An Analysis of Childhood and Child Labour in Charles Dickens’ Works

Download or read book An Analysis of Childhood and Child Labour in Charles Dickens’ Works written by Selina Schuster and published by Anchor Academic Publishing (aap_verlag). This book was released on 2014-07-21 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Industrial Revolution was a time of enormous change for the British society. Science and technology developed rapidly and brought wealth and improvement into many sectors of life; inventions like the steam engine, power looms, the spinning jenny or the expansion of the road and rail network made life easier. But on the other hand it was also the time of great misery, exploitation and tremendous class differences between a very thin and very wealthy upper-class, a rising middle-class and a very broad and to a great extent extremely impoverished working-class. But how was it like being a working-class child in Victorian England? To answer this question this work will take a close look at two of the most famous contemporary novels dealing with the depiction of children: Charles Dickens’ ‘David Copperfield’ and ‘Oliver Twist’.