...Charles Dickens author of, A Christmas Carol, realized how horrible times had become so he decided to write this novella to help educate the rich and poor alike. When he was in the process of writing A Christmas Carol, he observed the many ways the poor were suffering and what he could incorporate into his novella to create awareness for it. When he finally finished his novella, his dream to create awareness for the poor who were suffering began to become a reality. More and more people were being affected by A Christmas Carol, mostly since it opened their eyes to treacherous reality of poverty. He changed the way many middle class and upper class thought. They began to hold sympathy for the less fortunate in their country and started to help rather than stand there and do nothing.Once the middle and upper class began to help out the poor, the economy boomed. The aristocrats gave the poor jobs, money, and assistance. They did what they could to help bring people out of poverty, because they did not want to turn into a “Marley”, Scrooge's old business partner whom led a horrible afterlife of suffering and despair. The middle class also helped, in the small ways they could. They gave food to the poor, helped to serve them, and even set up systems that could bring people out of the neverending cycle of poverty. In Dickens time...
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...The industrial revolution was a time of great technological changes. It revolutionised everything, from the way people lived to where they worked, but what society often overlooked was how ordinary people went through their day to day lives. In the book ‘Hard Times’, Charles Dickens has produced some exceptional characters to represent the complexity of each social class. From the arrogance of aristocracy to the struggle of the common workers, and the way in which they cope with the many hardships they will endure. Charles Dickens was able to personify the different social classes. The real reason why Charles Dickens wrote Hard Times was because he was low on funds, this was due to his sales being low on his periodical magazine “Household words”. He hoped by writing this novel in instalments would bale him out by increasing his profits. However, Dickends wished to satirize radical utilitarians who dickens thought to be ‘those who see figures and averages, and nothing else’. He also wished to campaign for reform of working conditions. In as early as 1839, dickens visted factories in Manchester and was appalled by the conditions workers had to work in. Furthermore, Charles Dickens gives us a close up look into what appears to be the ivory tower of the bourgeoisie of his day, yet these middle-class characters are viewed from a singular perspective, the perspective of those at the bottom of the social and economic system. Though Dickens characters tend to be well developed and...
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...Oliver Twist written by Charles Dickens Oliver Twist published in 1838, a novel written by Charles Dickens, who was a leading English novelist of the Victorian ear and also considered of being one of the greatest English writers with deep-storytelling novels. ``Oliver Twist``, Dickens second novel, tells the story of the orphan Oliver who is through unfortunate circumstances forced to take part in criminal acts of the gangland of London. Where from he is later on rescued. I decided to analyse how Dickens tried to describe and expressed the poverty and the abundance in his novel, in doing so I will also try to direct my attention on the conditions of life at that time in England. To clearly understand you have to know how England was looking like around 1830 – also called the Victorian ear. In the 19th century more and more people moved into towns, with intent to find work. Cities like London were not prepared for such crowed of people and overcrowded very fast. And with the crowing number of people the living standards went down. So it was normal that a whole street had to share toilets and water. On the other hand there were the rich, which had bigger houses with fluent water and underground sewers. Dickens is showing in his novel all the time the two, to this time ruling standards of life, and Oliver Twist performs as his character who walks between and tries to reveal them. On the one side there is Mr. Bumble, the beadle, his job is to administrate the finances of...
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...Great Expectations, like the majority of Charles Dickens' fiction, contains several autobiographical connotations that demonstrate the author's keen observational talents. Pip, the novel's protagonist, reflects Dickens' painful childhood memories of poverty and an imprisoned father. According to Robert Coles, "there was in this greatest of storytellers an unyielding attachment of sorts to his early social and moral experiences" (566). Complementing Dickens' childhood memories of crime and poverty was his legal training, reflected in the characterizations of lawyers and the abundance of criminal activity that hovers around the world of Great Expectations. Charles Dickens' father, John, made little money working as a clerk in England's Navy Pay Office (Coles 564). John's low salary, combined with a severe spending problem, would eventually land him in debt. As a consequence, John was placed into debtors' prison. As was the custom of the time, John was forced to bring his family along with him (Coles 564). It was 1824 and young Dickens was only 12 years old (Coles 564). To help his father out of debt, Charles worked under the horrible conditions of a blacking factory (Collins 15). According to Edmund Spenser, quoted in Phillip Collins' Dickens and Crime, these events "lie behind the loneliness, disgrace, and outlawry which pervade all his novels" (15). Collins concurs: It is a commonplace that his sympathy for suffering and neglected children, which lies at the root...
