There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.
Charles Dickens¹
I’ve decided to start my essay with one of Dickens’ quotes in order to show that no matter when and where you live, in Victorian times or nowadays, there is always hope of light, better life and new achievements.
In Victorian era poverty, criminality, child labor, poor living conditions were the cause of hard life. That period was famous for the employment of children in different factories and mines. Dickens, being a child of twelve, worked in a blacking factory. Such children were getting dangerously ill and were dying at an early age. The crime was also increasing. Many children were involved in different criminal groups. Many people thought that the only solution of this problem was education. However, there were people who were against that idea. One of them was Henry Mayhew who insisted on that “…since crime was not caused by illiteracy, it could not be cured by education…”²
Another problem was the increasing number of orphans. Sometimes the orphans were taken by relatives or neighbors, as in the case of Oliver Twist, but very often the strangers would bring them up as their own children. In this case their life could be even worse.
That was the real picture of Victorian London- pick-pockets, beggars, homeless people, orphans and destitution. Dickens was the part of that very life. So speaking about Dickens we can’t but mention the autobiographical elements. “David Copperfield” is the most autobiographical of his novels.
But all these problems are actual nowadays. The fact that we live in the 21st century doesn’t make our life more comfortable. Every period has its own difficulties and social problems. Today many people not only in Britain, but also all over the world, face domestic violence, poverty and child labor problems. All these issues exist in Dickens’ works. I’m sure that if he lived nowadays his topics would be the same.
Child labor is a very complicated issue and exists almost in all the countries. Countries like Asia, Africa and Latin America have the highest rate. During the Victorian era children were used to develop the economy, and in “Oliver Twist” Dickens describes the life of such children and the horrible conditions of the 19th century workhouses. The number of robberies was also increasing. People joined different gangs. There were also a lot of children in the gangs. Hungry people are easily led.³ It was very easy to persuade a hungry child that it was a good life. Nowadays a lot of innocent children are involved in gangs. These children are promised money, good life and status. Being involved in such criminal groups children stop going to school, they start using drugs and ruin their lives.
Today people like Artful Dodger kill, use illegal weapons and have all the characteristic features for becoming a novel “hero”.
Dickens wrote about poverty, and it still exists. Every day about 25,000 people die of hunger in many countries.⁴ There are a lot of children among these people. But there is enough food in the world to feed everyone. The problem is the lack of money. They can’t buy food and nourish themselves and their children. In many countries there are programs like “food for work” or “food for education”, where both adults and children are provided with food. And if Dickens wrote a novel nowadays, maybe he would entitle it “There is Still Hope”.
Spouse abuse is another important theme that Dickens touched upon. The victims of spousal abuse were Estella and Joe Gargery in “Great Expectations”, but nowadays there are different organizations, that can help you, and if poor Estella lived in the 21st century maybe she didn’t have to wait until her abusive husband died in order to marry Pip.
Poverty, criminality, domestic violence, orphans and hard life are the themes that we come across in Dickens’ works. They are always actual.
As it’s said in a famous song, “…we are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving…”!⁵
Do good, and soon you’ll see the light coming out of the shadow!

¹www.thinkexist.com
²Gertrude Himmelfarb, The idea of poverty: England in the early industrial age, pp 367-377
³“A Cup of Tea” by K. Mansfield
⁴www.poverty.com
⁵Michael Jackson, We Are The World