Industrial Revolution Played Its Negative Role In Society Of Oliver Twist
Name: Pritiba B. Gohil
Roll No. : 21
Course No. 6: The Victorian Literature
Topic: Industrial revolution played its negative role in society of Oliver
Twist
M.A. English Semester - 2
Batch: 2014 - 2016
Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Submitted to:
Heenaba Zala
Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Oliver Twist is notable for Dickens's unromantic portrayal of criminals and their sordid lives. The book exposed the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London during the Dickensian era. The book's subtitle, The Parish Boy's Progress, alludes to Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and also to a pair of popular 18th-century caricature series by William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress and A Harlot's Progress.
As we all know that when Dickens write this novel at the time of Industrial revolution and how it plays vital role or negative role in the society of Oliver Twist. Let’s discuss. First of all let’s take about Industrial revolution that what is Industrial revolution.
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of water power, the increasing use of steam power, and the development of machine tools. It also included the change from wood and other bio-fuels to coal. Textiles were the dominant industry of the Industrial Revolution in terms of employment, value of output and capital invested; the textile industry was also the first to use modern production methods.
The
Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history; almost every
aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. In particular, average income
and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. Some economists
say that the major impact of the Industrial Revolution was that the standard of living for the general population began
to increase consistently for the first time in history, although others have
said that it did not begin to meaningfully improve until the late 19th and 20th
centuries.
The Industrial
Revolution began in Great Britain, and spread to Western Europe and the United
States within a few decades. The precise start and end of the Industrial
Revolution is still debated among historians, as is the pace of economic and
social changes GDP per capita was broadly stable before the
Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern capitalist economy, while the Industrial Revolution
began an era of per-capita economic
growth in capitalist
economies. Economic historians are in agreement that the onset of the
Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the history of humanity
since the domestication of animals, plants and fire.
The First
Industrial Revolution evolved into the Second Industrial Revolution in the transition years between
1840 and 1870, when technological and economic progress continued with the
increasing adoption of steam transport (steam-powered railways, boats and
ships), the large-scale manufacture of machine tools and the increasing use of
machinery in steam powered factories.
Industrial Revolution plays its negative role
in Oliver Twist
Now let’s take about
that how Industrial Revolution plays its role in Oliver Twist. Oliver
Twist & The Industrial Revolution Child labour played an important role in
the Industrial Revolution. In 1860, perhaps only half a children in London who
actually had any schooling. Many children worked 16-hour days under atrocious
conditions, as did their parents. As more people commuted to town to work, the
demand for clothes and food grew. There were more things needed as the cities
grew. More and more machines were beings built in factories and with that, the
companies needed cheap labour.
In Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens describes some issues that occurred during the Industrial Revolution: children of the poor were forced by economic conditions to work, some kids were used as commodities, and there was a great difference between the first, middle, and third classes. Some parents sent their kids to work because they did not have enough money to support the family. Kids were being paid 3s (shillings) a week. If there were no work available at the factory kids would just go back to the farm, or others would end up going on the streets and becoming prostitutes. Most prostitutes were between the ages of 15 and 22 years old during the Industrial Revolution. In Oliver Twist, the character Nancy is a prostitute. She had no education and the only means of getting money was if she was on the street. Dickens was showing the times of the Industrial Revolution, and through this, the story seems very real. During the Industrial Revolution, kids were used as possessions. In the beginning of the novel, Oliver is used to pick oakum. He lives in an orphanage where the kids are used as slaves. They were sold door to door to the right buyer. In chapter III, Oliver's future darkens when Mr. Gamfield, a chimney sweep, applies to take the boy. Mr. Gamfield cares so little about Oliver, that he does not care if the chimney catches on fire, as long as Oliver does his job.
In Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens describes some issues that occurred during the Industrial Revolution: children of the poor were forced by economic conditions to work, some kids were used as commodities, and there was a great difference between the first, middle, and third classes. Some parents sent their kids to work because they did not have enough money to support the family. Kids were being paid 3s (shillings) a week. If there were no work available at the factory kids would just go back to the farm, or others would end up going on the streets and becoming prostitutes. Most prostitutes were between the ages of 15 and 22 years old during the Industrial Revolution. In Oliver Twist, the character Nancy is a prostitute. She had no education and the only means of getting money was if she was on the street. Dickens was showing the times of the Industrial Revolution, and through this, the story seems very real. During the Industrial Revolution, kids were used as possessions. In the beginning of the novel, Oliver is used to pick oakum. He lives in an orphanage where the kids are used as slaves. They were sold door to door to the right buyer. In chapter III, Oliver's future darkens when Mr. Gamfield, a chimney sweep, applies to take the boy. Mr. Gamfield cares so little about Oliver, that he does not care if the chimney catches on fire, as long as Oliver does his job.
