Dickens does not excuse crime committed by those who are inherently evil ( Fagin and Sikes), but he does tend to be more sympathetic to the lives of those that have been determined by terrible circumstances ( Oliver, Nancy, Bates and the Dodger). The workhouses then enable the middle and upper classes to argue for a self-fulfilling prophecy: that people who have no options in life, no ability to make a positive contribution to society, either die or become society's outcasts. Dickens believes that workhouses play to the worst desires of people in power-people like Sowerberry and the Bumbles-to keep the poor poor. The novel's goal, then, is not just to describe English poverty-it is actively to change perceptions of both poverty and the general sense of Victorian society that poverty is being dealt with humanely and appropriately, in the hopes of changing society.ĭickens' argument about poverty, social institutions, and class immobility is a complex imagining of the interrelation of the three. Dickens shows that Bumble behaves "un-Christianly" in hoping simply to shelve the poor in the workhouse, and to prevent them from leading meaningful lives. Bumble is a "beadle," or an Anglican Church official in charge of managing the poor within each county. The workhouse provides Oliver and others with no meaningful skills, and it feeds them so little that many simply become sick and die. Bumble especially, also serves to show that the Poor Laws are not simply dehumanizing-they are a part of the cycle of poverty rather than a remedy for it. Simply by telling of conditions in the workhouse, Dickens does a service to the English poor-he shows they are human beings, and that they are not treated as such.ĭickens' description of the workhouses, and of Bumble and Mrs. Although many parts of English society had come in contact with the poor, few had read accounts of what it meant to be poor. Oliver Twist is a sustained attack on the British Poor Laws, a complex body of law that forced poor families to labor in prison-like "workhouses." One of the novel's effects is, simply, to describe what poverty was like at this time in England.
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