‘The Condition of England’ – Carlyle and Dickens
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Give
a brief account of the condition of England in the Victorian Period as
reflected in the works of Carlyle and Dickens.
Or
Discuss
the Social condition of Industrial England with special reference to Thomas
Carlyle and Charles Dickens.
Answer:-
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas
Carlyle was the profit© of his age and represented the social,
economic and political life of his times, from the view point a philosopher. He
was a translator, historian of the French Revolution who started a public
discovers about the Condition of England Society, in the time of the Industrial
Revolution. His works show the condition of England in the late part of reign
of Queen Victoria. He was highly dissatisfied with the material glory and power
and pelf of the captaliusta carlylists. Carlyle was the most widely respected
Victorian poet and social critic. He wrote political satires and fiction
through which he projected the social evils of that period with a hope to
reform it. Carlyle was an individualist who identified the modern technical
civilization with the gradual lost of individual freedom. He criticized both
the feudal and capitalist systems in his works like, “Past and Present”.
“Later-Day Pamphlets”, “Sartor Resartus” and “Chartism’s”
The phrase “Condition of
England” was first used by Carlyle in “Chartism”. Which significantly
contributed to the emergence of a series of debates about the spiritual and
material foundation of England and it had a great effect on a number of writers
in the Victorian era and thereafter. Carlyle was concern with the “Two Nations
theme, the rich and the poor”. Likewise a number of Victorian Novelist
Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens and Charles Kingsley attended with varying
effect to look for the ways of reducing the gaps between this, “Two Nations”.
Carlyle contributed to the awakening of social conscience among the common
people and he under stood the social and political importance of capitalist. He
also inspires social reforms such as John Ruskin and William Morris through his
writings.
Carlyle criticized the
ethos of industrial revolution, which he believes was destroying human
individually. He expressed his distrust on the spirit of the mechanical age
which was manifested not only in the technical progress of English society but
also progress of English society but also creating an overwhelming feeling.
Carlyle wrote, “The king has virtually ablicated the Church is a widow, public
principle is gone, private honesty is going, society in short is in fact in
falling two pieces and a time of unmixed evil is came on us.” Carlyle had no
faith in democracy, which was for him the last work of political un-wisdom.
According to him the great masses need the guidance and leadership of the hero
or an able man and not by ballot boxes. In “Signs of the times” Carlyle warned
that the industrial revolution was turning people into mechanical human being
devoid of spirituality. Carlyle strongly criticized this mechanization of human
spirit and indicated the high moral costs of industrial change.
Thomas Carlyle always
wanted to change the society from his spiritual point of view. The “Two Nation
Theory” inspired the novelist to follow him to present the condition of England
in most realistic way. His criticism of the mechanical society produced a memorable
narrative in Charles Dickens novel “Hard Times”. So we can conclude that
Dickens and other Victorian novelist greatly indebted to Carlyle or his
prophetic thinking.
Dickens
Dickens
was not only the first great urban novelist in England but also one of the most
important social commentators who used fiction effectively to criticize
economy, social and moral abuses in Victorian era. Dickens showed completion
and sympathy towards the vulnerable and disadvantaged segments of English
society and contributed to several important social reforms. Dickens deep
social commitments and awareness of social evils are derived from his problematic
and pathetic childhood experience. In his adult life Dickens developed a strong
social consciousness and ability to emphasize with the victims of social and
economy industries. In a letter to his friend Dickens writes about the
importance of social commitments, “everything that happens shows beyond mistake
that you cannot shutout the world, that you are in it, to be of it, that you
get yourself into a false position the moment you try to server yourself from
it; that you must mingle with it and make the best of it.’
Dickens believed in the
ethical and political potential of literature. He treated his fiction as spring
board for moral and social reforms. In his novels of social analysis Dickens
became an outspoken critic of unyist economy and social condition of Victorian
society. Dickens contributed significantly to the emergence of public opinion
which was gaining and increasing influence on the decisions the authorities.
Indirectly he contributed to a series of legal reforms including the abolution
of the inhuman insprisonment for depts. Purification of the magistrates’ court,
a better management of criminal prisons and restriction of the capital
punishment.
Dickens raised his voice
against the social, political, economic and educational drawback of his time.
In “Oliver Twist” he exposed the Law’s delay and the corrupt system of election.
In ‘A tale of Two Cities” he projected the evils of caste system. In “Nicholas
Nickleby” he exposes the evils of Charity schools, torture of schoolmaster and
in “Hard Times”. Dickens reveals the inhuman attitude of the teachers of Manchester
school. Money is the main theme of nearby every book that dickens books. In
“David Copperfield” he ridicules the power of money. In “Dombey and Son”, the symbol
of money power is Mr. Dombey himself “Great Expectations” is another novel
dealing with the same theme. In “Pick wick Papers” Dickens created a utopian
and nostalgic vision of pre-Victorian and pre-industrialization.
Dicken was a great novelist
and he was by no means completely under the influence of Carlyle but he follows
Carlyle’s teachings when he exposed the evils of. Victorian society Dickens
successfully highlighted the deprived conditions and exploitations’ of lower
middle class society including class division, poverty, bad sanitation problems
of the orphan and the exploitation done on the labor class through the novels
of Dickens we can get a dark side of Victorian society and his novels also
showed a path to reform those social evils.
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