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Social Criticism In Oliver Twist By Charles Dickens And Its Relation To Modern Day
The book “Oliver Twist” written by Charles Dickens, published in 1839. Tells the story of an orphan boy called Oliver who passes through unfortunate circumstances during his childhood after being kicked out from a workhouse for asking for more food during supper time, he is convinced by a bunch of kids to take part of a children criminal band. The novel intends to illustrate poverty in London in the 19th century and the hardships endured by impoverished citizens. Oliver Twist is developed in the time of the English poor laws, these laws ensured that poor children were housed in workhouse, children who entered the workhouse were supposed to be clothed and fed, in return for these children were expected to work for several hours each day. The book focus in being a vehicle for social criticism aimed directly at the problem of poverty and the abuse and violation of children rights.
Throughout the novel we can constantly notice that children rights are being violated, at the beginning of the book when Oliver asks for more food at suppertime we can see how they are violating the availability and the accessibility to food. Moreover when Oliver is forced to join the criminal band we can notice how grownups take advantage of children and force them to steal and work for them and if they don’t obey they are physically punished, therefore, child abuse is constantly appeal through all the novel. It has also came to my attention the precarious situation of Oliver when we ran away from the house where he was taken to work as an as an apprentice to an undertaker, we can notice there is no human dignity at all, when Oliver assaults the older boy instead of talking to him, he is punished in a chimney that may threaten his health and afterwards he is physical abuse with a walking stick as if he was an object instead of a person.
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” Throughout the novel we can notice how grownups take advantage of children innocence in order to force them to develop illegal labors, all these behaviors are satirized by the author because kids see it as something funny but what they don’t fully understand is that all they steal is for convenience of Fagins and Bill Sikes they are just being used as a Vehicle to obtain expensive things such as handkerchiefs. Fagins make the children seen as if he was a good man because he provides shelter and food to them, but the food he gives them has been steal by the children and the place were they live is a very small house for so many people which only demonstrates poverty in the epoch and the deplorable circumstances citizens of the 19th century London were going through.
“No child shall be subjected to torture, cruel treatment or punishment, unlawful arrest or deprivation of liberty. Both capital punishment and life imprisonment without the possibility for release are prohibited for offences committed by persons below age 18.” This article is in conflict throughout the whole novel. We as readers are able to see children were a subject of torture, children should not be forced to steal other people, or to be deprived from living a normal and regular childhood, no kid should be force to work, drink alcoholic beverages, be involved with guns o neither be shot by one. Oliver Twist is a novel focus on criticizing plenty social problems, from my point of view the most important problem of the epoch was poverty, and al the other social issues reflected during the novel are a consequence of it. Kids steal food and handkerchiefs because it was the only way they where able to eat and to have a shelter, as well they joined these kind of criminal groups because they were mistreated in the workhouses and bereaved of food and decent clothes.
“The child has the right to be protected from work that threatens his or her health, education or development. The State shall set minimum ages for employment and shall regulate working conditions”. When Oliver was “ready” to steal from other people, and the other two boys decide to steal Mr. Brownlow handkerchief, Twist health is being threatened, we can notice he has a panic attack, consequently a grownup punches him pretty hard and he fainted during the trial with the parliament “Oliver availed himself of the kind permission, and fell to the floor in a fainting fit. The men in the office looked at each other, but no one dared to stir” we are able to notice Oliver Twist was leaving under such precarious circumstances that as soon as he went trough a feeling of panic and fear he fainted, which is something that should not be happening to any child and can be a consequence of many factors, bad diet with lack of nutrients, an unhealthy living place that can attempt towards children health.
When reading the novel we are able to notice a contrast between the characters, helping to understand different points of view. Mr. Brownlow seems to be the only one interested in defending children’s rights, he tries to help Oliver by giving him a decent life, satisfying basic necessities such as, food, shelter, clothes and education, and some way or another we can notice he cares about Oliver, also he develops several feeling of compassion when seeing Oliver “‘Don’t hurt him,’ said the old gentleman, compassionately” making the reader believe that he really cares about the pupil and is interested in helping him. And on the other hand there is Fagin old gentleman who is in charge of encouraging the children to steal by pickpocketing and Bill Sikes a criminal who abuses from children and mistreat them repetitively “Oliver: who was completely stupified by the unwonted exercise, and the air, and the drink which had been forced upon him: put his hand mechanically into that which Sikes extended for the purpose.”
Throughout the novel we can notice there is a very wide social gap, you are either a wealthy person like Mr. Brownlow a person interested in books, with good manners and who lives in a worthy place, or a extreme poor person like all the children and Mr. Finge that have no education at all and think stealing from rich people is fine, live in such rotten place. Human dignity is one of the most important human right, and it is completely undermined during the novel, metaphorically talking Oliver is treated as an animal or an object, as he is constantly physically and emotionally attacked by those who surround him, a person who is treated this way may believe he/she has no human value at all, neither a human status. That’s why Mr. Brownlow character was so important to me because he is the one who reminds Oliver the worthy person he is and shows him what living a life with dignity is about. “Dignity is our inherent value and worth as human beings; everyone is born with it.”
Having in mind everything said about the novel and the violation of rights I think it’s important to relate this with what happened nowadays in our society. I am from Colombia, and as sad as it sounds currently some people force their children to work while they should be studying and some other consider that punishing them physically is the only way the learned how to behave. This reality is not far away from what we can see in the book, according to UNICEF, “The violence that was caused in Colombia by illegal armed groups gave rise to a serious humanitarian crisis which has affected children and youth who are in turn having trouble in building a stable future.” I think the rights that are more commonly being violated are the right to education, in Colombia approximately one from ten children receive no schooling, the right to a normal and safe sexual live, in Colombia sexual exploitation is a very prevalent conflict even children from such young ages as ten years old are involved in prostitution, after the peace treaty this aspect has been reducing but more of 10.000 children were involved in being child soldiers of illegal groups such as LAS FARC, and finally many children mostly in rural areas are forced to develop risky labors, this happened because of many factors whether they are not interested in school because of the difficult access to it or their parents encourage them to work by making them believe they would be able to have a better life, due, they are gaining money from an early age, “In rural areas, child labor rates are nearly double that of urban areas. It is still common to see children working on city streets as vendors and cleaning car windscreens, as well as on farms.”
To conclude this book was written in a very difficult context of the 19th century in which people didn’t really care about human rights, but what is sad is that things has not changed that much nowadays. Probably in London living conditions are very different, but in most of the countries we can still see people take advantage of children and their rights are constantly violated, as well many parents forced the children to work instead of sending them to school, or many children starved daily because of the poor context they lived in. We are part of a community and even though we cant make a drastic change and help all children of the world, we can start by helping the ones that surround you, for example, donating clothes or food to foster houses, or do social service which involve teaching children that cant have an easy access to education. In my home country in order to graduate from school you should achieve a number of social service hours, I think government did a great job when introducing this idea, because children must know and understand that not all of us have the same living conditions and that we should help the ones that struggle having access to basic necessities such as food, shelter clothe and education. “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”
Bibliography
- Children of Colombia – Humanium. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.humanium.org/en/colombia/
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.un.org/en/udhrbook/pdf/udhr_booklet_en_web.pdf
- Moloney, A. (2019). Colombia makes progress on child labor: study. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-youth-rights/colombia-makes-progress-on-child-labor-study-idUSKBN1D82J6
- Child rights. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org.nz/child-rights
- Dickens, C., & Rogers, R. (2008). Oliver Twist (p. All). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Hicks, D. (2019). What Is the Real Meaning of Dignity?. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/dignity/201304/what-is-the-real-meaning-dignity-0
