Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist critiques child labor in Victorian England. It depicts Oliver Twist, an orphan, being sold into child labor. Dickens draws from his own experience as a child laborer. The novel shows the detrimental effects of poverty that led children into difficult and hazardous work. It portrays the recruitment of children as criminals and presence of street children as consequences of child labor and contemporary social evils. Overall, the novel is a grim realistic and satirical depiction of how industrialization and poor laws negatively impacted children in 19th century England.

1. What are the detrimental effect of child labour?
Discuss Oliver Twist as a critique of child labour?
Name : Radha B. Ghevariya
Paper no : 6: The Victorian Age
Roll No. : 22
Sem : M.A (Sem:2)
Year : 2015
Submitted to : Smt. S.B . Gardi Development Of
English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar
University

2. Introduction
- Charles Dickens was an English Writer
and Social Critic.
-Born: 7, February,1812
-Died: 9 June , 1870
: Notable Works :
1)The Pickwick Paper
2) Oliver Twist
3)Great Expectation etc,…..

3. About Book
Historical
fiction
Social
criticism
Portrayal of
criminals

4. What are the detrimental effect of child labour?
Considerable differences exist
between the many kinds of work children do
some are difficult and demanding , other more
hazardous and even morally reprehensible
children carry out a very wide range of tasks
and activities when they work.

6. Poverty in Victorian England
In the 19th century , rapid changes in
employment , housing and social welfare
brought about a huge change in people’s
lives. The period of adjustment led to many
workers living in extreme poverty and even
dying on city streets of starvation in Victorian
times.

7. Oliver Twist as a Child Labour?
- Oliver Twist who had been orphan.
- who sold out a child labor.
- the recruitment of children as criminals,
and the presence of street children.
- The novel may have been inspired by the
story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose
account of hardships as a child labourer in a
cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s. It is
likely that Dickens's own early youth as a child
labourer contributed to the story's
development.

8. Oliver Twist as a Child Labour?
Oliver Twist , Charles Dickens gives the
reader an inside look at the shocking social
effect of poverty in Victorian England.
Dickens describes poverty as
“repulsive” and “loathsome”. He talks about
the slums themselves in Oliver Twist :
“ Every repulsive lineament of
poverty , every loathsome indication
of filth ,rot and garbage ;all these
ornament the banks of folly ditch”

9. In a Oliver Twist ,
Charles Dickens
indicates that child
labour was
another dreadful
factor of poverty.

10. Recruitment
of children
Presence of
street
children
Child labor
Contemporary
evil

11. Dickens later said,
“I know that , but
for the mercy of god
, I might easily have
been ….. A little
robber or a little
vagabond”

12. Conclusion
 In Oliver Twist, Dickens mixes grim
realism with merciless satire to
describe the effects of industrialism on
19th-century England and to criticize
the harsh new Poor Laws.
Oliver, an innocent child, is trapped
in a world where his only options seem
to be the workhouse, Fagin's gang, a
prison, or an early grave.