Dicken’s social criticism is essentially moral criticism. Discuss with reference to ‘Oliver Twist’.

We witness Charles Dickens as a radical or a social reformer The zeal of social reform can be seen in his whole literary work. He was one of those persons who aimed to bring about rapid and radical changes to give liberty and express the sentiments of the majority of people. His novels played an important role in moulding the public opinion and in bringing about reform which were actually achieved in his time. He attacked bitterly on the evil social practices of his time. The social criticism in his later novels became increasingly bitter with his own growing disillusionment about the behaviour of human beings. Though he was not in position even to suggest any cure for the social evils of his time but he exposed them well through his novels. He never hesitated to attack bitterly in his novels on social evils.

In ‘Oliver Twist‘ also he had maintained the same spirit of social reform. He exposed and criticised well the mismanagement and inhumane conditions of orphan houses of his age. He tried to attack on moral values of the people of society as well as the supervisors of orphan houses. The consciousness of defeat in what he conceived as a personal struggle with society simply because he had also faced very inhumane and inhygenic conditions of workhouse where he had to work when his father had to go to jail and his mother had also gone to jail to live with his father as it was permissible by law those days. When Oliver Twist had to go work with Mr. Sowesberry, a coffins maker, Dickens had exposed well the inhumane conditions of the house of Mr. Sowesberry. He criticised well the treatment had to face Oliver there.

In Oliver Twist, he criticises the work-homes and the entire system of poor relief but forgets the good that those institutions were doing. His range is not very wide, he paints only lower class of London life. But within these limits, he is a very accurate painter of social conditions of his time.