In the late eighteenth and mid nineteenth century oversaw the birth and fast-paced growth of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. (Baker, 2019) Factories overtook the role of previously played by agriculture in the economy and the working-class citizen quickly made his way out of the village and into the workhouse. (Barrow, 2013) Though the economy was thriving, there was a sense of mourning noted amongst the general public which witnessed the increasing mechanisation of the world. The clash between the natural world and the industrial world then became an important theme prevalent in the literature of the time. Charles Dickens’ (Anon 2016) novels gained recognition and approval from their painfully unromanticised depiction of the working-class life. Additionally, the portrayals of the working class contrasted strongly with the middle and upper middle classes. Dickens’ (2013) Great Expectations chronicles the coming of age of the protagonist Pip in his climbing up the societal ladder, moving from the working class to the middle class through his coming into good fortune.
However, Pip’s inevitable decline back into the working class is a telling illustration of the industrialised economy as unstable as well as the higher classes as greatly alienating. Dickens’ novels are then critical of the rising materialism and misguided priorities of the Victorian individual brought on by industrialisation. The moral decay of the society is contrasted with the growth of the Victorian economy. Dickens’ (2012) novel Oliver Twist this decline set against the background of the gruesome and inhospitable working conditions of the Workhouses in Victorian England.
Oliver Twist can be characterised as a “Newgate Novel”, (Pykett, 2017) a style of novel popularised at the time due to its gritty and explicit depiction of crime, murder and the prison life. The Newgate Calendar which was issued and reissued several times in the early 19th century reflected the lives, legal proceedings, and criminal confessions of the jailbirds in London’s Newgate Prison which burned down in 1780. This increased the public’s fascination with crime and its rationality. Edward Bulwer’s and Harrison Ainsworth’s Jack Sheppard are very powerful examples in this particular century. Although Oliver Twist does not depict life in prison, it is important to note that criminality was driven mainly by poverty and the deplorable living conditions induced by the Poor Law in 1834. (Grass 2012) Also, while this type of writing was criticised for its glamorisation of crime and immorality, authors deemed it important to illustrate the immoral reality of lower-class life in England.
Additionally, the Poor Law Amendment Act of the mid-19th century became a turning point for the lower classes of England. Due to the growing demand of human workforce in the industry, poor people had to now work in Workhouses in order to survive, as stated by the Act. Individuals who were homeless were previously provided for by the richer classes of society. The enforcement of the Act can be attributed to the increase of Capitalistic sentiments observed in the increasingly materialistic Victorian society. The Act designated communities to various Panels of Guardians which each ran their own Workhouse.
It is important to establish that the Workhouses in theory appear as an appropriate solution for the state to house its poor while instilling a decisive drive in the public to steer clear of ending up in a Workhouse. However, in terms of execution, the general public was compelled to question the inhumane grounds upon which the idea functioned. (Higginbotham 1865) Families residing in a Workhouse were separated and punished if they engaged with one another. (Higginbotham 1834) Residents were reported to be near starving due to the small portions of food provided for them. These conditions became notable to a point of inspiring a genre of art and literature termed “Workhouse Literature”. Authors and Journalists alike took it upon themselves to investigate the lives of Workhouse residents.
Moreover, James Greenwood’s article entitled “A Night in a Workhouse” in an evening newspaper called ‘Pall Mall Gazette’ and this newspaper recounts him spending one night inside a Workhouse to witness the debilitating conditions himself. Greenwood describes in painful detail the living space provided to the poor in the Workhouse. He states his inability to comprehensibly describe what he witnessed upon entering the room, a room of 30ft by 30ft with dingy walls. Greenwood, 1866, narrates the dampness and filthiness of his surroundings. It is essential to note that there seems to be no indication of any carpeting or blanketing to provide warmth for the residents. Green goes on to state how the far too airy shed was coated in stone and the floor was thickly covered in dirt, so much that Greenwood at first assumed it was the natural earth. Greenwood continues to recount how the residents slept, stating, that his bedfellows lay among cramped on the floor, distributed over the flag stones in a double row, on narrow bags stuffed with hay. He recalls noting thirty men and boys sleeping side by side in doubles in the small naked tiled room.
