CHARLES DICKENS Child labor in the Victorian Age

Dickens was born in Portsmouth, on the south coast of England Charles DICKENS (1812-70) He had an unhappy childhood, since his father went to prison for debt and he had to work in a factory at the age of twelve. These days of sufferings were to inspire much of the content of his novel. His autobiographical novels are Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit; their protagonists all became the symbols of an exploited childhood confronted with the grim and bitter realities of slums and factories. In the novel “Oliver Twist “Dickens attacks one or more social evils: workhouses, repressive education and capital punishment. In all these novels, the greatest victims are the children, are exploited and deprived of their freedom a right that every person should have. the passage "the workhouse" makes us understand perfectly the living conditions of the children and how the latter were malnourished, dehydrated and dirty; Every child had to survive with a little portion of food and when one of them died, they hid the real cause of their death. Dickens used irony to describe the elderly woman, in fact he said that she was a woman of wisdom and experience because she knew what was good for the children and and she also knew what was good for herself. So she used to steal half of the weekly stipend of the children, and she used this money only for herself. The workhouses had dreadful conditions, that would had not inspired the poor to get better conditions, in fact the workhouses didn't provide any social or economic improvement. Instead of alleviating the sufferings of the poor, the officials who run workhouses abused their rights. All this was done because the Victorians thought it was a great way to inspire children to improve their lives and be part of society.