The Victorian Age was a period of incredible social, economic and political transformation in Britain. Two of the most powerful authors during this period were Charles Dickens (1812-1870) and Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892). The two authors employed their literary works to highlight pressing communal matters and advocate for reform. Both writers skillfully wielded emotive language, vivid imagery and applicable characters to contend for communal progress by employing diverse styles and genres.
Charles Dickens: Exposing Unfairness through Realism
He channeled his hard individual involvements and keen remarks of Victorian London into his novels and journalistic literature. He was intensely conscious of the rampant poverty plaguing England’s cities having spent part of his youth working in a blacking factory while his father was in debtor’s prison. His narrative spotlights those overlooked by civilization such as orphans, people in need and offenders while criticizing institutions like debtor’s prisons, immoral legal practices and inhumane education structures.
His anxious childhood offered first-hand knowledge of the fights of the less fortunate in Victorian civilization. Working ten-hour days in Warren’s Blacking Factory to assist and support his family after his father was in prison for debt exposed the dark authenticities of child labor’s unfair practices (Patten 18). He expanded profound empathy for the disregarded lower classes and a determination to shed light on their plight between this and visiting his family in the Marshalsea prison. The notion fueled his undertaking of communal reform through literature.
Social criticism is one of the most important components of Dickens’s writing demonstrated in such well-known works as “Oliver Twist” for which the author used pathos and logos to stun the readers (McClure para. 2). The way he applied his skill of words in a way that showed so many emotions in such a wretch upbringing of orphan children in a ruthless toil house system left no one but him as the only one with the best argument that child labor rule and care of individuals with low incomes ought to be reformed. Dickens, the master storyteller, plays on people’s emotions through his penetrating descriptions, which carry a gloomy picture of the poor child Oliver’s misery, injury, depression, and extreme loneliness as a child laborer (Gritsch 1). At the same time, Dickens challenges the book’s audience to think intensely about the system that has failed the impoverished youth in the answers and solutions to this problem.
Similar to his other work, told in portions, “The Pickwick Papers” used to expose a horrifying condition when debtors were incarcerated in jails where public ire and anger were fueled by him, which ultimately contributed to the reforms (Holdway and Emma 47). He exposed human misery and injustice to those unable to repay their debts despite the rational and feasible ideas for change. He did this through the sensational portrayal of Illegal Interest and House of Debt which comprises characters with in-depth realism.
Beyond revealing communal problems, he offered concrete solutions, engaging ethos and logos to strengthen his credibility. His journalistic literature in “Household Words” and “All The Year Round” addressed sanitation, public health, education and labor circumstances. It was done while advocating for precise reforms like embankments along the polluted Thames and an end to public executions. Blending captivating tales with reasoned arguments, he applied policies to remedy urban issues, establishing himself as a skilled voice for transformation. Dickens created compelling arguments for legal, political and communal reform through his unique brand of communally aware fiction. His applicable characters and masterful manipulation of pathos gave voices to the disregarded while his grasp of facts and proposed policies tapped logic and ethics to sway the reading community toward supporting tangible enhancements for the underprivileged.
Lord Tennyson: Exploring Communal Transformation through Poetry
While Dickens commented on modern Victorian matters through realist fiction, Lord Tennyson regularly couched communal criticism within symbolic and romantic poetry. He became one of the most widespread poets of the age because he was appointed Poet Laureate in 1850. He was recognized for works like “The Charge of the Light Brigade” honoring British soldiers in the Crimean Combat. But he also discovered many communal matters percolating during the 19th era by infusing his verses with layered metaphors and emotionally resonant dialects. For example, in the celebrated poem “The Lady of Shalott,” he uses the iconic image of Camelot to criticize the inadequate social role of women in Victorian Britain. It goes “’ The curse is upon me!’ cried / woman in shallot. Once in Camelot, she dies tragically lamenting: “Who will use / A weak girl among sadistic men? Through this lyrical ballad, he employs emotive dialectal and mythic allegory to poignantly exemplify Victorian women’s real deficiency of identity and prospects beyond marriage and motherhood. The Lady’s primary defiance indicate her longing for purpose and autonomy beyond the domestic sphere she is limited within. However, her subsequent destruction highlights both the communal isolation women met in trying to break conventions and the harsh penalties perceived to await those who dared to discard such entrenched cultural roles. The message confidently resonated with his largely middle- and upper-class readership, which appreciated relatively privileged status along with doubts that called for female empowerment to be vulnerable to their communal position.
Messages about the effects of industrialization also pervade works like “Locksley Hall” and “Ulysses.” He surveys how class splits are widened by economic forces like industrialization threatening communal mores like marriage prospects being determined solely by affection. The agricultural worker’s alienation and loss of agency in keeping the woman he loves speaks to broader societal angst about how traditional ways of life were being eroded.
An equivalence of this mentality is a previous purpose of the ‘Ulysses’ referenced by classical elements. The heroic title character mirrors his advanced age and yearns to seek new quests, crying, “Death closes all: Yet while time is almost spent / Some deed or word of honor may be done”. Such concerns connected to the loss of world values amidst urbanized civilization and their moral foundations are touched upon by the speaker of this poem in an exceptionally melancholic way. The poem explores the theme of meaning in a time when the modernization process has changed the view of identity as traditional systems that anchored it fade. Through the rich language and metaphor, he subtly embodied the torments that, together with tradition, harried the thinking in society at that time. He generally recommended tradition; however, some words reflected the attractions and the invariability of progress which changed the social structure and the way of life.
In conclusion, despite their very different styles, Charles Dickens and Alfred, Lord Tennyson produced extremely influential works that resonated with the Victorian public while arguing for reform. Dickens combined ruthless social exposés with concrete advocacy grounded in reason and ethics. By directly addressing contemporary ills through emotionally compelling yet fact-driven stories, he made a forceful case for legal and social changes to remedy injustices against the disadvantaged. Meanwhile, Tennyson cloaked contemplation about contentious issues like women’s rights and industrialization within lyrical symbolism that stimulated readers’ emotions and morals. His mastery of metaphor allowed commentary on the angst and complexity of social change in an era of unprecedented modernization. Both writers expertly blended fact and feeling, reality and lyricism to encapsulate the zeitgeist of 19th-century Britain. Their enduring popularity proves how powerfully they chronicled – and shaped – Victorian mores through their resonant messages about the costs and promise of progress.
Work Cited
Patten, Robert L. Dickens, Death, and Christmas. Oxford University Press, 2023.
McClure, Rebecca ES. A state of poverty: Critical realism of socio-economic problems in the works of Charles Dickens. BS thesis. uis, 2023.
Gritsch, Trudy Rubick. THE BRONTËS AND DICKENS: 19TH CENTURY VOICES ON ENVIRONMENTAL HARDSHIP IN ENGLAND. Diss. The Evergreen State College, 2020.
Holdway, Katie, and Emma Genvieve Hills. “Reform in the Long-Nineteenth Century.” Romance, Revolution and Reform 3 (2021).
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