Twist and the Poor Laws

Can I start off by saying that the title of this blog post would make a sweet name for a band? Like Fitz and the Tantrums but more 19th century England.

It's no secret that Dickens' works were influenced or even driven by his opinions on politics, but I had not thought about this fact in great depth until I read the chapter on political literature in How to Read Literature Like a Professor.  The politics that take place in a courtroom or a parliament building are closely tied to the more abstract politics of social issues, which are in an abundance in Dickens' writing, to say the least.  A peek into Dickens' childhood explains the premise of Oliver Twist and common themes throughout his books.  He grew up in a middle class family that suddenly found themselves in deep debt.  Every member of Charles' family was sent to debtor's prison except for Charles himself, which left a twelve year old Charles to the task of paying his family's way out of prison.  He worked in a blacking factory where shoeshine was made and became a (figurative) slave to the industrial movement.  While working in the factory, Charles found himself working more efficiently in the factory after an older boy gave him some tips.  The older boy's name was Bob Fagin, which explains the use of the name "Fagin" in Oliver Twist.  (If you don't know the story of Oliver Twist, Fagin is an old man who leads a band of very young thieves and keeps many treasures hidden for himself in their den.)  Both Fagins perhaps had a heavy hand in helping their followers become skilled in their jobs, one making shoeshine and the other stealing handkerchiefs.  

Charles' family was eventually bailed out of debtor's prison when his father inherited some money and Charles returned to school.  Even though the Dickens family was no longer incredibly poor, Charles had the ability to empathize with the lower class that he had been thrust into as a young boy, practically orphaned and enslaved by factory walls.  The stigma against the lower class was supposed to be lifted by the creation of the Poor Laws in 1834, which mandated that all public charity had to flow through workhouses.  This created massive problems for anyone who was unable to perform intense physical labor (as a result of young/old age, illness, deformity, etc.) and forced many poor people to work straight to their graves.  The people running the workhouses separated husbands from wives (to make sure no more poor people were being produced) and mothers from children (to keep the children from having ideas put into their heads).  The food was gross and thin so that the workhouse people would be encouraged to find jobs elsewhere and become independent, while they really were just starving and working to death.

Oliver Twist is a story that brings these conditions to light in the public eye.  Once Dickens gained enough popularity and access to public ink, he had the ability to tear down the stigma against the lower class that so many middle class people had.  The way he describes the upper class men that make up the board of the workhouse is almost satirical; they are practically worshiped by those whom they preside over and are all rather fat.  Any reader without a sense of humor would think that Dickens is praising the upper class, while he's actually praising the lower class for enduring such tribulations as those put upon them by class barriers.  

Dickens uses Oliver as a symbol for all poor people in 19th century England.  His life in the confines of the workhouse reaches out into to the filthy streets of London where the poor will do, eat and say anything to survive without giving their lives to the government.  By showing middle and upper class readers (his primary audience) the dreadful conditions the lower class is forced to live in due to the government's handling of poverty, Dickens evokes a certain amount of empathy with Oliver Twist, especially by focusing on a boy that is doing anything he can to keep himself out of the grips of crime and death.  We know now that Dickens' writing had a profound impact on his readers that led him to the position of fame he is in today, which probably means he had a hand in changing people's minds about the "immoral" lives the poor lived at the time.  The government is influenced by the people.  The people are influenced by the things they read.  That sounds pretty political to me.