Similarly, George Orwell’s (Orwell 2015) essay “The Spike” penned in 1831 recounts his stay at a Workhouse which is equally disturbing; he describes the excuse for bread afforded to the residents which on some days was worse than usual, because the cook, out of laziness would cut the slices overnight. This would make the bread hard and near impossible to swallow. Perhaps one of the most horrifying aspects of life at a Workhouse then was the undernourishment of the residents after exploitative and hard manual labour. Dickens’ novel illustrates this in his satirical description of the Boards’ “sage” vision of food provision; it was decreed that the residents will be issued three portions of gruel each day and in some cases with an onion twice a week and also, one small piece of bread on Sundays. Also, Gruel could be a lean porridge and can barely be anticipated to support people working physically through the day, particularly more youthful kids such as Dickens’ hero Oliver.
Oliver experiences first hand being underfed; (Anon 1997) The narrator recounting how each boy had one helping of porridge, and strictly never more than that. The only exceptions to the one serving rule were special celebratory occasions, presumably Christmas or Easter, upon which the boys would be given a small piece of bread along with two helpings of gruel. Dickens goes on to illustrate the state of the growing boys subjected to this undernourishment, claiming that if they could have eaten the building bricks of the Workhouse they would have. Also, while waiting for their food, they would suck on their fingernails and eagerly watch for any stray droppings of gruel. Continuing on retelling of the deplorable starvation of the boys, the narrator states how Oliver and the friends he associated with at the time experienced torturous slow hunger for a long period of time, becoming animalistic with hunger and threatening to eat the other boys.
Moreover, the resident boys along with Oliver therefore decide to ask for a second helping of gruel one day which is met is gross inhumanity and fury of the masters; Oliver’s plea for more gruel is met with the fattened master being offended to the point of referring to Oliver as a rebel. Dickens makes it a point to describe the master as “fat” and “healthy”, contrasting with the thinning boys who were severely underfed and exploited in the Workhouse. The scenario takes a horrifying turn when it is contemplated whether to hang the young boy for his demand of a second helping, a man witnessing the exchange exclaims that he thinks Oliver will be hung for his offensive action and audacious demands.
Also, Dickens’ portrayal of the Victorian Workhouse is not stand-alone however, ballads, poetry, artwork and expository articles also sought to bring to the public’s attention the abominable living circumstances of the Workhouse. In addition to the undernourishment it is also integral to note the masters’ attitudes towards the poor individuals’ demand for just treatment. Dickens then rightfully demonises not the “rebel” boys who asked for more gruel in the now infamous line uttered by Oliver saying he wants more gruel, (adding a please before his statement to express his desperation) but the fattened masters benefitting off the exploitation of the poor and hungry.
To conclude, Charles Dicken’s interpretation of the Workhouse life in Oliver Twist is a telling example of literature providing counter-narratives in history for government propaganda of its exploitation of its citizens. Also, the Industrial Revolution, while benefitted the economy greatly, reaped its capitalist growth at the expense of the wellbeing of the working class. The gross mistreatment of the lower class witnessed during the Industrial Revolution is what inspired Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels famous Communist Manifesto; (1997) a compilation of social philosophy reasoning on the simple contrasts and power relations between the working class “proletariat” and the middle class/higher class “bourgeoise”. Dickens’ novels, although written before Marx’ manifesto is highly reflective of the alienation, reification and objectification of the proletariat. Charles Dickens has produced various different novels which are called Hard Times, Oliver Twist, a Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations and all these novels are important and suggests illustrations of Dickens’ consistency in portraying the unpleasant reality of the lives of England’s working class, especially through the enactment of the Poor Laws at the beginning stage of the 19th century.