SOCIAL BACKGROUND TO DICKENS

 

 THE SOCIAL BACKGROUND TO DICKENS

OR

THE AGE OF DICKENS

OR

DICKENS AS A REPRESENTATIVE NOVELIST

 

The Victorian Age was an age of peace, prosperity, and progress A magnificent Queen was reigning who could easily inspire the people wita love, adoration and patriotism. British empire reached the zenith of its prosperity during her regime. Darwin's Origin of Species opened the new vista of philosophy as the people were confident of endless progress. But the bright side of this age entails many evils which are mentioned in this section.

Dickens : Representative Novelist

The Victorian Age was an age of rapid flux and baffling complexity This age is characterized by two factors. Firstly, there were the very rapid and sweeping changes which the age witnessed. Secondly, the age encountered the complexity of social forces. As A. C. Ward remarks: "It was an Age of Faith and an Age of Doubt; an Age of Morality and of Hypocrisy, of Prosperity and Splendour and Squalor It was a solemn age, yet it produced more humorous writers than any other single period-it was advanced in intellect yet immature in emotion".

Dickens was a novelist with a purpose. His purpose was focus attention on the various evils of his time. His novels mirror his age in all its manifold contradictions. Thus, it is essential to understand the Victorian age thoroughly.

Sufferings of Factory Workers

Dickens was living in the Industrial Revolution which ushered in an era of unprecedented difficulties for the common man. On the one hand, there was the voice of the great capitalist class which was  a new force in national life It was an age of expansion and program On the other hand, the rural population was uprooted. There was a rush to cities in search of high wages and better conditions of living The poor were encountering untold sufferings Hence, there was the frequent striking of the factory workers who were suppressed by force From the two novels of Dickens, David Copperfield and Oliver Tede we may get a vivid picture of the evils of the work house and the consequent sufferings of the pour Dickens was a realist and a satirist. He was pro-occupied with the gallows. There is the story of a woman in Dickens novel Sketches by Boz. In this novel, a woman gets back the body of her son after execution hoping to revive him In Great Expectations we get a glimpse of the murderous New.gate la name of prison house). The prisoners were brutally treated like animals: The prison laws were very severe and cruel

Dickens A Novelist of London Life

Dickens novels reflect a vivid picture of the life of the poor in London of his day Many of his characters are typical Londoners who have the faults as well as the virtues of a particular class of London Duod Copperfield is treated as the masterpiece of Dickens because of the social purpose of the novel. Dickens is popular novelist because he is the social chronicler of lower class of London life All his novels reflect social conditions prevalent in contemporary England in fact, he is the romancer of London life. He criticises the work houses He did not admire the prevalent system of poor relief He was very accurate painter of the social conditions around him although his characters have been criticized as mere caricatures and not individuals

The Victorian Age has been considered a time of ugliness,  ugly religion, ugly law, ugly relations between the rich and the poor ugly clothes and ugly furniture". Nature was also ugly because of unhygienic and unhealthy environments Dickens was deeply influenced by the prevailing conditions of London life. He tried to sublimate all this ugliness into a source of joy. He noted marvellous possibilities in every day homely life. He wished to seek wonder in the dreary life of common streets

The Sufferings of Children in Dickens Novels

 

Dickens was well-conversant with sorrows and sufferings of children of his age, who were made to work for as many as thirteen hours a day. In David Copperfield he has endeavoured to awaken the conscience of an age which was insensible to the ill-treatment of its poorer children His humour and his pathos reveal the various sociatills of the day Condition of schools reflect the general harshness of the age. The schools were mainly managed by private handa. There were private academies which provided boarding and Hedging to the young students. These academies were run for profit The students were mercilessly beaten. In David Copperfield, there a good school like that of Dr. Strong which was rare in England in those days "Spare the rod and spoil the child" seemed to be the motto of the age

Snobbery and Affectation of the Victorian Age

Dickens felt that sufferings wore due to religious hypocrisy, affectation and snobbishness. He lashed at hypocrisy of every kind His novels reflect hypocrisy, ignorance and tyranny of the poor people.

The aristocracy of the Victorian Age was proud of its blue blood The capitalists looked down upon the poor In David Copperfield Mr Mell was dismissed from school because he quarrelled with Steerforth, the member of an aristocratic family. Steerforth brought unhappiness to David's friend at Yarmouth. Hence due to social snobbery, the rich were indifferent to the poor Rosa, another character in David Copperfield, felt that the poor are thick-skinned and cannot be easily wounded. She was immensely happy that the poor suffered and they did not feel it.

Conclusion

Dickens purpose was social reform in David Copperfield. He emphasised on the harsher and coarser features of the Victorian Age which required to be removed Although, the age was making a rapid progress in sphere of science and industry, yet the literary artist like Dickens found the far-reaching repereussions of these development leading to hardships for the poor Hence Charles Dickens is treated as representative novelist who was a satirist, who exposed the follies of his age.