Brief 99720
How far did Dickens overstate the horror of the workhouses in his book “ Oliver Twist ” in order to up the dramatic tenseness and therefore better the popularity of the novel.
Charles Dickens had already built his repute as a difficult striking journalist and fresh author whose books were considered to portray an accurate word picture of modern-day existent life when Oliver Twist was published. The followers will discourse whether Charles Dickens did overstate the horrors of the workhouses in Oliver Turn to up the dramatic tenseness or any other grounds. The motives behind any such hyperbole will besides be discussed. Was Charles Dickens motivated by greed, the demand and desire for celebrity or by the impulse to utilize his books to alter life for the better? There are statements that can be made in support of all of those possible motives. A decision will be presented that will outdo reflect the motive behind the book and whether Charles Dickens did overstate the horror of the workhouses to up the gross revenues of Oliver Twist. Workhouses had originally started up under the footings of the Poor Law Act of 1601 to supply attention for the physically and mentally handicapped. Their already bad repute was worsened after their enlargement following the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 ( Crystal, 2003, p. 733 ) . Alternatively of maintaining households together as the old statute law had done the new Act detached households and made conditions every bit unsavoury as possible. Workhouses were supposed to be atrocious topographic points to populate in to discourage people from holding to fall back to populating in them. Workhouses were designed to salvage ratepayers money non to maintain households together ( Walker, 1999, p.8 ) .
First this may look an obvious point to do but any writer would wish to do their books as clear as possible. An indecipherable book is non traveling to sell adequate transcripts to do its writer net incomes, celebrity or let them to establish moral campaigns. Dickens learnt his trade as a journalist and at the clip Oliver Twist was written it was usual to print novels in monthly installments or addendums. Thus it would hold paid to overstate the horror of the workhouses to guarantee that every bit many people as possible brought every installment of Oliver Twist ( Crystal, 2003, p. 268 ) . Dickens’ manner across all his books and novels get downing with Oliver Twist tended towards inordinateness and possibly even hyperbole. Even if all his plants were based on difficult facts and existent people or topographic points, his manner made his work full of “melodrama or pantomime.”
Oliver Twist can sometimes look a small far-fetched, for case when he asked for more nutrient and gets punished for making so, or been involved with a pack of pick pockets ( Connor, 1996, p.1 ) . Surely most workhouses were non full of people whose heritages were stolen from them, though workhouse boards were non the most caring they certainly would non hold allowed felons such as Sikes or Fagin near the workhouses, though he really met them before he escaped ( Walker, 1999, p. 12 ) . Dickens composing manner therefore could be regarded as either overstating the horror of the workhouses in Oliver Twist to raise his book gross revenues or raise the moral issues that he believed in. Dickens wrote Oliver Twist as a journalist instead than a novelist would ( Hobsbawm, 1975, p.301 ) . If one takes a misanthropic position of Dickens motives so the former statement could be used. By doing the state of affairs in the workhouses seem worse than it truly was surely did the gross revenues figures for Oliver Twist no injury at all, and the added tenseness meant that the book was a dramatic narrative of good suppressing evil. Gross saless from Oliver Twist and his ulterior books gave Dickens an one-year income of at least ?10,000 for much of the 1850s and 1860s ( Hobsbawm, 1975, p. 284 ) . Dickens was surely regarded by some as been over sentimental if non overstating the horror of the workhouses. Even the author, poet and painter John Ruskin thought that Dickens was prone to overstate to do his points in Oliver Twist. There were non for case normally slayings linked to workhouse inmates or felons connected to them ( Rogers, 2001, p. 342 ) .
