How does Dickens portray his attitude to charity in the

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How does Dickens portray his attitude to charity in the

Opening chapters of Oliver Twist

The novel Oliver Twist was written by Charles Dickens in the mid 1930's. Society in the mid 1800's had a huge gulf between the rich and the poor, This was because before 1834, the cost of looking after the poor was growing more expensive every year. This cost was paid by the middle and upper classes in each town through their local taxes. There was a real suspicion amongst the middle class and upper classes that they were paying the poor to be lazy and avoid work. This made a divide between the rich and the poor, this was because the middle and upper class people did not want to be paying for the lower class people with there hard earned money to sit around all day and just be given a home and food for nothing, while they have to work all day and pay out for the lower class people,when they would mush rather be using their money on their own families.

The poor law was a burden of the parishes top care for the poor through alms and taxes. The poor was the main form of charity around at the time. After 1834 these laws where supposedly changed so that the poor law provided aid and assistance to impoverished people. However the system had serious flaws.The New Poor Law was really a series of measures enacted in 1834. It was deisgned that the workhouses would not be pleasant places. This was thought that it would provide added incentive for people to be self sufficient. Charles Dickens used Oliver Twist to point out truths about Victorian England that polite society tried to ignore.

Parishes were bounded together into unions by the new poor law. Each unoin had a workhouse, and all those seeking relief were required to become inmates in the work house. The new law made seeking relief as undesirable as possible. These workhouses were little more than a prison for the poor. Charles Dickens showed his own attitude on the poor law in sarcasm and personification.

"Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a workhouse, is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befall a human being."

Here Dickens is being sarcastic he saying that it couldn't be considered good being born into a work house. Dickens thought on the charity were that it was not a fair process the poor were human to and did not deserve to be treated in such ways, as a whole Dickens thought the poor law was a good idea but was never used correctly, the poor were treated as if they had done something wrong, they were never treated properly.

"Oliver had been surrounded by careful Grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses, and Doctors of profound wisdom, he would have most inevitably and indubitably have been killed in no time"

Again Dickens is using sarcasm to get the point across that the, Doctors, nurses, Grandmothers and aunts, didn't care about the people they were helping this was just a job they were getting paid and that was all that mattered to them.

The Charity's were said to be,

"a kindly generosity and helpfulness, especially aid given to those in need an institution which gives help to those in need."

Although this was not the case. The workhouses made to look uninviting. The unions paid for the cheapest labour o help the poor, these people did not care about the welfares of the people in the workhouses.

"A benevolent goodwill towards, or a love of humanity"

The nurses, the Doctors and others who worked to help the people in the workhouses would not have been helping them at all if they was not getting paid for it.

"A gift for public benevolent purposes"

They never worked there to help the poor, the parishes paid them for there work, there was no good will involved on there side. The parishes had set up the workhouses to help the poor but it made them lose all dignity they may have had.

There is four main issues Dickens covers in in the first few chapters of Oliver Twist.

"For a long time it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child could survive to bear and name at all"
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Charles Dickens refers to Oliver as it, this was what he would have been just another mouth to feed, he is not cared for, Children born in workhouses were left to fend for themselves. Many didn't even make it to be named. This is one of the main issues Dickens refers to in the first chapter. A baby needs to be looked after and kept warm, this never happened here.

Another issue he brings up is the big divide between the rich and the poor, the rich begrudge the poor as there taxes are being spent on ...

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