Social Injustices and Upper Class Ignorance in “A Christmas Carol” & Oliver Twist

Although I was planning on responding to this prompt before the trip occurred, I am glad I decided to save this response for after our return. The trip heightened my appreciation for Dickens’ works, and with the added knowledge from our tours, visits, and sessions, I think this response will be more whole than it ever could have ever possibly been before.

Dickens rarely shies away from touching on social themes in his fictional works. He develops characters and fictional plots to represent real injustices and horrors of those living in his time. Although these characters can sometimes come off as flat, they are still effective at illuminating the conditions of the lower classes to the often ignorant upper classes. One common theme he focuses on in two of his most famous works, “A Christmas Carol” and Oliver Twist, is social injustice, specifically towards children. In the time of his texts, lower class children often found themselves trapped by their parents’ debts and were forced to work. This exact thing happened to Charles Dickens due to the debts of his father, John Dickens. Due to Charles Dickens experiences with poverty and child labor, I think it is safe to say he had a particular soft spot in his heart for children trapped in these positions, and his own experiences strongly influenced his choice to focus on these subjects. For this reason, he represented social injustices towards children, and he created ignorant characters of upper class citizens to represent what he saw happening.

In “A Christmas Carol,” Scrooge is not condemned for being a miserable member of society, but rather he is condemned for ignoring the poor, refusing to help, and caring only about his own wellbeing. In one of the most famous scenes of the text, Scrooge denies charity collectors.

“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.

“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”

“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”

This scene speaks to the position of the upper social classes towards the poor. To them, the issue of poverty was not one they were involved in nor obligated to assist in relieving. From here, Dickens later uses these exact words against Scrooge as the Spirit of Christmas Present illuminates the insensitivity of his comments while showing him suffering children. Scrooge asks, “Have they no refuge or resource?” The Spirit responses only with Scrooges own inhumane responses from before. These two scenes particularly work well at drawing the connections between the insensitivity of the upper class and the unjust conditions of poor children at the time.

In Oliver Twist, Dickens similarly presents injustices towards children in poverty by members of the upper classes. Child labor in the workhouse is one of the main focuses of Oliver Twist. Dickens illustrates the dark, unbearable conditions children were forced to endure all throughout the novel. Mr. Bumble represents the larger population of people running the workhouses as well as larger populations involved in the mistreatment of children. Although Mr. Bumble is a working man, he cannot comprehend the situations the children below his power are in. He is ignnorant to their suffering entirely. Mr. Bumble threatens all different kinds of cruel punishments on Oliver for asking for more food. Mr. Bumble expects for Oliver and other victims of the workhouse to be delinquents and unworthy of better treatment. These misconceptions have been fed to people of the upper classes as well as to the enforcers of the unjust rules. At the end of the novel, Mr. Bumble ironically meets his fate by being forced to live in the workhouse he used to rule over. By presenting this twist of fate, Dickens show what he thinks justice would be. By ending Mr. Bumble’s role in the story in this way, Dickens implies that the horror that has been placed upon these vulnerable children will come back to haunt those that enforced the cruel treatments. This also includes the bystanders who did nothing to help. I cannot imagine a more just ending for Mr. Bumble’s storyline as it perfectly places him with what he deserves.

Mr. Bumble’s fate is a bit harsher than Scrooge’s fate, but this is because of Mr. Bumble being unable to realize the truth about the poor. Scrooge is able to change his stance when faced with the suffering children and help part of the poor population, while Mr. Bumble continues to agonize the children. Both “A Christmas Carol” and Oliver Twist work to present the mistreatment of the poor and illustrate the role of upper class ignorance in the injustices.