How Charles Dickens’ Life Influenced Oliver Twist Essay -- essays pape

How Charles Dickens’ Life Influenced Oliver Twist â€Å"The range of his creative activity is, in the first place, limited to the world of his youth† (Cecil 169). This quote explains many people. What has previously happened to a person has a tremendous impact on them. It can affect their decisions, emotions, and life. The life of a person can sometimes be seen quite easily through what they do. Artists often reveal what their life has been like through the works that they create. The same can be said about writers. Events in authors past often show up in his works. The above quote is, in fact, made in regard to Charles Dickens. Dickens had several real life experiences of poverty and abandonment in his life that influenced his work, Oliver Twist. The times of poverty and abandonment in Charles Dickens’ life instilled a political belief in Dickens’ mind against the new poor laws of Great Britain. Dickens’ felt the new poor laws victimized the poor, failed to give the poor a voice, and were in need of change. These points are shown in Oliver Twist through the characters, scenes, and narration Dickens’ uses throughout the book. Dickens lived a life full of events that would later influence his novels. Dickens grew up during a time of change for Great Britain. By the time he was born in 1812, the Industrial Revolution was in full force. Dickens grew up as a normal middle-class child in Portsmouth, Great Britain. It was around the age of twelve that his life took a drastic turn. Dickens was still a child when his father was imprisoned for debt. Families, at this time, lived with the father in prison. Charles did not live in prison, though. Instead, he was sent to live alone and become a laborer at Warren’s Blacking Facto... ...r Twist† The Immortal Dickens. London, 1925. 63-87. Rpt in Oliver Twist. Ed. Fred Kaplan. New York: Norton & Company, 1993. Skim Greene, Graham. â€Å"The Young Dickens.† Collected Essays. 1969. Rpt. in Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 3. Ed. Laurie L. Harris. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1983. Pg. 176. MacKenzie, Jeanne. Dickens, A Life. USA: British Library Cataloguing in Publication, 1979. Skim. Murray, Brian. Charles Dickens. New York: Continuum, 1994. Skim Paroissien, David. Letter to Noah Laible, 15 Feb 2000. Taine, Hippolyte A. History of English Literature, Vol 4. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1965. Pg. 117-163. Wall, Stephan. â€Å"The Letters of Charles Dickens, 1856-1858.† Essays in Criticism 47.1 (1997): 78-87. Wills, Garry. â€Å"Love in the lower depths.† The New York Review of Books 26 Oct 1989: 60-68.