Charles Dickens’ Satire of Victorian Culture in Oliver Twist

In the novel Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens ridicules Victorian society he focuses on the scurvy natural law system of rules, orphans, workhouses, and the characterization of Oliver and Nancy, using sarcasm, and the comparison between the real world and the world of Oliver. When Dickens was just a child, a lot of traumatic things happened to him. At twelve, his father went to prison. He then had to work in a shoe blacking factory. He k modernistic poverty and thats why he was cognisant of social problems and had deep feeling of social commitment. Dickens was one of the most important social writers of history.He criticized moral, social, and economic problems in the Victorian date of reference through his legend works (Charles 1. ) The emotional and symbolic representationizing power that Oliver Twist has is he value in Dickens life (Linsay 172. ) While writing the book, Victorian themes like poverty, injustice, remember characters, and punishment were all(prenominal) live issu es in the world. Dickens didnt like the 1834 New Poor Act, which criminalized the poor. He didnt like the harsh utilitarian moral philosophy of it. The Poor Law Board thought that people that could do work didnt get anything better than the poorest worker.Due to the emergence of trade unions, the Poor Law system fell into decline. There were liberal welfare reforms during the twentieth century it wasnt until 1948 when it was officially abolished. Illustrated in Olive Twist, Dickens showed the reading society the harsh symbol of realities in the Victorian era. In the novel, there are a lot of orphans. Dickens depicts them as poor, underfed, oppressed, and severely punished (Charles 1. ) The fear of destitution and poverty was unendingly present in the minds of adults, and children alike in Victorian society.There were many orphans, and one in fourteen of many towns population of children were classified as paupers in 1863. to the highest degree of the needy population relied on th e parish system through the Poor Law. A Board of Directors was elected, and in many occurrences, Dickens doesnt put them across as the best fit, even though the goal in the Acts was to help these paupers. Dickens uses sarcasm to write about the Board. It was once a Poor Law system that encouraged work ethic (Poverty 1. ) He describes them in the novel as very sage, deep philosophical men (Dickens 11.)Dickens talks how cardinal orphans, Oliver and Rose, are tried with adversity which teaches them the virtues for others and love. Its the life of pain and alienation that help them become pure characters, contrasting the fact of the stealing, wild paupers of the Victorian era (Baldridge. ) In the novel, Charles based the character of Oliver on eighteenth century traces. Charless daydreams of childhood were at bay, and it gave him an emotionally true picture of the exploited children of his own fourth dimension (Linsay 179. ) In the workhouses that orphans were sent to, there was stri ct discipline.They were given just barely enough food to survive, and were punished harshly if they didnt follow strict rules. In the novel, Dickens explains what happens to Oliver when he asks for more food. Please, sir, I want some more. The master was a fat, healthy man but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralyzed with wonder the boys with fear. Dickens shows the reader through Olivers hunger how bad it was for him.Everyone around the food master thought surely Oliver was to be hung for asking such an explicit question. Instead, Oliver is sent to immediate confinement, awaiting a new master. Laborers had tasks like stone breaking, oakum-picking, sack-making, and corn-grinding. Work conditions were tough, even though they were required to be moderately clean. Patricia Pulham and Brad Beaven explain in their article entitled Poverty and the Poor how in his jo urnal, Workhouse Words, Dickens investigates the conditions of the workhouse conditions.When he went to the workhouse debate in the 1850s, he witnessed poverty, misery, starvation, and all around death these defined the lack of the workhouse system. Dickens achieves the simplicity of the characters because the way he presents them and describes them doesnt contain any indistinctness. To some, Oliver might seem sentimental, and Nancy a prostitute with unsure feelings, but these depictions are conventional, and are the marks and representations of a tragedy. Oliver is looked at as an item of mortality who will be a new responsibility for the parish and is only worth selling to the general public when he misbehaves for 5 pounds.Society views Oliver, with its funds ethic, as a liability, for he really doesnt portray a soul or spirit in the Boards eyes. Olivers characteristic development might seem pompous, because he doesnt really act or talks like the other children. Dickens removes h im from the natural speech of all other characters, and gives him the emblem of susceptible innocence and exposure. Oliver is managed by anyone who comes in contact with him. Hes like a puppet, influenced beyond his view. Actually, through most of the novel, Oliver oft doesnt know where he is or who he is.Social order is shown through the rough unimportance of Olivers concealed humanity (Duffy 5. ) Oliver never learns how to juxtapose the oriental alabaster and pitch social vocabularies in his story in any way that he might earn about the realities of Victorian culture (Baldridge. ) Dickens depicts Nancy as forced into prostitution by poverty, her peers, and her corrupt environment. Dickens knew of the victimization of Victorian women and wanted to show that Nancys sweet character was corrupted by this and that she didnt deserve her fate (Charles 1.)Even at the cost of her life, Nancy feels change in her heart. She is loyal to her friends, and she goes to save Oliver and Rose. Dick ens isnt emotionalizing iniquity and crime. The truth of life is being represent (Al- Mahdi 3-4. ) Charles Dickens successfully takes the harsh realities of the Victorian era and employs them into the novel Oliver Twist. Through his satire and characterization, he creates a negative image of the cruel things that happened to people in workhouses, orphans, and children. Charles Dickens will always be remembered as one of the best social commentators in history.