Dickens primarily used his creative genius as a weapon to attack and express his fury on the corrupt social institutions. Oliver Twist is a satire on the inhumanity, cruelty and corruption pervading the workhouses. Through this novel, Dickens also scolded the system of law and other social institutions.
The first eleven
chapters of the novel 'Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834' is satirized by Dickens. The act was made to reform but the situation had become worsened. This act
had, on the one hand, abolished the generous Speenhamland system whereby
Labourer's wages were supplemented to the subsistence level driving them to
pauperism and finally to the workhouse. On the other hand, it made the living
conditions in the workhouse very hard because it kept away capable men from
them. The hardship was affected by the meagre food given at the workhouses, the
separation of families on entering it, the want of exercise and the disgusting
nature of the work done in the workhouse. Dickens also attacked on the
inadequate medical facilities and other common services offered at the
workhouses.
The most callous
'economy' measures of the new Act was the sparse diet provided to the
inhabitants of any workhouse. Dickens says that for the board, the workhouses
had become a regular place for public amusement, thus they set few things
rightly. They contracted with the waterworks to lay on supply of water without
any limit and with the corn factory to provide periodically small quantities of
oatmeal and gave three meals of thin gruel a day with an onion twice a week and
half a roll on Sundays. In chapter two, when we go through the popular scene of
Oliver's asking for more food, it is informed that the bowls in which food was
served were never washed.
In Baby farms, children were kept from the most delicate age to the age of fifteen but the
arrangements to look after them were very poor and insufficient. In the baby
farm whose in-charge was Mrs Mann and where Oliver had lived for nine years,
she received seven pence half a penny per head and per week. Mrs Mami is
remarked as a very great practical philosopher'. She is a lady of 'wisdom and
experience'. The children suffer from starvation and 'she appropriated the
great part of the weekly stipend to her own use'.
Dickens has also
satirized the want of healthy exercise in the open air for the farm boys and
the inexperienced doctors. There were several works in those baby farms like
stone-breaking, bone-crushing or oakum picking. Dickens says that parish
doctors were usually inexperienced and low-rated. Such doctors had attended
to Oliver's mother Agnes during her labour pain.
Another social
institution which is attacked by Dickens' satirical weapon is the court. Here
satire is not pungent or sharp but blended in farce. In chapter 3 the magistrate
was least concerned with the boy and was about to sign the indenture but
fortunately, his eyes catch the glimpse of Oliver's pale and terrified face. But
in later scenes, Mr Fang, the magistrate, serves the real purpose of Dickens. He
was utterly heartless and cruel. Oliver got fainted in front of him but Mr Fang took it as his pretension. He says that the boy is too cunning and wants
to make them fools. He is not of belief to treat any convict leniently. Besides, Mr Bumble is announcing 'the law is an ass-a idiot'.
In Oliver Twist, there is an indirect satire on
the incompetence and inefficiency of policemen also because Fagin and Sikes
like criminals are functioning easily under their eyes but they (police) fail
to catch them (criminals).
Dickens satire reveals
how conscious he was of the happenings in his society. His novels created an
atmosphere of public awareness. He made an appeal to the human heart and surely
influenced the emotional attitudes of thousands of people towards the
contemporary problems of society.
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