaints could not be made, as the complainer would either be locked up as Oliver was, or asked to leave. The parish beadles in charge of the workhouses greatly neglected the inmates. They were not concerned with their welfare, so they did not perform checks on those they hired. At one point, they hired a woman and put her in charge of washing a baby (this scene is recounted in Oliver Twist) and does so in boiling water. The baby died, which is not uncommon of inmates. Dickens writes in Oliver Twist, concerning when a child was "inadvertently scalded to death when there happened to be a washing -- though the latter accident was very scarce, anything approaching to a washing being of rare occurrence in the farm -- the jury would take it into their heads to ask troublesome questions, or the parishioners would rebelliously affix their signatures to a remonstrance. But these impertinences were speedily checked by the evidence of the surgeon, and the testimony of the beadle." (Dickens, Oliver Twist, 6) The workhouse board and beadle would cover up the incident. Workhouses were designed so that they were a last resort of the poor. They were designed to be as miserable as possible so that the poor would not rely on public assistance. When entering, inmates were stripped, searched, washed, shaved, and given uniforms to wear. They were treated no better than criminals, and fed even less. "Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months" (Dickens, Oliver Twist, 15) Oliver Twist's mother died during childbirth. It was not uncommon for mothers to die during child-birth. Pregnant women often were worked right up until the very moments when they went into labor. However, her death left Oliver into the hands of one of Victorian society's most abusive institutions. They had abused them both emotionally and physically. The beadles and boards that ran the workhouse essentially did not care about the inmates. They were completely ignored, and a total nuisance to society. The settings in Oliver Twist represent the slums of London. Oliver Twist presents the realistic conditions of these areas to Dickens's readers; the aristocrats ignored these areas and many had not even known they existed. Charles Dickens was known for taking very long walks through London. He would often walk four to five miles a day. He had seen places in London that few people would take the time to venture into. One of these places, Bethnal Green, is mentioned in Oliver Twist. Bethnal Green is one of London's poorest slums, and described as "dreadful." It is the low-class area that Nancy and Sikes live in. Oliver soon "became involved in a maze of the mean and dirty streets which abound in that close and densely populated quarter." (Dickens, Oliver Twist, 168) It seems to appear that while writing Oliver Twist Dickens returned to his days as a journalist, for he appears to report on the current state of affairs as he sees them in London. (Bethnal Green) He centers his scenes on slums, another being Saffron Hill. It is described as "a squalid neighbourhood between Holborn and Clerkenwell, densely inhabited by poor people and thieves. It was formerly a part of Ely-gardens and derives its name from the crops of saffron which it bore. It runs from Field-lane into Vine-street, so called from the Vineyard attached to old Ely House. The clergymen of St. Andrew's, Holborn, (the parish in which the purlieu lies), have been obliged, when visiting it, to he accompanied by policemen in plain clothes." (Holborn, www.victorianlondon.org) Oliver is born in a place in London called Jacob's Island. Jacob's Island, another slum Charles Dickens visited, is described with brutal honesty: "Here stands, as it were, the very capital of cholera, the Jessore of London - Jacob's Island, a patch of ground insulated by the common sewer. Spared by the fire of London, the houses and comforts of the people in this loathsome place have scarcely known any improvement since that time. The place is a century behind even the low and squalid districts that surround it." (Mayhew, A Visit to the Cholera District of Bermondsey, www.victorianlondon.org) Dickens's realism reached beyond just the streets and slums of London, however. He provided a very accurate account of Nancy, and her role in Fagin's den of thieves. Prostitutes in the London criminal underworld, often very similar to Nancy, would provide the same role she would. They would be an object of sexuality to help convince the boys and young men that they wished to lure into their "occupation." His realism captured the anti-semitism of Victorian England's society, although he was not defensive of it until he received letters from friends and readers world-wide. "the character Fagin in Oliver Twist is depicted as a stereotypical Jew, with passages describing his hooked nose and greedy eyes. Dickens, it should be remembered, lived in a time which preceded the Holocaust, and it can be argued that he was writing for dramatic effect: Fagin, when all is said and done, is a caricature, one of the great pantomime villains of fiction." (Anti-Semitism, http://www.cordula.ws/a-dickensc.html) His book was even banned in New York City, until he released a version in which most references to Fagin were changed to "He" or "Fagin." In 1860, Charles Dickens was criticized by the old Jewish gentleman he sold his home Tavistock House to, Mr. Davis. Charles Dickens's response to the criticism of his Jewish caricature of Fagin, was this: "Fagin, in Oliver Twist, is a Jew, because it unfortunately was true of the time to which the story refers, that that