Tuesday, April 3, 2007
David Copperfield Question #6
Dickens' novel is a novel of social commentary. He criticizes such social conditions as the school system (you discussed this in a previous response), the work conditions (especially child labor), the prison system, etc. Provide examples of the problems regarding working conditions in the Victorian Age. Use quotations.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Dickens’s family suffered because of debtors’ prisons. So, Dickens needed to throw in a bit of logical reason as to why debtors’ prisons are stupid. Mrs. Micawber says “blood cannot be obtained from a stone; neither can anything on account be obtained at present from Mr. Micawber.” As for child labor, Dickens seems to describe that working in the factory crushed the spirit and destroyed the dreams of David. This is demonstrated with these powerful words in chapter XI. “No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood…and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man crushed within my bosom” (143). Before that David describes the condition of the factory itself “It’s paneled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, dare I say; it’s decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; the dirt and the rottenness of the place. Are thing, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant”(142). The conditions were so bad that even looking back that short time he worked there stands out and is vivid in his mind.
Dickens specifically criticizes the prison system especially the ones where debtors were held. I believe that he does this because his own father was held many times in one. David becomes close friends with Mr. Micawber. The fact that Mr. Micawber’s problems with debt are transferred to David when he repeatedly asks him for money. David states that, “Mr. Micawber's difficulties were an addition to the distressed state of my mind. In my forlorn state I became quite attached to the family, and used to walk about, busy with Mrs. Micawber's calculations of ways and means, and heavy with the weight of Mr. Micawber's debts. (150)” Dickens is also critical of child labor when he has David work in the wine factory. He states, “No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood…and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man crushed within my bosom” (143). Many of his hopes and dreams began to diminish after he began working in the factory. David “mingled [his] tears with the water in which he was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in his own breast, and it were in danger of bursting.(143-144)” The idea of child labor greatly troubled Dickens.
When David goes to work for Murdstone and Grinby, we can clearly see the poor working conditions of the time. David describes the state of the workers very clearly saying, “It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its paneled rooms, discoloured with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years..the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars.” (144) Clearly these are poor working conditions, and the state of the workers is not much better. David talks about his fellow workers. Mick Waller, “wore a ragged apron and paper cap.” (145) David’s fellow workers are all in poverty who barely make enough to buy clothes.
Speaking of wages, even in respectable jobs, there was still triviality. I thought it was really weird how David never got paid for his job as a lawyer. I would think that even as an intern David would make some kind of salary so he could start paying off the debt he owed the school. Dickens criticizes this don’t-spend-anymore-than-you-need mentality when David takes his new job as a lawyer, saying that, “if a clerk wanted his salary raised, Mr. Jorkins wouldn’t listen to such a proposition,” (330) and, that, “The heart and hand of the good angel Spenlow would have always been open if not for the restraining demon Jorkins.” (330) David then notes that he has, “had experience of some other houses doing business on the principles of Spenlow and Jorkins.” (330)
Workers had it hard. For manual labor, they were subject to poor working conditions, and even in more esteemed jobs like law they found it hard to make a decent pay. It certainly didn’t help that if you couldn’t pay debts you were thrown into debtors prison like Mr. Micawber where you are unable to work to earn money to pay off those debts. Dickens is very critical of this entire system throughout the whole novel.
♥Working conditions must have been harsh in the Victorian Age, since this story is basically an autobiography of Dicken’s life. We know from Dicken’s autobiographical information that he detested working as a child, and the reason is because he had to work is such repulsive conditions. Cleaning and pasting labels on bottles is tedious enough, and to do it in the conditions that David does it in is terrible. The warehouse that he worked at was decaying and infested with rates; the walls are covered in dirt and smoke (144-145). The pay was poor, and grown men that worked with David could not afford to buy necessities such as clothing. They showed up in filthy clothing, because they could not afford anything better. David only made a mere six shillings a week. Obviously, people did not stand up to these injustices, so the problems are never resolved in this novel.
First of all Creakle’s school the children are treated poorly. They are threatened and beaten. Fear and pain are used as means of control. Cattle are treated better than these children. Secondly the poor are sent to debtor’s prison. In the debtors prison Micawber becomes a hero to the other prisoners and he calls for the end of the prison and the debts to be dissolved. David was worried about the debts Mr. Micawber had. “Mr. Micawber's difficulties were an addition to the distressed state of my mind. In my forlorn state I became quite attached to the family, and used to walk about, busy with Mrs. Micawber's calculations of ways and means, and heavy with the weight of Mr. Micawber's debts.” The work conditions for David are poor too. When he works at the wine bottling factory he works long hours for little pay. “Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week.” The workers there are all uneducated and lower class. He also lives mostly on bread.
Dickens was not very forgiving when it came to subjects that negatively affected him in his youth. David's first school was a torment. Mr. Creakle's preamble to David's first half at Salem House is "Now, boys, this is a new half. Take care what you're about, in this new half. Come fresh up to the lessons, I advise you, for I come fresh up to the punishment. I won't flinch. It will be of no use your rubbing yourselves; you won't rub the marks out that I shall give you. Now get to work, every boy!"
Dickens had to work at a young age to support his family. David comments on "the dirt and the rottenness of the place" where he works and says how he "sunk into this companionship". There are no redeeming adjectives used on Copperfield's workplace.
David experiences first-hand (like Dickens does) the pain and agony of the debtor's prison. His pity is expressed in his reaching out for Mr. Micawber as he is sent to prison for unsettled debts.
The social commentary in David Copperfield is not shy to show the true feelings of the author. Dickens comments on the school systems like the Salem House where “Half the establishment was writhing and crying, before the day’s work had begun; and how much of it had writhed and cried before the day’s work was over” (82). David Copperfield has to experience the violent nature of the Salem House where a morally poor Mr. Creakle runs the show. A more grueling experience for David Copperfield was when he was forced to get a job as a wine-bottler. The conditions were terrible, as David recalls his poor pay (“a salary, I think, of six shillings a week” (150), poor food (“which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump” (150), and overall poor experience where David could not say a word to anyone about his problems (How much I suffered, it is, as I have said already, utterly beyond my power to tell. But I kept my own counsel, and I did my work” (150). The prison system that Dickens disagrees with is the debtor’s prison in which Mr. Micawber gets thrown into. David questions what the point of it is with Mrs. Micawber and ultimately, at the end of the novel, Mr. Creakle discusses with David and Traddles what the real purpose of prison is (as Uriah Heep gets the lovely experience of experimenting what Mr. Creakle finds as imprisonment) is to improve the prisoner.
“No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood-not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man crushed in my bosom.” (143) These words express David’s feelings as he starts to work at Murdstone’s wine-bottling company. Dickens himself was forced to work as a child so he knows first hand how it feels, and these feelings are more than likely carried over to his writings. Child labor was pretty prevalent back in the day and seen as quite acceptable although it did some damage to the kids who were forced to work; one can tell from Dickens’ works, that he was less than enthused about the idea of working as a child.
Post a Comment