Examine how Dickens uses his works to make a comment on the society in which he lived in.

Authors Avatar
Literary Tradition

Examine how Dickens uses his works to make a comment on the society in which he lived in.

In this essay I will be examining how and why Dickens chose to comment on the society in which he lived through his novels. I will be examining 'Hard Times', 'Oliver Twist', 'Nicholas Nickelby' and 'David Copperfield'.

Charles Dickens was considered to be one of the greatest English novelists during the Victorian period, and during this period, novelists had a tradition of commenting on issues affecting society through their work. They chose to express their views like this so people would realise exactly what is taking place in the town or village they are living in.

Charles Dickens had a very disturbing childhood, members of his family were sent to prison and he was sent to work at the age of twelve in a Blacking Factory; he became miserable. He escaped from this by writing fictional texts in school; he then developed his existing skills and made rapid progress. From the entire trauma he went through, he decided to express his pain through his words.

The education system was extremely poor. Only children with working parents would be educated, whereas poorer children would have to work. In the novel 'Hard Times', the education system was firm, harsh and stern;

'Quadruped. Graminivorous...Age known by marks in mouth.'

This straight-to-the-point definition of a horse suggests that the teacher spoon-feeds the young, tender, innocent children with useless facts. The word 'Graminivorous' highlights that these children are being turned into adults mentally because he 'fed' the innocent children with facts that adults will normally know. Everything is so simplified for him, the teacher doesn't realise how complicated human nature is, and it seems as if the world is black and white to him. Dickens specifically chose this adjective to illustrate how serious this matter was; he obviously had very strong negative views on this.

But in, 'Oliver Twist', there wasn't an education system,

'...because nobody had taught him...'

This quote portrays that education wasn't taken seriously. It was seen as joke. The only thing the children had to do was work for the owner which was considered slave labour. Charles Dickens did not like the idea of children working inside or outside school so he decided to share his feelings. The word 'nobody' suggests that these children were lonely most of the time, not just literally but emotionally as well.
Join now!


In 'Nicholas Nickelby', there was a similar situation with children working;

'We go upon the practical mode of teaching...C-L-E-A-N...W-I-N win D-E-R der.'

As you can see clearly that this is not appropriate, all this shows us is how cruel, inhumane, harsh school teachers were. This suggests that there wasn't a decent learning system. The words 'practical mode of teaching' illustrates that the evil school teachers used the poor, innocent, young children for their own good because hey were too stingy to hire maids. This was common during the Victorian period because the poor were seen inferior ...

This is a preview of the whole essay