With the rise of capitalism during the Industrial
Revolution, individualism was very much in vogue as a philosophy. Victorian
capitalists believed that society would run most smoothly if individuals looked
out for their own interests. Ironically, the clearest pronunciation of this
philosophy comes not from a legitimate businessman but from Fagin, who operates
in the illicit businesses of theft and prostitution.
He tells Noah Claypole that “a regard for number one holds us all together, and must do so, unless we would all go to pieces in company.” In other words, the group’s interests are best maintained if every individual looks out for “number one,” or himself. The folly of this philosophy is demonstrated at the end of the novel, when Nancy turns against Monks, Charley Bates turns against Sikes, and Monks turns against Mrs. Corney. Fagin’s unstable family, held together only by the self-interest of its members, is juxtaposed to the little society formed by Oliver, Brownlow, Rose Maylie, and their many friends. This second group is bound together not by concerns of self-interest but by “strong affection and humanity of heart,” the selfless devotion to each other that Dickens sees as the prerequisite for “perfect happiness”.
He tells Noah Claypole that “a regard for number one holds us all together, and must do so, unless we would all go to pieces in company.” In other words, the group’s interests are best maintained if every individual looks out for “number one,” or himself. The folly of this philosophy is demonstrated at the end of the novel, when Nancy turns against Monks, Charley Bates turns against Sikes, and Monks turns against Mrs. Corney. Fagin’s unstable family, held together only by the self-interest of its members, is juxtaposed to the little society formed by Oliver, Brownlow, Rose Maylie, and their many friends. This second group is bound together not by concerns of self-interest but by “strong affection and humanity of heart,” the selfless devotion to each other that Dickens sees as the prerequisite for “perfect happiness”.
“So they established the rule that all
poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not
they) of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out
of it. With this view, they contracted with the waterworks to lay on an
unlimited supply of water, and with a corn-factor to supply periodically small
quantities of oatmeal, and issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an
onion twice a week and half a roll on Sundays. They made a great many other
wise and humane regulations . . . kindly undertook to divorce poor married
people . . . instead of compelling a man to support his family, as they had
theretofore done, took his family away from him, and made him a bachelor! There
is no saying how many applicants for relief, under these last two heads, might
have started up in all classes of society, if it had not been coupled with the
workhouse; but the board were long-headed men, and had provided for this
difficulty. The relief was inseparable from the workhouse and the gruel, and
that frightened people.”
Imagine abruptly woken to the harsh sounds of demanding
yelling and screaming only to find yourself still shivering from the lack of
hole-filled sheets that they call blankets. Feeling fatigued from another
sleepless night and faintly from the malnutrition, you eagerly await your
habitual serving of gruel for breakfast. Extremely weak from the meagre
portion, the never-ending day begins as you are led to do various different
chores throughout the day. This is the life in a workhouse.
Workhouses “were places where poor
homeless people worked and in return they were fed and housed. In 1834
The Poor Law Amendment Act was introduced which wanted to make the workhouse
more of a deterrent to idleness as it was believed that people were poor
because they were idle and needed to be punished. So people in workhouses
were deliberately treated harshly and the workhouses were more like prisons”.
Charles Dickens
realistically portrayed the horrible conditions of the 19th century workhouses
in his novel Oliver
Twist. Dickens attempted to improve the workhouse conditions
and as a result, his novel helped influence changes in the problem.
Who can describe the pleasure and
delight, the peace of mind and soft tranquility, the sickly boy felt in the
balmy air and among the green hills and rich woods of an inland village! Who
can tell how scenes of peace and quietude sink into the minds of pain-worn dwellers
in close and noisy places, and carry their own freshness deep into their jaded
hearts! Men who have lived in crowded, pent-up streets, through lives of toil,
and who have never wished for change—men to whom custom has indeed been second
nature, and who have come almost to love each brick and stone that formed the
narrow boundaries of their daily walks—even they, with the hand of death upon
them, have been known to yearn at last for one short glimpse of Nature’s face,
and, carried far from the scenes of their old pains and pleasures, have seemed
to pass at once into a new state of being.
