Charles Dickens Critical Analysis

If he learned something from the eighteenth century novelists, especially Smollett, he learned even more from his own circumstances and observation, combining an extraordinary relish for the odd, colorful, and the dramatic in urban life and in human character with a keen eye for the changes which the Industrial Revolution brought into England in his lifetime, an acute consciousness of his own lower-middle-class origin and the unhappy circumstances of his own childhood, which included his father's imprisonment for debt and his own much resented employment at a blacking factory as a youngster, and a sentimentally humanitarian attitude toward human problems. Dickens’s miserable childhood experience began after his father’s imprisonment;

The characters are realistic and quite tangible. This is because Dickens really puts his own heart and soul into his characters by weaving his own experiences into his work. The great author Charles Dickens depicts the social condition of English society since the existence of Industrial Revolution in the late of nineteenth century as reflected in Oliver Twist which was published in 1873 . Dickens studied the nineteenth century commercially – oriented England and observed the corruption, suggesting how material possessions have become the criterion of evaluating a human being. Dickens's novels expose injustice and stress the need for reform at an age of paradox, The Victorian Age. In his writing, Dickens reflects, the uncertainty of man at a time when the full impact of industrialism burdened an overpopulated society facing political and economic problems. Charles Dickens exposed the ills of Victorian

The novel is analyzed as a work that criticizes the Victorian negative attitude and mistreatment of the poor. Chapter Two is concerned with criminality and poverty. It is a survey of the various economic, social and political changes that took place during the nineteenth century. Dickens's vision of his age is shown in his projection of violence, crime and unrest in his novel. This may reflect man's insecurity in a world that degrades him. The study would, tackle this important theme in Oliver Twist. The chapter concentrates on the negative effects of Victorian philosophical trends such as utilitarianism and materialism on poor in general and children in particular. Chapter Three is concerned with "dehumanization". This chapter examines the aspects in Dickens's novel which dehumanize man and mechanize him, some of which are materialism and social injustice. These nullify man and make of him either a brute or a victim. The chapter also deals with what Dickens considers essential in personal and social relationships : the value of human emotions as opposed to the workings of man's intellect. The latter feature Dickens regards as a dehumanizing thing that deprives life of compassion and vitality and dismally converts it into impersonal