On the other manus, Dickens could hold claimed to hold a altruistic motive for composing Oliver Twist, to reform the worst workhouses. Dickens as already mentioned gave his books moral significances or hoped they would farther progress the societal causes he believed in. Therefore if he did overstate the horror of the workhouses it was to do them better or press the authorities to happen an alternate system. Dickens was a novelist if he wanted people to mind his sentiments or good causes so Oliver Twist had to be entertaining and full of suspense. Dickens was concerned with change by reversaling the selfishness that modern-day capitalist economy seemed to be advancing, the wealths of the capitalist categories compared to the poorness of those in the workhouses. These mill proprietors and landlords were amongst the ratepayers that regarded the workhouses as a good manner of cut downing their rates ( Hobsbawm, 1962, p. 187 ) . Dickens was cognizant of the annihilating effects that poorness could hold on household life. His ain male parent had gone into the debitors at Marshalsea prison for non-payment of debts along with his female parent and some of his siblings. Dickens was forced to work in a mill in rough conditions. These experiences explain Oliver Twist besides raising the issue of child labor and apprenticeships ( Gardiner and Wenborn, 1995, p. 234 ) . Although this had been prior to the enlargement of the workhouse system he to the full understood the hurting, the stigma and hapless conditions linked with the workhouses ( Walker, 1999, p. 9 ) . With the interruption up of households the first effect of holding to have meagre aid from the work force the system reminded its oppositions and the hapless of debitors prisons. That of class had been the purpose of those that altered the jurisprudence in 1834, the emerging capitalist categories that made it rich through difficult work and resented paying rates to back up those that could non or would non work. Those that were luckless plenty to shack in the despised ‘Bastilles’ were made to look like captives and were treated merely as severely. In many ways the rich regarded the hapless as felons instead than people who needed aid. The moral of Oliver Twist is that is the hapless are treated reasonably they can maintain off from offense and go productive members of society ( Schama, 2002, p.180 ) . Throughout Oliver Twist, Dickens unlike Oliver himself shows his cognition of both London and workhouses. The blunt pick between taking your opportunities in the detached unsafe slums of London with the hazard of going involved in offense or digesting the every bit detached prison like workhouse is evident through the book ( Walker, 1999, p. 21 ) .
There were often ailments and even dirts about the horrors that could be found in the workhouses. Anybody that thought Dickens was overstating the horrors of the workhouses to up the popularity of Oliver Twist did merely needed to see a workhouse to see he was non overstating. The most ill-famed dirt was the Andover Scandal that broke in 1845. The board at the Andover workhouse proved so average with the nutrient rations for the inmates that many were on the point of famishment and resorted to eating bone marrow ( Gardiner and Wenborn, 1995, p. 23 ) . Possibly a more typical workhouse was Brixworth that opened in 1837 at a cost of ?5,800 and remained unfastened until the 1930s. Families were strictly separated, had all their money confiscated on entry and made to have on uniforms and merely received meager rations. The ratepayers were non concerned about the rough conditions as the cost of supplying hapless alleviation fell from its 1835 degree of ?11,388 or ?0 18s-3d for each individual that received it. By 1902 that degree had fallen to 5s for individual people and 7s for married twosomes whilst the workhouse took in people from a wider country. There were frequent ailments about the deficiency of attention at Brixworth particularly for kids and the bulk of grownups although the aged were treated less harshly
( Brixworth History Society, 1994 ) .
Therefore although converting statements can be made that Dickens exaggerated some of the horror of the workhouses in Oliver Twist it would be incorrect to portray some of these horrors as non bing. It would besides be mistaken to believe Dickens exaggerated the horrors merely to sell more transcripts of Oliver Twist and heighten its popularity. Dickens was prone to overstate as it was portion of his manner, his journalistic background, to do his moral causes known and the wish to Oliver Twist made into a drama. Though coevalss such as John Ruskin accused Dickens of hyperbole they did non impeach him of making so to do money from greater book gross revenues. For many people that entered the workhouses it broke up their households to give them minimum aid at the cost of their freedom and dignity. Some workhouses were worse than others were but the shame of holding to travel into them was the existent horror for the hapless. Dickens had a great trade of understanding for the hapless ensuing from his ain family’s experience of poorness. Oliver Twist was used by Dickens to demo his resistance to workhouses, for their complete abolishment or reform to be every bit humane as possible. The portraiture of workhouses in Oliver Twist can be regarded as a realistic image of the desperation that the people forced into them must hold felt. Peoples liked the book non because it was entertaining but because Dickens seemed to be on their side. As the figures from Brixworth clearly show workhouse were merely to salvage money from the old system of out alleviation. The more inhospitable the workhouse the more money ratepayers saved and the greater the horror of holding to be in one. The awful conditions at the Andover even resulted in a national dirt. Dickens included moral elements to all his books and non merely Oliver Twist, he did non hold as his repute as a narrator meant they would sell good anyhow.
Bibliography
Brixworth History Society ( 1994 ) Brixworth Union Workhouse 1837 taken from www.brixworthhistory.org/archive/text_archive/workhouse.htm
Connor, S ( 1996 ) Longman Critical Studies – Charles Dickens, Longman, London and New York
Crystal, D ( 2003 ) The Penguin Concise Encyclopedia, Penguin Group, London
Gardiner, J. & A ; Wenborn, N ( 1995 ) The History Today Companion To British History, Collins & A ; Brown Limited, London.
Hobsbawm, E ( 1962 ) – The Age of Revolution 1789-1848, Weidenfeld & A ; Nicholson
Walker, M J ( 1999 ) York Notes – Oliver Twist, Pearson Education, London
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