A Commentary on Dickens' Oliver Twist's 'Jacobs Ladder'

1755 Words8 Pages
19th Century England was a period of huge, fundamental and, arguably self-aware, change. Industrial revolution was in full swing, bringing with it various networks that would facilitate cultural and educational growth; new technologies give birth to fresh employment opportunities, literature and press become widely available and faster transport links help to bring prices down – the economy is booming. However we see during this time, more than ever before, large disparities in wealth distribution within urban populations, creating an atmosphere in which ideas of class divide and social reform can no longer be ignored. It is no surprise then that this age gave rise to a new literary movement, along with its writers who “using the resources of literary representation […] try to resolve some large-scale problems in their society” (Guy, 1996) This is was a conscious movement in a time of self-aware flux, attempting to promote change in the, then, prevailing ideas regarding the poor. Ironically, during the period of their release these works would not be clearly defined by their readers, but we now of course identify the literary movement, quite appropriately, as ‘the social novel’ or ‘the industrial novel’. Oliver Twist, the first real social novel by Dickens and one of the early examples of the movement, was an instant success, resonating with a readership growing aware of gross social injustice. Even in the late Victorian period, when Dickens’ work fell out of favour within many literary circles, his strengths could not be denied; prominent latter-Victorian author George Gissing in his “Charles Dickens: A Critical Study” (1898) wrote how, “…with those who literally earn bread in the sweat of their brows, he [Dickens] was better acquainted than any other novelist of his time” pointing out the key to Dickens’ trademark, true to life, working-class representation in
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