Charles Dickens As A Social Reformer

Charles Dickens as a social reformer
A GREAT SOCIAL REFORMER. The novels of Dickens belong entirely to the humanitarian
movement of the Victorian Age, of which they are indeed, in the sphere of fiction, by far the
most important product and expression. He was from first to last a novelist with a purpose.
In nearly all his books he set out to attack some specific abuse or abuses in the existing
system of things, and throughout he adopted the role of a champion of the weak, the
outcast and the oppressed. Humanitarianism was indeed the keynote of his work, and as his
enormous popularity carried his influence far and wide, he may justly be regarded as one of
the greatest social reformers of his age.
THE CHILD AS A VICTIM OF SOCIETY. One kind of character developed by Dickens was that of
the victim of society - usually a child. The possibilities of childhood for romance or pathos
had been suggested by Shakespeare, by Fielding, and by Blake; but none of these had
brought children into the very centre of the action or had made them highly individual. In his
second novel Dickens centered his story in a child, Oliver Twist, and from that time onwards
children were expected and necessary characters in his novels. Little Nell, Florence Dombey,
David Copperfield, stand out in divine innocence and goodness, in contrast to the evil
creatures whose persecution they suffered for a time. And further, they represent in a most
effective manner the compliant of the individual against society. For with Dickens the private
cruelty which his evil-minded characters inflict is almost always connected with social wrong.
A WRITER OF HUMANITARIAN NOVEL. The name of Charles Dickens is preeminently

associated with the humanitarian novel. After the publication of Nicholas Nickleby and The
Old Curiosity Shop, Dickens became a sort of professor* of humanitarianism, and he held
this position for nearly thirty years. He turned the light of his knowledge upon a great variety
of English scene and character, but especially upon work- houses, debtors’ prisons,
pawnbrokers’ shops, hovels of the poor, law offices, dark streets, and dark alleys, the
London haunts and hiding-places of vice, crime, and pain. His theme was always the
downtrodden and the oppressed; he was their advocate; for them each of his novels after
Pickwick Papers is a lawyer’s brief. He did not believe it’s possible for the lower and criminal
classes to raise themselves by elective franchise to a higher moral and intellectual plane. To
him parliament was dreariest place in the world; so he sought to arouse the conscience of
the British public. He accordingly attended meetings of philanthropic societies, visited jails
and prisons, holding long conversations with the keepers and went on addressing the ever-
increasing audience of his novels. Through him spoke the heart and conscience of Britain
which had found no responsive voice in Sir Walter Scott.
HIS AIM, TO ROUSE THE SOCIAL CONSCIENCE. Pickwick Papers had been attempt at pure
humour; it was a series of entertaining episodes loosely strung together. In the novels that
followed Pickwick Papers, Dickens took on the role of the crusader. His aim was to wring the
conscience of society by playing upon its feelings and presenting scenes of wretchedness
and misery that could be shown as the result of social indifference and callousness.
ATTACK ON INDUSTRIAL EVILS. In Hard Times(1854), Dickens attacks the industrial evils of his
day. Coketown represents all industrial towns, while the Gradgrinds and the Bounderbys
serve as the inhuman representatives of the system of enlightened self interest that had
only theory to recommend it.
ATTACK ON THE CIVIL SERVICE. The target in Little Dorrit (1857) is the unreformed Civil
Service with its nepotism and its injustice. Here the dice are loaded against the
circumlocution* offices and the human Barnacles who make the system work but whose
selfishness and indifference destroy the soul in the society they serve.
ENTITLED TO THE GRATITUDE OF POSTERITY. Apart from his supreme value as an entertainer
in fiction, Dickens earned the gratitude of posterity for awakening the social conscience. In
an age marred by callousness and complacency Dickens never lost faith in fundamental
human goodness. Although he cold see with clear eyes the stronger impersonal evil created
by society, he continued to believe in the kindly fatherhood of God and in the triumphant
power of love. Organisation, whether political or charitable or religious, he rejected; the law
killed; and systems, no matter how efficient, were no substitute for the warm human
relationships that were based on man’s responsibility for his fellows. In his ideal of
spontaneous benevolence flowing from some inexhaustible fountain of human goodness
Dickens saw the great solvent of the grief and misery that poisoned life around him.

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Charles Dickens as a social reformer

A WRITER OF HUMANITARIAN NOVEL. The name of Charles Dickens is preeminently

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