class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew ... and secondly, that he is called 'the Jew' not because of his religion but because of his race." (Dickens, http://www.cordula.ws/a-dickensc.html) Charles Dickens later responded with an apology to Mr. Davis stating in a letter: "There is nothing but good will left between me and a People for whom I have a real regard and to whom I would not wilfully have given an offence or done an injustice for any worldly consideration. Believe me, Very faithfully yours, Charles Dickens." (Dickens, http://www.cordula.ws/a-dickensc.html) Oliver Twist presents the readers with a realistic portrayal of the slums of London—areas that aristocrats and most other readers of Dickens did not know about. Oliver Twist is largely influenced by Charles Dickens's exposure to poverty and the underprivileged in Victorian society. Charles Dickens was active against the Poor Law Amendment Act and many selfish philosophies in Victorian England and the plot in Oliver Twist contains events and locations expressing Charles Dickens's negative views of these ideas. The Poor Law Amendment Act spurred ignorance of the impoverished; these views were justified based on distorted Christian morals. In Oliver Twist, Oliver angers Bumble—the parish beadle—by showing disrespect to Bumble the Beadle as Oliver defend his mother after Bumble called her a whore. Bumble blames Oliver's outburst on Oliver having "too rich a diet." Mrs. Sowerberry was "wholly innocent" of this accusation. In fact, Oliver was having the exact opposite of "too rich a diet." (Dickens, Oliver Twist, 57) Also, Mrs. Sowerberry is one of the least innocent—morally innocent—people in the story. Their views led to a neglect of Oliver as they continued to feed him the scraps that even the dog would not eat. The lack of morals in the government is visible in his Christian hypocrisy in this scene. Bumble is presented as cruel and heartless. At one point, Bumble is walking home, shielded form the cold by a "blue great-coat," while there are two paupers sitting out in the cold. Despite his coat, the sight of their freezing makes him shiver, but he continues on and goes home. He gets warm and eats a big meal thinking, "with sundry moral reflections on the too-prevalent sin of discontent and complaining." In this society "dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine." (Dickens, Oliver Twist, 202) When Oliver is in the workhouse, he encounters a man on the workhouse board, that tells him "'I hope you say your prayers every night,' said another gentleman in a gruff voice; ‘and pray for the people who feed you, and take care of you -- like a Christian.'" (Dickens, Oliver Twist, 12) However, being brought up in a workhouse, by people who shows Christian beliefs when it fits them, never learned this, and so he did not, despite that "The gentleman who spoke last was unconsciously right. It would have been very like a Christian, and a marvellously good Christian, too, if Oliver had prayed for the people who fed and took care of him. But he hadn't, because nobody had taught him." (Dickens, Oliver Twist, 12-3) The last statement refers to the idea that there really was no proper knowledge of Christian values in the workhouse. Dickens's sarcasm is obvious in certain points of the book, as he states: "What a noble illustration of the tender laws of England! They let the paupers go to sleep!" Dickens obviously feels that the "tender laws of England" are in fact, not so tender. (Dickens, Oliver Twist, 13) The gentleman on the workhouse board is wearing a white waistcoat, a symbol of purity. However, this man is the cruelest on the board, making fun of Oliver by calling him a fool and reminding him of the fact that he is an orphan. In Oliver Twist, the characters in authority all had corrupted Christian values. These characters were viewed negatively by readers, the purpose being to call attention to the corrupt views of government in Victorian society. As a child, Charles Dickens struggled through life as a child laborer. His experiences with these aspects of Victorian society led him to write many of his books—Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Hard Times—as social commentaries crying out for the people of England to help reform society. Although Charles Dickens pleaded for help from all of society in his books, he took action and is associated with Urania Cottege and the Field Lane Ragged School, both support centers for women. Charles Dickens helped to fund both these centers, and took an active role in running Urania Cottege aside Angela Burdette-Coutts. He strongly supported the health and housing reformer, Southwood Smith. As well as aiming to help the downtrodden in Victorian society, Charles Dickens deeply sympathized with them. He went so far as to releasing Cheap Editions of many of his works. The Cheap Edition/Charles Dickens Edition/Poor Man's Edition of Oliver Twist had no preface however. Charles Dickens's impact on Victorian society was invaluable, and although he may not have seen the drastic reform he wished he had, his death on June 9, 1870 was a disappointment to all. 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*I GOT A 67 ON THIS PAPER, I SUGGEST YOU USE THIS ONLY TO LOOK FOR IDEAS FOR RESEARCHING CHARLES DICKENS, DO NOT USE THIS PAPER AS YOUR OWN WORK, THERE ARE SITES THAT WILL CHECK TO FIND OUT WHETHER YOU CHEATED OR NOT, IT IS NOT VERY HARD TO GET CAUGHT, YOU CAN, SORRY, WILL RUIN YOUR EDUCATION BY CHEATING OR PLAGARISING, IT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE AND IN SOME CASES, WILL RESULT IN EXPULSION*