How far did Dickens exaggerate the horror of the workhouses in his book “Oliver Twist” in order to up the dramatic tension and thus better the popularity of the novel.
Charles Dickens had already built his reputation as a hard hitting journalist and novel writer whose books were considered to portray an accurate depiction of contemporary real life when Oliver Twist was published.
The following will discuss whether Charles Dickens did exaggerate the horrors of the workhouses in Oliver Twist to up the dramatic tension or any other reasons. The motivations behind any such exaggeration will also be discussed. Was Charles Dickens motivated by greed, the need and desire for fame or by the urge to use his books to change life for the better? There are arguments that can be made in support of all of those possible motivations. A conclusion will be presented that will best reflect the motivation behind the book and whether Charles Dickens did exaggerate the horror of the workhouses to up the sales of Oliver Twist. Workhouses had originally started up under the terms of the Poor Law Act of 1601 to provide care for the physically and mentally disabled. Their already bad reputation was worsened after their expansion following the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 (Crystal, 2003, p. 733). Instead of keeping families together as the old legislation had done the new Act separated families and made conditions as unsavory as possible. Workhouses were supposed to be awful places to live in to deter people from having to resort to living in them. Workhouses were designed to save ratepayers money not to keep families together (Walker, 1999, p.8).
Firstly this may seem an obvious point to make but any author would wish to make their books as readable as possible. An unreadable book is not going to sell enough copies to make its author profits, fame or allow them to launch moral crusades. Dickens learnt his trade as a journalist and at the time Oliver Twist was written it was usual to publish novels in monthly installments or supplements. Thus it would have paid to exaggerate the horror of the workhouses to ensure that as many people as possible brought every installment of Oliver Twist (Crystal, 2003, p. 268). Dickens’ style across all his books and novels starting with Oliver Twist tended towards excessiveness and perhaps even exaggeration. Even if all his works were based on hard facts and actual people or places, his style made his work full of “melodrama or pantomime.”
Oliver Twist can sometimes seem a little far-fetched, for instance when he asked for more food and gets punished for doing so, or been involved with a gang of pick pockets (Connor, 1996, p.1). Surely most workhouses were not full of people whose inheritances were stolen from them, though workhouse boards were not the most caring they surely would not have allowed criminals such as Sikes or Fagin near the workhouses, though he actually met them before he escaped (Walker, 1999, p. 12). Dickens writing style therefore could be regarded as either exaggerating the horror of the workhouses in Oliver Twist to raise his book sales or raise the moral issues that he believed in. Dickens wrote Oliver Twist as a journalist rather than a novelist would (Hobsbawm, 1975, p.301). If one takes a cynical view of Dickens motivations then the former argument could be used. By making the situation in the workhouses seem worse than it really was certainly did the sales figures for Oliver Twist no harm at all, and the added tension meant that the book was a dramatic tale of good conquering evil. Sales from Oliver Twist and his later books gave Dickens an annual income of at least £10,000 for much of the 1850s and 1860s (Hobsbawm, 1975, p. 284). Dickens was certainly regarded by some as been over sentimental if not exaggerating the horror of the workhouses. Even the writer, poet and painter John Ruskin thought that Dickens was prone to exaggerate to make his points in Oliver Twist. There were not for instance usually murders linked to workhouse inmates or criminals connected to them (Rogers, 2001, p. 342).
On the other hand, Dickens could have claimed to have a selfless motivation for writing Oliver Twist, to reform the worst workhouses. Dickens as already mentioned gave his books moral meanings or hoped they would further advance the social causes he believed in. Therefore if he did exaggerate the horror of the workhouses it was to make them better or urge the government to find an alternative system. Dickens was a novelist if he wanted people to heed his opinions or good causes then Oliver Twist had to be entertaining and full of suspense. Dickens was concerned with reversing the selfishness that contemporary capitalism seemed to be promoting, the riches of the capitalist classes compared to the poverty of those in the workhouses. These factory owners and landlords were amongst the ratepayers that regarded the workhouses as a good way of reducing their rates (Hobsbawm, 1962, p. 187). Dickens was aware of the devastating effects that poverty could have on family life. His own father had gone into the debtors at Marshalsea prison for non-payment of debts along with his mother and some of his siblings. Dickens was forced to work in a factory in harsh conditions. These experiences explain Oliver Twist also raising the issue of child labour and apprenticeships (Gardiner and Wenborn, 1995, p. 234). Although this had been prior to the expansion of the workhouse system he fully understood the pain, the stigma and poor conditions linked with the workhouses (Walker, 1999, p. 9). With the break up of families the first consequence of having to receive meagre help from the workforce the system reminded its opponents and the poor of debtors prisons. That of course had been the intention of those that altered the law in 1834, the emerging capitalist classes that made it rich through hard work and resented paying rates to support those that could not or would not work. Those that were unlucky enough to reside in the detested ‘Bastilles’ were made to look like prisoners and were treated just as badly. In many ways the rich regarded the poor as criminals rather than people who needed help. The moral of Oliver Twist is that is the poor are treated fairly they can keep away from crime and become productive members of society (Schama, 2002, p.180). Throughout Oliver Twist, Dickens unlike Oliver himself shows his knowledge of both London and workhouses. The stark choice between taking your chances in the uncaring dangerous slums of London with the risk of becoming involved in crime or enduring the equally uncaring prison like workhouse is apparent through the book (Walker, 1999, p. 21).
