Charles Dickens' work coincided with the height of the industrial revolution. How did this historic era influence Dickens' life and work?
1 Answer
It affected his early life and certainly affected his work.
Explanation:
Dickens was highly critical of many aspects of the industrial revolution. His own early experiences of issues such as his father's debts and imprisonment and his early life working in a factory shaped his attitude and was reflected in his writing.
In many ways Dickens was a socialist and his critique of Victorian industrial Britain can be found throughout his work.
For example the assumption that poverty was self inflicted and reflected values such as laziness are lambasted in Oliver Twist and a Christmas Carol.
The workhouses of the time reflected this Victorian attitude towards poverty and Dickens is highly critical of the system through Oliver's experiences and Scrooge's reference to their usefulness when asked to donate to the poor.
The debtors' prison appears in Little Doritt and in Micawber's experiences in David Copperfield. Dickens used his own experiences in describing David's work in a factory where he is sent by Mr Murdstone.
The avarice and greed associated with capitalism is also criticised in his work. Again this comes out in A Christmas Carol when Scrooge is shown what will happen to him if his greed is not changed. In Martin Chuzzelwit, Dickens uses the example of a fraudulent bank and lending scheme to criticise the way capitalism exploits for the sake of profit. (It could have been written about modern banks).
The height of the industrial revolution co-incided with Dickens' later works personified in Hard Times. The title itself and characters such as Mr Gradgrind are evocative of how Dickens saw the working class being exploited by capitalism.
