Charles Dickens and the Industrial Revolution

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Paper 1: Part 1 and 2
Part 1: Charles Dickens and the Industrial Revolution
Charles Dickens was largely opposed to the experience of the industrial revolution in his writings due to economic and political divisions during the early Victorian Britain era (Moran 41). Victorians often viewed “the Woman Question” as a cultural problem arising from women demanding their rights and better destinies. During the nineteenth century, women were perceived as objects or laboratory animals for experimentation and analysis. Women were only idolized, oppressed, and protected from any possible harm because they were considered as a weaker gender, innocent, passive, and pure as depicted in written and visual art and science such as medical, psychological theories, and religious teachings (Moran 35). Besides, the law also justified the notion that women should be exempted from the power that could enhance their future. This made it impossible for women to enter career life as they were entirely excluded from attending higher education institutions until the last quarter of the 19th century and could not even vote (36). The working-class women could be restricted to supporting their families by accompanying their husbands in factories, in service, or in the field. Women became haters to governess work and only embraced scholarly work and becoming editors to receive public recognition. Women’s contribution became recognized mainly due to their writings in areas such as home management, refined arts, courtship and love, family life, marriage, and maintaining fidelity even in the face of temptations. Since such topics embraced men, their contributions were undeniable, but women entering lifestyles beyond their unconventional limits such as joining University or voting were received with criticism and ridiculed as foolish, wicked. Later, liberal philosophies untied the Victorian women from the bondage of cultural weakness to become functional and responsible citizens. Although there were new political and economic theories during the Industrial Revolution, they presented unique challenges with the “fair competition that created mutual animosity among women and different classes. Charles Dickens Engels was one of the writers whose work challenged the industrial Revolution by exposing the horrors of policies such as the economic factors that changed the social landscape of Victorian Britain.
As the economic factors changed the social landscape of Victorian Britain, the increasing “supply-an-demand” cycle demanded a larger market and an incessant supply of labor to satisfy it. As urban centers proved to offer both of the demands, the population in cities such as London expanded to absorb the unemployed, displaced country laborers, as well as the Irish immigrants who sought to escape a serious potato famine. This scenario created a competitive economy during the Industrial Revolution that forced many into crimes. In his book published between 1837 and 1839, Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens perceives the new Poor Law as un-Christian to depict how the system treated an innocent child who was born and raised in the workhouse system without their fau...