Oliver Twist Slumdog Millionaire Comparision

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Throughout human history, many key issues have remained constant in society. Charles Dickens in his 1837 text Oliver Twist utilises an ironic tone, symbolism, emotive and descriptive language to reveal the plights of the lower classes in Victorian England. Similarly, Danny Boyle in his 2009 film Slumdog Millionaire uses a broad range of film techniques to reveal the social injustices of modern day Mumbai, India, which is undergoing similar social changes to those seen in Victorian era England, both due to rapid industrialisation. It is the constancy of the issues of social class inequalities, spatial inequalities and the inability to turn away from crime over time represented in both Oliver Twist and Slumdog Millionaire which allows them both to speak to us, even over their differentiating time periods. Social class inequalities are one of the central themes revealed in both Oliver Twist and Slumdog Millionaire. Discrimination towards the lower classes was common in Victorian England, and is thus displayed constantly through Oliver Twist. The poor were seen as inferior to the upper classes, to be considered and treated as little more than the lowliest of animals. Poverty is described as ‘loathsome’ and ‘repulsive.’ The use of emotive language in quotes by Mr Bumble, with words such as ‘wickedness’ and ‘frightful’ tells the responder that to people of Bumble’s status, the poor were corrupt and to be distrusted. When Oliver is first taken to see a deceased woman of the underclass, her mourning family is described as being ‘so like the rats he had seen outside.’ Dickens’s use of this simile had a dehumanising effect, and shows that the upper classes believed the poor deserved good will as much as rodents did. The upper classes are often described as being superior in an ironic tone, showing that Dickens did not agree with, and is even mocking the system in place,
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