Name: AASHREY SATIJA

Roll No.: 18BLE001

Q. DAVID COPPERFIELD AND HIS REPRESENTATION OF THE VICTORIAN
ERA.

One of the Charles Dickens best works ‘David Copperfield’ is based in the Victorian
Era. Dickens had tried to explain the condition of people during those times through a
lot of instances in the book. The social structure back in those days is the complete
format of relationship between the society and social institutions which very well
explains the situation of people back in those days. During the times when Dickens
wrote, London was undergoing the Industrial revolution, which happened to be an
excellent time for the growth of the manufacturing industry but it all brought a lot of
problems like financial instability, employment of child labour, new ways of female
suppression.etc This ended up creating a huge social gap between the labour class
and the ruling class.

David Copperfield is set up in London of the victorian times. The industrial

revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth century is known to have changed the face
of London, where massive developments took place in the industrial sectors and
capitalists made a huge fortune out of it. A lot of the factors progressed during this
time with one very big failure that the gap between rich and poor widened. As a result
more and more people moved to the cities in the search of work which this new
technological advancement promised. This ended up in overcrowding of the cities
with poor living condition for its residents. Problems like disease, toxic industrial
pollution, poverty.etc came along with these.

Since the industrial revolution was so new in the beginning of the eighteenth century,
there were no initial laws to direct new businesses. As a result, during the principal
period of the industrial revolution, between 1790-1850, British society turned into the
primary case of what occurs in nation when free market capitalism has no constrain,
As Garfield describes it, Industrial revolution came with intense social unrest.

Charles Dickens has used the presence of a lot of characters of the Victorian Society
to portray the cruelty and corrupt nature of the ruling class back in those days. The
Victorian Society was very discriminatory on the basis of social class during those
days. It was differentiated on the basis of richness and poverty. David Copperfield
and characters like Mr. Micawber belonged to the poor sections of the society
whereas the Steerforth family belonged to the riches. The author sounds highly
annoyed with the situation of those times where wealth and class was valued higher
than a person’s existence. The author shows his disturbance portraying the lifestyle of
high and low class people in the Victorian Society.

Poverty is one of the most crucial factors for understanding the struggle and situation
of classes of people in the Victorian times. As the manufacturing industry grew,
manufacturing of good started happening at low prices, which brought in low wages
and a lot of families ended up in poverty. This situation demanded labour work from
 Name: AASHREY SATIJA
Roll No.: 18BLE001
more than one member of the family. Even kids were forced to work in equally bad
and sometimes worse conditions and this prevented them from proper healthy living
conditions, education seems secondary.

This was also the time when health conditions were horrible and diseases ran
rampant. Majority of these problems came up due to unhealthy water available for
consumption. All the sanitation and industry waste was being dumped into the
Thames River which was one of the main sources of drinking water. Also, the
machinery being used in the manufacturing industry during those times was not very
safe and no health insurance for the labours then made it a difficult survival situation
for the labours who went through an accident.

Another distasteful happening of those times was suppression of females in the

family. There were weird and undue expectations from them as a result of toxic
patriarchy. They were expected to be perfect housewives, exceedingly loyal to the
husbands, also had to work to support their families. They were not expected to cast
their voices or opinions in any situation. Usually their work was also limited to the
domestic household sectors.

The society was based on the huge differences of basic survival needs where the
riches were living a luxury life and had no problems like food and shelter whereas the
poor were having a difficult time surviving. The author expresses how the poor were
barely able to make their ends meet and were always unhappy due to extremely low
wages. David Copperfield started working at a very young age, and had to go through
a lot of hardships just because he was poor.

All the books by Charles Dickens have a bit of autobiographical element and so does
David Copperfield. Dickens grew up been seeing the indifferent and cruelty of the
riches in London during those times. This kind of amused him but he was also very
disturbed and sad to see the situation of poor; the ignorance; the hunger and the
cruelty towards them. Though his own energy and exceptional talent, Dickens rose
from poverty, first as a journalist and then as a novelist yet he never turned aside
from the poverty about him. Dickens always believed poverty to be the core problem
of struggles between the classes in the society.

Dickens was against the nepotistic idea in the society. He believed that the family
plays a very vital role in deciding that what kind of a live will a person live.
Somebody who’s born in a rich family unknowingly skips a lot of struggles which a
child born in a poor family would face for basic things like food and shelter. A child
born in the rich family automatically gets entitled to better living conditions in every
aspect of life like education, social intercourses and treatment in the society.

Charles has criticised this through the characters in his book like giving the negative
character to a high class born character, Steerforth. Steerforth is portrayed to be a liar,
 Name: AASHREY SATIJA
Roll No.: 18BLE001
and a deceptive man whereas poor characters like Mr Peggoty and Ham are shown as
honest and helpful.

The Victorian Age had its Hollywood glamour, with its seasons of extravagance and
richness in apparel, architecture, food, etc. In any case, behind the privileged thriving
were many families who were enduring or mistreated, and this was a principle reason
that Charles Dickens composed. He was uncovering genuine social and social issues,
not only charming individual accounts of adoration and misfortune. Dickens
contacted nerves all over; he has been adored and worshipped by a large number of
perusers, both in his nation of origin and abroad, in all times.