Exploring Dickens’s unparalleled portrayal of 19th-century London, his social critique in Oliver Twist and his enduring influence as a literary giant

Charles Dickens became very popular as a novelist in the Victorian era. Born into a middle-class family, Charles Dickens’ formal education was also incomplete. Nevertheless, he meticulously studied the picture of lower-middle-class society in the city of London. He also beautifully observed the workers and peasants and portrayed them realistically in his novels. His novels were published in magazines and newspapers. Dickens’s novels are famous for their use of humour and satire. He portrayed the hypocrisy of Victorian society in his novels. Dickens is interested in the decent or correct form of society. He believes that the progress of society and industry is stagnant due to a corrupt society.
Dickens’ novels can be classified as follows: (a) Humorous novels: The Pickwick Papers (b) Historical Novels: A Tale of Two Cities, Barnaby Rudge (c) Passionate or sensuous novels: A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield (d) Social novels: Oliver Twist, The Old Curiosity Shop, Great Expectations.
No novelist has painted such a detailed picture of the social system as Charles Dickens. As a careful observer, Dickens incorporated many of the complex and colourful social customs and facts of the Victorian era into his novels. These include the natural environment, the tall concrete palaces built under the capitalists, the big buildings of London, the churches and the inhuman industries or workplaces. Dickens skillfully matches these issues with his characters and paints a distinctive, three-dimensional social context. Through these, Dickens tried to instill morality in Victorian society. He sought to remove the selfish, negative aspects of society in order to accurately evaluate realism compared to his contemporaries of the Victorian era. In fact, each of Dickens’ novels reflects social problems in a very powerful way. For example, Oliver Twist exposes inhuman treatment in the workplace.
Successful character creation is another feature of Dickens’s novels. He was a master of distinctive characterisation according to the environment and used language appropriate to the mouths of each character, large and small, according to their activities. However, he was also adept at combining exaggerations with interesting characters. However, even through the exaggerated descriptions, his characters are vivid and alive.
T.S. Eliot compares Charles Dickens to Shakespeare. Like Shakespeare, Dickens was able to bring the characters of his novels to life. The characters in Dickens’s novels can be divided into three categories: (1) The first ideal characters, such as David Copperfield. (2) The rival or villainous character of the second ideal hero. (3) The third emotional or sensitive character, which can represent or blend with all the people in the society. For example, Mr Wilkins Micawber.
Charles Dickens is a popular satirical writer. He brings the scene to life with the use of humour according to the actions of the characters. He always used humour to highlight positive aspects. He also used satire as a powerful weapon to fight against the evil or negative aspects of society. They used this weapon to make fun of people’s hypocrisy, ignorance, and crimes. The process of plotting the story in Dickens’ novels is complex and fascinating. He creates sometimes main and sometimes secondary plots based mainly on personal or family experiences. Sometimes two parallel plots are presented in a novel. He also introduced mysterious situations to make the story of the novel interesting. Or they maintain excitement in the story and present it to the reader in an interesting way.
Flat characters are more common in Dickens’s novels. In general, the characters in his novels are often not fully developed. It remains in the same state. Furthermore, he believes that what is good is always good and that what is bad is always bad. There is no opportunity to improve. There is no change in temperament. With a few exceptions, Dickens’ novels always have happy endings. This is a special feature of his plot construction formula. However, the growing despair and cruel reality of the contemporary context make the happy ending of his novel irrelevant and unconvincing. But Dickens deliberately wants to give the reader such a happy ending.
As the greatest novelist of 19th-century England, Charles Dickens was undoubtedly an important novelist who took a critical stance towards capitalist society and his extraordinary artistic talent and skills were a milestone in literature.
Dickens’s “Oliver Twist” is a unique addition to the history of literature, not only in English literature but in the entire world. Dickens, the author of the novel, himself once lived as a child labourer. His father was sent to jail for default and Dickens became a child labourer. It was during this time that he had a better encounter with the picture of poverty in England. Dickens began writing Oliver Twist in 1834 after the adoption of the Poor Law in England. Through the ‘Poor Policy’, the government of England adopted a scheme to place the poor in workplaces and provide them with clothing and food. However, this scheme only made the situation of the poor and orphans worse. Embezzlement, torture and exploitation of funds in the name of work centres became routine. All of Oliver Twist’s events began in this workplace. It would be a mistake to say that Dickens’s novel was merely a depiction of nineteenth-century London society. It was a strong criticism of Dickens’s policies by the government and the poverty that gripped contemporary society. So in a nutshell, Oliver Twist is an oral novel as well as a document of nineteenth-century London society.
Oliver Twist gained widespread popularity upon its release. The first condition for creating a social novel is to present contemporary society in a vivid manner. The first condition for creating a social novel is to present contemporary society in a vivid manner. The success of the novel depends on the society from which the novelist has drawn the subject matter. Dickens’s unique portrayal of contemporary society has not diminished the popularity and acceptance of the novel.
Oliver Twist is also recognised as a unique work of Charles Dickens for his excellence in story development, conflict, setting, dialogue, and characterization.
The writer is Cluster Resource Centre Coordinator (CRCC) of Nalbari Cluster, Biswanath Education Block, Education Department, Government of Assam

By Himangshu Ranjan Bhuyan
[email protected]

Himangshu Ranjan Bhuyan