Charles Dickens Reflection on Society in Hard Times, Oliver Twist, Nic

Charles Dickens' Reflection on Society in Hard Times, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, and David Copperfield 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 does... ... was irony that Dickens used here: the word ‘parlour’ suggests that it is a pleasant home but what’s going on inside is totally the opposite. In conclusion, Dickens has used his works successfully to comment on society because all of the issues that were affecting all classes of people, he included them so we could really understand what went on during the Victorian times. I have learnt a lot from this, about how people lived and how they were treated. I have learnt that these two periods of time were totally different to each other. The novel that had the most impact on me was Nicholas Nickelby; this is because Dickens made us feel sympathetic for the characters, he made me feel as if I was there as one of the characters because this novel was so convincing. I really felt a lot of sympathy for the children who had to suffer from this inhumane cruelty.