There were frequently complaints and even scandals about the horrors that could be found in the workhouses. Anybody that thought Dickens was exaggerating the horrors of the workhouses to up the popularity of Oliver Twist did only needed to visit a workhouse to see he was not exaggerating. The most notorious scandal was the Andover Scandal that broke in 1845. The board at the Andover workhouse proved so mean with the food rations for the inmates that many were on the point of starvation and resorted to eating bone marrow (Gardiner and Wenborn, 1995, p. 23). Perhaps a more typical workhouse was Brixworth that opened in 1837 at a cost of £5,800 and remained open until the 1930s. Families were rigorously separated, had all their money confiscated on entry and made to wear uniforms and only received meagre rations. The ratepayers were not concerned about the harsh conditions as the cost of providing poor relief fell from its 1835 level of £11,388 or £0 18s-3d for each person that received it. By 1902 that level had fallen to 5s for single people and 7s for married couples whilst the workhouse took in people from a wider area. There were frequent complaints about the lack of care at Brixworth especially for children and the majority of adults although the elderly were treated less harshly
(Brixworth History Society, 1994).
Thus although convincing arguments can be made that Dickens exaggerated some of the horror of the workhouses in Oliver Twist it would be wrong to portray some of these horrors as not existing. It would also be mistaken to believe Dickens exaggerated the horrors just to sell more copies of Oliver Twist and enhance its popularity. Dickens was prone to exaggerate as it was part of his style, his journalistic background, to make his moral causes known and the wish to Oliver Twist made into a play. Though contemporaries such as John Ruskin accused Dickens of exaggeration they did not accuse him of doing so to make money from greater book sales. For many people that entered the workhouses it broke up their families to give them minimal assistance at the cost of their freedom and self-respect. Some workhouses were worse than others were but the shame of having to go into them was the real horror for the poor. Dickens had a great deal of sympathy for the poor resulting from his own family’s experience of poverty. Oliver Twist was used by Dickens to show his opposition to workhouses, for their complete abolition or reform to be as humane as possible. The portrayal of workhouses in Oliver Twist can be regarded as a realistic picture of the despair that the people forced into them must have felt. People liked the book not because it was entertaining but because Dickens seemed to be on their side. As the figures from Brixworth clearly show workhouse were only to save money from the previous system of out relief. The more inhospitable the workhouse the more money ratepayers saved and the greater the horror of having to exist in one. The terrible conditions at the Andover even resulted in a national scandal. Dickens included moral elements to all his books and not just Oliver Twist, he did not have as his reputation as a storyteller meant they would sell well anyway.
Bibliography
Brixworth History Society (1994) Brixworth Union Workhouse 1837 taken from www.brixworthhistory.org/archive/text_archive/workhouse.htm
Connor, S (1996) Longman Critical Studies – Charles Dickens, Longman, London and New York
Crystal, D (2003) The Penguin Concise Encyclopedia, Penguin Group, London
Gardiner, J. & Wenborn, N (1995) The History Today Companion To British History, Collins & Brown Limited, London.
Hobsbawm, E (1962) – The Age of Revolution 1789-1848, Weidenfeld & Nicholson
Hobsbawm, E (1975) -The Age of Capital 1848-1875, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London
Rogers, P (2001) The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature, Oxford University Press
Schama, S (2002) A History of Britain 3 – the End of Empire 1776-2000, BBC, London
Walker, M J (1999) York Notes – Oliver Twist, Pearson Education, London
