Content I. Introduction: Charles Dickens was a great comic artist and a great entertainer. Chapter I

Problems of childhood in Charles Dickens’ novels

“The first time I went into the place I was horrified to see little girls seven and eight years on their knees scrubbing the cold stones of the long corridors. These little girls were clad, summer and winter, in thin cotton frocks, low in the neck and short sleeved. At night they wore nothing at all, night dresses being considered too good for paupers. The fact that bronchitis was epidemic among them most of the time had not suggested to the guardians any
change in the fashion of their clothes.” (qtd. in “1834 Poor Law”)
Discrimination is also very evident in this passage as it shows that being young and also poor, subjects the children to cruelty and deprivation of basic needs such as warm clothing in winter, thus they suffered from illnesses such as bronchitis and worse still, pneumonia.
This research has shown that Charles Dickens’ life experiences played a major role in shaping his writings. At the age of twelve, he became a victim of child labour as he was forced to work at a blacking factory after his father was imprisoned for debt. Due to the painful experience as a child labourer, Charles Dickens was able to identify with the plight of minors subjected to factory work at a tender age. Judging from his biography, one can note that literary art mirrors the artist’s life. Therefore, life experience influences the writings of many artists as evidenced through Charles Dickens. The negative impact has also been further substantiated by reference to historical records and testimonies of child labourers who sustained injuries and also testified to being exploited through physical abuse and unbearable working conditions. According to Nardinelli, the factories are described as “. . . hellish institutions for the destruction of childhood” (740). Due to child labour, most of the children lost their childhood as they were busy contributing to the growth and development of British textile industries. Due to Charles Dickens’ activism against the oppression of children through his works, essays and speeches, factory acts were introduced which prohibited the employment of minors¹⁸.
Apart from his life experience, it has also been noted that the Industrial Revolution also played a major role in impacting Dickens’ works. The Industrial Revolution was a progressive phenomenon in the Victorian society as it brought technological developments and also created employment for many people. Urbanisation was also another positive result of industrialisation. However, Dickens’ works, like those of many naturalist authors, focus more on the negative impact of industrialisation on the lives of the underprivileged in society. One of his novels, Hard Times, has been commended for its social criticism of industrialisation: “It had been studied, for example, in relation to his beliefs about education, the Preston strike, disputes between capital and labour, and his general views on the quality of nineteenth - century urban industrial civilization” (Fielding and Smith 404). Through realism, Dickens skillfully creates characters who are truthful representations of the poor in society. He authenticates his characters by giving them a language that is associated with the lower class, for example in Great Expectations, Magwitch’s lack of education is noted in the pronunciation of words like: “ Lookee”(7), “pecooliar” (9), while Joe says “sot” (15) and “betwixt” (16) and also noted in Bleak House through Jo where he says to Mr Snagsby: “. . . and don’t want for nothink. I’m more cumfbler nor you can’t think, Mr Snagsby! I’m wery sorry that I done it, but I didn’t fur to do it sir.” (page 456). These characters are members of the lower class who are uneducated thus their language is different from the refined language of the middle class members. These characters are a reflection of the plight of the poor during the Industrial Revolution as George Bernard Shaw reflects in his play Pygmalion that language establishes people in their social and economic circles and limits their opportunity for advancement.
Apart from the lack of education, these people were subjected to squalid living conditions. Due to the rural to urban migration, the urban areas became densely populated and there was not enough accommodation for all the workers, therefore, they were forced to live under unbearable conditions with poor sanitation and lack of space. This research has confirmed that the working class lived under abject poverty as most of them had to squash the whole family into a small room with substandard sanitary conditions leading to fatal diseases such as cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis and high infant mortality as noted through the death of Pip’s siblings whom he never saw. Through the creation of Tom-All-Alone’s in Bleak House, Coketown in Hard Times and the forge in Great Expectations, in which Pip grows, Dickens’ novels have clearly depicted the living conditions of the poor, and as a novelist, he criticizes the government and the capitalists who ought to change the situation of the underprivileged¹⁹ .

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