Dickens’ novel shows people how things really were in the workhouses during the 19th century. A child of the parish
“ had contrived to exist upon the
smallest possible portion of the weakest possible food, it did perversely
happen in eight and a half cases out of ten, either that it sickened from want
and cold,
or fell into the fire from neglect, or got half-smothered by accident; in any
one of which cases, the miserable little being was usually summoned into
another world” (Twist p.5).
“conditions in the workhouses were
deliberately harsh and degrading” (The New Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol.12
p.755).
Effects
of Social Class in Oliver Twist :-
The Novel Oliver Twist is one of Charles Dickens most well known and loved
works. The central character, Oliver, has been seen for generations as a symbol
of innocence in a corrupt world. It is important to note that many of the
themes that Dickens explored are pertinent not only to his time but to our
modern world as well. The themes of Oliver Twist, such as innocence versus
evil, are reflected in the main character and the other characters that he
encounters. The themes of this book also include the effects of social class
and the way that the society of the time was unjust and cruel in many respects.
In the book Oliver is an orphan whose mother died in childbirth. He spends the
first few years of his life on a baby farm but is sent to work in a workhouse
at the age of nine, run by Mr. Bumble, the parish beadle. Oliver and the other children in the workhouse are poorly treated and continually hungry. When Oliver is persuaded to ask for more food, there is a terrible outcry from the authorities. Oliver’s simple request
receives a furious and uncalled for response from the master. The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arms; and shrieked aloud for the beadle. Oliver Twist an innocent and hungry child should be refused such as simple request underscores the unjustness and cruelty that Dickens reveals in the society of the time. As a result of his audacious request and his ungratefulness, Oliver is sold to anyone who will take him and he is involved in a number of experiences in the often unfeeling society.
A brutal chimney sweep nearly claims Oliver but luckily he is taken in care by the kindly Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker.
Throughout the book we encounter the
contrast between good and evil and kindness and cruelty. While Mr. Sowerberry
is kind to Oliver, his wife and others are not.
Another passage in the novel describes how one of the
children of the parish was treated when not to their liking. A boy named
Oliver received
“a tap on the head [from the cane of
the parish beadle] to wake him up: and another on the back to make him lively”
(Twist p.10).
The boy then received another tap in the back that terrified
him more and brought him tears. Later in the novel, it is discovered that
the same boy is sent into the cold weather to
“perform his ablutions, every morning
under the pump, in a stone yard, in the presence of Mr. Bumble [the parish
beadle], who prevented his catching cold, and caused a tingling sensation to
pervade his frame, by repeated applications of the cane” (Twist p.15).
These cruel acts show no sympathy to the workhouse
children. Frank Crompton, the author of the book Workhouse Children,
writes
“life was monotonous and inmates,
including children, were given menial and degrading tasks to perform, thus
impressing on them their lowly conditions” (p.37).
The people in the workhouses had no choice.
“There was no welfare state, so those who were
deprived of land and left unemployed found themselves forced to work in
prison-like conditions in the workhouses”.
It is obvious that workhouses were an attempt to solve the
poverty problem.
Dickens novel shows the social injustice of the 19th century. He is an author who wanted a change in society, and helped influence the reformation.
Dickens novel shows the social injustice of the 19th century. He is an author who wanted a change in society, and helped influence the reformation.
In an
essay written by Gareth Jenkins on Oliver Twist, he writes that through the
novel,
“there is hope that by exposing the
horrors of the workhouse, on the brutality and deficiency of education, that
decent men and women will take steps to reform society”
In the novel, Dickens shows through the character of a young
boy how the poor in the workhouses were beaten by a cane, and nearly starved
given
“three issued meals of thin gruel a
day, with an onion twice a week, and a half roll on Sundays” (Twist
p.11).
Dickens used his writings :-
“to tell about the bad conditions that the
working classes and poor people had to live under. He hoped that by doing
this that things would change for the good”.
There is no positive way to find out if Dickens was solely
responsible for the dissolution of the workhouses. However, it is fair to
say that he helped influence the change in society as “Dickens and other
important people that thought like him gradually got conditions in the
workhouses improved”.
CONCLUSION:-
So, as we discussed about Industrial revolution and how it played
its negative role in society of Oliver Twist. After discuss so many things we
may say that through the novel Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens shows people the
reality of the 19th century workhouses.
Along
with many firm believers, Dickens attack on the unjust social system helped
influence society, as
“conditions in the workhouses improved
later in the 19th century, and social-welfare services and the social-security
system supplanted workhouses altogether in the first half of the 20th century”.
( Words :- 3,187 )
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