CHARLES DICKENS AND CHILDREN

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812. He had an unhappy childhood because his father was
imprisoned for the debt and his mother and his brothers joined his father in the Marshalsea. However,
Charles who was put to work in the factory. When the family nances improved and his father was relased
he had a twelve-years-old and he was further wpunded by his muther because she insisted that he
con nue to work in the factory. When he had a fe een-years-old he found employment as a o ce boy at a
lawyer’s. By 1832 he had became a verysuccessful reporter of parlamentary debates in the house of
commoms, and began to work as a reporter for a newspaper.
In the 1833, his rst story appered and in the 1834 he adopte the pen name ‘BOZ’ and he publishing
SKETCHS that it a collec on of ar cles descrbing London’s people and he was followed by the posthumous
papers of the pickwich club.
A er the success that he had , Dickens starded a full me career as a novelist and producing work of
increasing complexity and he was a great success and he con nuad a journalis c work.
In the 1842 he embarked on a visit to Canada and theUnited States in which he advocated interna onal
copyright and the aboli on of slavery. Hia American notes were published in October of that years. And in
the 1843 was published a Christmas Carol that he was a rst Dickens’s enormously successful.
The protagonist of his autobiographical novel, Oliver Twist, David Copper eld and Li le Dorrit, became
symbols of an exploted childhood confronted whit the sad reali es of slums and factories and other works
for example Bleak House, hard mes and great expacta ons deal with social issues such as the condi ons of
the poor and he working class in general.
The autobiographical Oliver Twist was begun in 1837 and con nued in mouthly parts un l April 1829 talk
about the childhood in the Victorian Age that was generally a cruel experience. In this period the children
from poor and working-classmwho escaped an early death were obliged either to work in factories and
mines or as domes c servants and chimneysweep and other became criminals. Some goverment acts tried
to improve children’s working condi ons by limi ng the hours worked to ten for the day for both women
and children. Victorian literature played an importan role in the sen mental of childhood and Charles
Dickens was obsessed with the children and he presented as either innocent or corrupted by adults and the
writer’s nostalgia for the innocence of chilhood is a cri que of the oppressions associated with the world of
adults.
With the rise in the level of poverty the workhouse by parishes spread all over England to give relie to the
poor. The condi ons prevalling in this house were appalling because the residens were a subjet to hard
regula ons for example the work the is required, the families were almost always separated and the ra ons
of food and clothing were a smoll and poor.the idea in these house was that poverty was a consequence of
laziness and that the terrible condi ons in the workhouse would inspire the poor to improve theire own
consi ons. Dickens points out that instead of allevia ng the su ering of the poor the o cials who ran
workhouse abused their rights as individuals and caused them misery.
The most important se ng of the novels is London and it is represented at three di erent social level. The
rst is the parochial world of the workhouse is reveled and the inhabitans of this world, belonging to the
lower-middle-class strata of society, are calcula ng and insensible to the fellings of the poor. The second
social level is a criminal world with a pickpockets and murderers. Povetry drives them to crime and the
weapon they use to achive their end is violence. They live in dirty, squalid slum in a permanent state of fear
and generally die a miserable death. And in the last palce we nd the world of the Victoruan middle class. In
this world, there live respectable people who show a regard for moral values and believe in the principle of
human dignity.
Oliver twist rt appeared in 1837 and later was published as a book. The novel re ects the economic
insecurity and humilia on Dickens experienced as a child. The name ‘twist’ represents the outrageous
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reversals of fortune that he will experience. This child is a poor boy of unknown parents and he is brought
up in a workhouse in an inhuman way. A er he is sold an undertaker as an appren ce, but the cruelty and
the unhappiness he run away from London. There he falls in the gang of young pickpockets who try to make
a thief of him but the boy is helped by a old gentlemer. Oliver is kidnapped by the gang and forced to
commit burglary but during the job is disovered and wounted. A er this a ack he is adopted by a middle-
class family and Oliver for the rst me he found kindness. It turned out that the half-brother had paid the
thieves to kill Oliver to have his father's property for himself alone. in the end, the thieves and the half-
brother are arrested.

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