How Does Charles Dickens Work

The Life and Work of Charles Dickens
“Christmas is a poor excuse every 25th of December to pick a man's pockets.” As Charles Dickens shows in this passage, not everyone likes Christmas. This quote is from the words of Ebenezer Scrooge, one of Dicken’s most infamous characters. As one can tell from this quote, Scrooge loves money so much he does not notice anything else. When Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, he wanted money as well. As a child, he had to work long, miserable hours in a workhouse just to spring his father from debtor’s prison. He never wanted this to happen to any of his children, and as a result he toiled furiosly in constant fear. Dickens’ novels, as well as being entertainment, were a warning for the upper class of what was
happening in the poor and working classes’ lives. The world of Charles Dickens is best understood through his own life, industrialized London, and scriptures concerning the poor.
Even though Dickens’ novels show scenes of family harmony, his own life was vastly different (Perdue). His family situation was often precarious due to his father's money problems. In 1824, when Charles was only 12, his father was put into debtor’s prison (Perdue). Charles was sent off to work to pay back his father's debt. This seem to put a permanant stain on his life (Perdue). Later, in his adulthood, he was afraid for the countless children condemned to this treatment. He never wanted anyone, including his own children, to go through this. Dickens worked tirelessly to write so that he could support his family, including his father, who kept coming back to him for loans. Out of the overflow of his heart of compassion, Dickens wrote. Although he never wrote about this period of his life, its effect is apparent in his writing. Dickens wanted to spread the message of distress to England that their way of treating their own population was barbarous. Dickens also desired that all could read his books, and so published his in novels in monthly installments (Perdue). Each installment would end on a hook so that the audience would return the next month. Upon completion of these installments, the books were issued in one to three volumes. Starting in 1847, the finished novels were reissued in the Cheap Edition, which was like taking a hardcover back and changing it to paperback (Perdue). His novels truly showed his compassion for the mistreated population. In Oliver Twist, he portrays a poor young boy destined to work from dawn until dusk for the rest of his life. When people saw through these novels the harsh treatment of the characters, they reacted. These novels especially touched the upper class, as they had never experienced anything like the character they read about. Through Dickens’s novels, this abuse eventually diminisheed, and the plight of the poor improved. Later in the 1800s, laws were passed against child labor that greatly helped his effort against the children’s part in the growing industrialization.
England was the first country to have widespread industrialization. Poor families needed as much money as possible to survive , so they sent their children off to work. The only jobs they could find were in the factories, mines, looms, and other unpleasant places. Factory owners wanted children because they were small. Children were the only ones who could fit in the cramped coal tunnels and crawl under machinery (Primary History). They also had small fingers, useful for tying threads, fixing broken machines and many other things. Factory owners could also skimp on children’s wages (Primary History). Conditions in the factories were appalling. Children worked ed endless hours in smoke-filled, blazing-hot factories with hot iron and steel that could burn them (Primary History). Their hair could get caught in the machinery. Factories also made city life unpleasant as they were extremely noisy, and polluted the city with soot and smoke. Children also worked in the coal mines. These conditions were awful as well. Tunnels could collapse or flood. Gas could explode or choke the miners. Many people were killed by these accidents. In the worst possible conditions, children would work for eighteen hours in the pitch-dark (Primary History). Sometimes children pushed trucks filled with coal along mine tunnels. “Trappers” opened and shut doors to let in air for hours at a time. The best jobs in mines were the ones on the surface, sorting coal (Primary History). Children were sent to work as early as age five. In this era, many started working younger than when modern children start school. Living in Victorian England in the working and lower class was anything but pleasant. Families had a large number of children, as birth control was not enforced. Queen Victoria had nine children herself, and she became a role model for all (Primary History). Most of these families grew poor having to provide for and feed their children. Most children spent the majority of their time working, either in a factory or doing chores at home. Children then were nothing like they are now and before that time, all the way back to Jesus’s time.
Jesus would not have treated His children this way.
In Psalms 72:13, it says, “He will take pity on the weak and the needy, and save them from death” (Bible). The few generous people who gave to the poor were blessed, whether they gave money, time, work, or other things to the poor, as in Proverbs 28:27, ”Those who give to the poor lack nothing, but those who close their eyes to them receive many curses” (Bible). Clearly, God was not happy with the factory owners, coal mine operators, etc., but he heard the prayers of the needy. Psalms 72:12 states, “For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help.”, and Psalms 9:9 says the LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed (Bible). God was watching over the poor and needy through every part of their struggling. He gave the poor voices that eventually stopped the mercilessness. As a victim of the growing industrialization, Charles Dickens was one of these voices silently helping the poor. Dickens wrote with compassion for the poor, feeling for them through the experiences of his former life. He incorporated hidden messages into his works to capture the hearts of the upper class. His writing was part of a bigger plan to stop child labor. According to Proverbs 31, he was doing the right thing when it says, “speak for the poor who cannot speak for themselves”(Bible). Later in the century, laws were passed against child labor. Once, again, the Bible was right. Proverbs 19:7 says, “Whoever is kind to the LORD lends to the LORD, and he will reward them for what they have done” (Bible). The LORD rewarded Dickens by helping him to accomplish his mission - to end the cruelty of child
labor.
One can learn many things from the world of Charles Dickens. He proves that even though his works are decades of years old, they are never to be read. Despite their age, we can learn about our own society through his works. One can even learn through studying the life of this incredible man. In his early life he realized child labor was wrong, and he spent the rest of his life trying to stop it. In Dicken’s novels, his characters learn lessons that apply to us today. The world we live in now has similarities to the life Dickens wrote about so long ago. Still the subjects of anger, sadness, death, poverty, and cruelty exist. The upper class still is partially blind to the life of the real world. They are lucky to not be part of life in the other places in the world. The world of Charles Dickens can still be the bridge between the sorrow and pain of the poor and the careless attitude of the upper class. Charles Dickens spent his whole life opposing child labor and poverty, and his work continues to do so even in this world, still compelling people to stand against poverty.