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...Representation of the poor in A Christmas Carol In A Christmas Carol Dickens put in an element of entertainment for his readers, but he also found it necessary to alert them to the urgent need for social reform in the Britain of 1840s. He achieves this aim by depicting a range of different types of poverty and by inviting both Scrooge and his readers to consider how these might be relieved. In this essay I shall examine Dickens’ various depictions of the poor and their living conditions, paying particular attention to the differences between the ‘virtuous’ working poor and those who are nearly at the point of starvation. Dickens represents different degrees of poverty in A Christmas Carol. In the first instance he introduces his readers to the ‘acceptable’ face of extreme poverty in the form of Bob Cratchit and his family. Although they occupy only four rooms and have hardly enough food to go around, they work hard to earn a living, keep themselves clean and are honourable and decent. The narrator’s pronouncement that due to Scrooge’s intervention, Tiny Tim ‘did NOT die’ makes it clear that the young boy’s state was the result of a poor diet and difficult living conditions. The fact that the two young Cratchits delight and amuse one another with commentary on the goose and the Christmas pudding also suggests that these children’s stomachs are empty and that they daydream about things that would now all be taken for granted in current society. Bob and his family, who are clearly...
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...A scene that took place in chapter 5 did so much to set the mood of the entire book. It showed just how capable Charles Dickens is of foreshadowing, and created a theme that would last the entire book. In chapter 5 of Book one of the novel in named wineshop. In the scene a large cask of wine was dropped and broke, causing the wine to spill. All the peasants rushed to drink, and soak up the wine. This showed how much poverty there was in the city of St. Antoine Paris. The red wine was cleverly symbolized by Dickens as the blood that would soon be all over France. This set the eerie mood throughout the book. The mood of the scene starts as a joyful scene, but quickly takes a turn. The poverty is quickly shown. The second the wine is spilled, everyone within sight immediately stops there activities and starts drinking the wine. They also use handkerchiefs to soak up the wine and feed it to their kids. “ There was little roughness in the sport, and much playfulness. Their was a special companionship in it, an observable inclination on the part of everyone to join some other...
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...Sketches by Boz “The Streets - Morning” The Victorian London streets is a familiar setting of Dicken's works with “Oliver Twist” and “A Christmas Carol” being some his most memorable works. In this passage Dickens offers the reader an alternative London, one without the energetic crowds but instead a much more disquieting place where the streets are dull and lifeless. We are met with a silent neighbourhood before the sun has risen and through the use of characters, setting and comparisons the reader receives a rich picture of the sunless streets. The passage begins with the introduction of the Victorian London scene on a summer morning. The reader is taken by surprise by the opening sentence where “The streets of London on a summer's morning” are described to be “most striking”. Dickens' interesting choice of words places the pre-dawn London scene in the summer, a time of warmth and sun, however we are offered a nineteenth century London that is typically portrayed with a bleak, grey backdrop. Few people roam this neighbourhood apart from those “whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business, cause them to be well acquainted with the scene.” This leads to the belief that each summer's morning starts off like this, colourless and melancholy; the people who happen to be awake at this dreary hour are the rogues who remain. Each just as depressed as the other, and both's search for something more than the blind acceptance of a morose...
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...A Tale of Two Cities, is a novel that contrasts from any work of literature because it establishes itself as a fictional work weaved in with the historical happenings of the French Revolution , thus making it to a certain extent true. Dickens captures a crippling society that is on the brink of collapsing in the novel. This is apparent in the novels opening scene in 1775 because it instantaneously compares England with pre-revolutionary France. Take into account the introductory lines, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope,...
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...aristocrats to take advantage of their situation. In the novel, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens portrays the peasantry as the most oppressed people who are unfairly treated by the aristocracy. Charles Dickens has greater sympathy for the peasants and their poverty-stricken lifestyles however, once the aristocracy is overthrown, he foreshadows further mistreatment and ridicules them for their brutality by treating people the same as the former ruling...
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...A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Stave by stave Before you read the book … 1. Find out ten interesting facts about Charles Dickens. 2. Find out what these words / writing techniques mean: Allegory Novella Time travel narrative Gothic elements When you have read Stave 1, complete the following activities. 1. Complete a similar table, describing Ebenezer Scrooge and his nephew Fred, using words from the opening Stave. Scrooge Tight-fisted Cheerful Covetous old sinner 2. Fred Glowing Find evidence from the text that supports the following points relating to Jacob Marley, Marley’s Ghost: The effect the chains have on Scrooge and the reader The words he uses to appeal to Scrooge The torment that Marley is experiencing. When you have read Stave 2, complete the following questions. Comprehension style questions: 1. Why is the Ghost of Christmas Present described as both a child and an old man? 2. How does Dickens use this Ghost to reflect Scrooge’s childhood and his memories associated with this time in his life? 3. How is this Ghost dressed and does it symbolise anything? 4. Why is the Ghost also a source of light and what does light symbolise? 5. How does the Ghost communicate with Scrooge? 6. How do we learn about his childhood and his sister, Fan? © www.teachit.co.uk 2014 23383 Page 1 of 3 A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Stave by stave 7. What are his first...
