Marxism In Charles Dickens

CHARLES DICKENS

THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR

Charles Dickens is known for creating real and believable characters and regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. To the point the term Dickensian was invented because of him and is used to describe something that is reminiscent of his writings such as social hierarchy and etc. His novels and short stories has left an everlasting impression and till this day, he has immense popularity. His face is on the British ten pound note.

Charles is the second of eight children to his father and his mother. Although Charles came from a poor family, he was lucky enough to attend school. But later on that was destroyed, as his father was imprisoned for debt and twelve year-old Charles was forced to

Of course, he was aware of the class struggle during the Victorian times as he had experienced it first-hand from an early age. I think this led Dickens to show how social class effect behaviour and also write for the public who would relate and identify to their own circumstances through his novels. From a Marxist perspective, Dickens was born into the lower middle class. Although the lower middle class were not quite close enough to the working class however it's enough to say that they sympathise with the them and yearned for the same ambitions: acess to wealth, rank and education. An example of Marxist in Oliver Twist is how Dickens demonstrate the power struggle between the lower class and higher class to define the character's personality and identity. It doesn't help the fact that the novel takes place during the Victorian times where the society was defined by social status. It states in the first chapter that Oliver was given the lower class status at a quite young age the moment he was handed over to orphanage as he was an orphan with no evidence to prove his real social status. "He was enveloped in the old calico robes… he was badged and ticketed, and fell into his place at once”. This made Oliver trapped in the lower class. "So far as an over powering heaviness, a prostration of strength and an utter inability to control over thoughts or power of motion can be

During the Victorian era, there were time of troubles such as unemployment, poverty, rioting, slums in large cities and working conditions for women and children were terrible. Victorian novels seek to represent a novel with a variety of classes because they were used to novels about elite and rich main characters. That’s why, he wrote several novels relating to working class and poor working conditions. He fought for children’s rights and opposed cruelty and physical punishment of children. He was known as the greatest England’s writers in the Victorian period and a sympathiser to the poor. Women weren’t treated right, having bad working conditions and underemployment drove loads of women into prostitution. So for the first time, women were major writers in the Victorian era like Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë. Charles told the truth about the world he was living in, both cruel and promising. His grave was left open for two days as thousands of fans, both rich and poor came to pay their respect - this showed the astounding power he had to touch the hearts of everyone from pope to