The
childhood according to Dickens´novels
We can define
the event called ´Industrial Revolution´ as the period
between 1780 and 1850 approximately.
It started in England, and it caused
not only the great development of the
industry and the large –scale market, but also
the promoting of a great consumption and the change of the structure of the society.
Due to the
disappearance of the old system of government at the end of the eighteenth century, it was
promoted the general idea of equality among
all the mankind, but this idea was only a theoretical one, because there were still
differences about fortune and culture. Among the new industrial society we can find that
there were some well-defined upper classes, the old aristocracy, which still kept their
properties, and the burgeosie, which began to control the industry and the capital. In
isolation, there was a social class called ´little burgeosie´, whose members had liberal
professions (teachers, lawyers, doctors, etc). In the most lower level there were the
less-favoured classes: the peasants and the proletarians. The situation of the last one
was a situation of pauperism, and it
involved to the children, as we will analize later on.
As far as
regard to the literary aspect in the Industrial Revolution´s context we can say that in
1847 there was a renewal in novel, due to the works of Charles Dickens, the Brönte
sisters, Mrs.Gaskell, and other authors. The novel of this period can be classificated in
two groups: the first one belongs to the novels that we know as ´Silver-Fork School´,
and they describe the life of the upper classes, and the second one called ´Newgate Novels´, that describe the life in
suburbs.
It is
important to say that there was an important change about the characters´relevance in
novel. In the new novel, the old secondary characters passed to be the heroes. So now we
can see proletarians and revolutionaries as
main characters.
It is
surprising the importance of the children in the novel of the nineteeth century. The childhood of the characters is fundamental in
this kind of literature. The child of the victorian novel appears as victim inside the
family, the constitutional organs of the soverain power and the educative system. We have
to distinguish between the child who lives with his/her parents, and the child who lives
with his/her stepmother, stepfather, aunt, oncle or other person who plays the
parents´role in the bringing up or education of the child.
In some
novels the child suffers from the affective abandon
of the parents, even when they are living with the child.
Historically,
the economic exploitation of children is something usual in the nineteeth century
industrial society, so in literature there are cases in which we can see parents who exploit their children.
Dickens is
the writer who presents more frequently unsatisfactory parents in one aspect or another
(for example the character of Grandgrind in ´Hard Times´). The characters of parents in
Dickens´novels usually belong to lower classes (as we can see in the character of
Mrs.Rouncewell in ´Bleak House´). Likewise it is frequent to see a large number of dead
or unknown parents´substitutes. This could be the case of Miss Barbary, Esther
Sommerson´s aunt in ´Bleak House´. As it seems the child is a common victim of cruelty,
religious fanatism or substitute mother´s resentment.
About this aspect of resentment to children there
is a thrilling image of the relation between the religious fanatism, obsessed with the
concepts of ´sin´and ´hell´, and the sexual envy, when the repressive attitude of the
adults find its goal in children comming from spontaneous and joyful unions, in which
represive people have no influence.
The suffering
of children in the nineteeth century novels was situated very seldom in the places where
they worked (like factories, mines, etc), where the pain for them was bigger. The only
exception to this seems to be written in the called Índustrial Novels´, but in them the
work of children does not appear clearly.
To describe
the lacks of poor children, Dickens writes about the absolute ignorance which involved
them, but rich children did not have any privilege. Their experiences have usually a
negative aspect in the victorian novel. So then, the victorian writers hardly criticized
the educative system, not as a general system of education for the whole population, but
for a minority in the called ´public schools´ or with particular teachers. Likewise
writers as Dickens criticised the excessive importance of subjects as greek or latin. For
example, Dickens in ´Bleak House´ explains that if Richard Carstone, one of the
characters of the novel, should has dedicated less time in the school to compose latin
verses, he should has a better preparation for a good employment.
In a general
way we can say that the nineteeth century educational system was an arid and pedantic
system, totally indifferent to the child´s affective necessities, and to the development
of his/her imagination. This kind of education
belonged to children of upper-classes. Poor children used to live in a uneducated
environment because they had to work to bring home a short salary.
Finally, it
is curious to see in victorian novels how rich and poor children in such situations do not
show signs of rebelliousness. Dickens offers some aspects of this mildness in his novels.
This work has
treated to show the different aspects that involved the childhood of the nineteeth
century. I have chosen this topic not only for the personal interest I have for the
Industrial Revolution, but also because I think that it is very important for the latter
development of society the treatment of
children.
To do this work
I did a brief historical introduction to situate the context, and after that I did the
work itself. My goal was to analize the nineteeth century children through
Dickens´novels, because Charles Dickens offers a large quantity of shows of the nineteeth
century childhood´s life. So Dickens is an accurate testimony of that.
Doing a
revision of this work I find some lacks or mistakes. Firstly I think I have chosen a very
extensive topic, not suitable to sum up in a few paragraphs. In my opinion I confined
myself to analize what I have read in the Dickens´novels ´Bleak House´and ´Hard
Times´, and to give suitables examples about that. Likewise I decided to do links for
novels´examples to make easy the reading of the work and offer to the reader the choice
of the most interesant aspects for him/her.
The global
opinion of my work is that it offers a very general vision of the topic,althouh I have
treated to reduce to the minimum the historical aspects.