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...becoming a new, openhearted and charitable man. The novel was first published in 1843, a time when many of the wealthy people neglected the old Christmas spirit of charity. In addition, the Industrial Revolution had further done away with the simple pleasures of the season. Dickens’ intentions in writing ‘A Christmas Carol’ were not only linked to his own childhood and sympathy for the poor, but he was also making an appeal to the rich people of society to mend their selfish ways. Dickens is able to show the change in Scrooge’s character by establishing what Scrooge is like at the very beginning of the story with the first two words he says: ‘“Bah! Humbug!’’ ’It is clear from the dismissive tone and the two exclamation marks that Scrooge has no patience with the idea of Christmas as a special time. At the start of the novel, Dickens is using Scrooge, someone who associates happiness with nothing but money, as a classic example of a wealthy person in the 19th Century. He does this with Scrooge inquiring of his nephew ‘“What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.”’ Scrooge’s manor in saying this reveals certain elements of his character such as his shallowness and uncaring nature. In Scrooge saying this it demonstrates to the reader that Scrooge does not think one could be joyous if they were not well off, and proves that he does not understand the concept of Christmas spirit. Dickens continually makes Scrooge’s character clear through the shocking juxtaposition of...
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...Emily Mycroft 23 November 2015 William Skiles History 102 Term Paper: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, written in 1837, illustrates what is like to be a child in the 1830’s in London. This novel shows the truth about how the Victorian society’s viewed and treated the unfortunate. The foolishness of individualism, failure of charity, clarity of an immoral city, and how the countryside is overemphasized are all main themes of this novel. With being a child in this time period it was really hard to be noticed as an innocent; these kids were growing up in the middle class as workers in terrible conditions. Survival of the fittest was what the Victorians lived their lives by. They believed that if everyone in their society would look out for their own interests, that everything would run effortlessly. But that isn’t at all what happened; Dickens shows us that there was much more issues and problems with they way children were being treated. “[…] as Oliver looked out of the parlour window, and saw the Jew roll [his old clothes] up in his bag and walk away, he felt quite delighted to think that they were safely gone, and that there was now no possible danger of his ever being able to wear them again” (14.8). At the end of the novel everyone is starting to turn against each other and give in to the philosophy, of everyone for himself or herself. However, the second group of Oliver and his many friends prove their community and society wrong...
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...of William Thackeray and Charles Dickens CONTENTS |INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………… |3 | |PART 1. A review of literary and social concerns in the novels of William Thackeray and Charles Dickens………………………………………………… | | |1.1. Social concerns as a mirror of current literature in the XIX century…. |4 | |1.2. Social and literary problems in “Vanity Fair” by William Thackeray... |4 | |1.3. Art, veracity and moral purpose in “Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens |5 | |Conclusion ……….…………………………………………………………….. |7 | |PART 2. Approaches and manners of the social problems transmission………. |10 | |2.1. The problem of poverty and social inequalty in society. The authors’ approach to this |11 | |problem............................................................................... | | |2.2. The problem of poverty from the stylistic point of view……………...
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...19th Century Life Criticized Hard Times is a novel written by Charles Dickens in the mid 1800’s. Hard Times criticizes the philosophy of Utilitarianism (Hard Times, 2013). “Dickens believed that Utilitarianism reduced social relations to cold self-interest.”(Hard Times, 2013) This reduced social relation can be seen throughout the novel. Dickens criticizes several aspects of 19th-century life. Dickens criticizes the treatment of children, the life of factory workers, the relationship between employer and employee, and the city they live in. Dickens shows how little respect there is for the children of the time. The children in the school are numbered. They are called by their number and not by their names. Mr. Gradgrind points out Sissy Jupe and calls her “Girl number twenty.” (Dickens, 1854, pg. 10) Gradgrind showed no respect for her name or who she said she was. He insisted that “Sissy” was not a name and that she should only refer to herself as “Cecilia” (Dickens, 1854). Sissy attempted to answer Gradgrind’s questions and he interrupted her every time. Gradgrind’s idea of teaching is to only feed children facts. Children are not allowed to imagine or fancy things. “You are never to fancy,” said a gentleman and Gradgrind confirmed his statement (Dickens, 1854, pg. 14). The only thing the children are to be taught and to repeat is fact. The children are not allowed to have a mind of their own. Dickens raises many contemporary issues in his treatment...
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...relation to the Newgate Calendars Born into a poor English family in 1812, Charles Dickens worked his way up from a life of poverty and debtor's prison, to become a writer of national acclaim. In his Victorian era, he was an exception to the rule because it was very difficult to break through the barriers of social class and better oneself. Because of his bleak childhood, Dickens was one of the few writers of his time who could express the horrors of society as they really were. One of his most famous novels is Oliver Twist. This story centers on a young boy named Oliver whose real identity is unknown when his mother dies in childbirth. As an orphan, he is exploited by corrupt and selfish authority figures, and is forced into a life of poverty, hard labor, misery and crime. Oliver suffers horribly and often takes the blame for others' misdeeds. Dickens is showing that Oliver is a good person, and the bad things that happen to him are through no fault of his own, but because society and the people around him are bad. From his earliest childhood days, Oliver is treated harshly by society. He was born in a workhouse where he is barely given enough food to live and is forced to do hard manual labor. Dickens satirically describes the authorities' view of the poor in this passage: "'Oho!' said the board, looking very knowing, 'we are the fellows to set this to rights; we'll stop it all, in no time.' So they established the rule that all poor people should have the alternative of...
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