Oliver Twist - when?

If you do a search for "workhouses" you will find quite a few sites. One workhouse, in Southwell near Nottingham, has recently been opened up to the public. There is a web site about that too. Enjoy!

It is probable that Dickens over exagerated aspects of the workhouse to fit in with the story. But having a few member of my own family die in workhouses as late as 1908 means that these people were desperate. <br>They had no pension and as they were farm labourers they could not save. <br><br>One family member back in 1845 hung himself because an accident on the farm had rendered him useless as a labourer, and he felt his wife faired a better chance of survival by marrying someone else than ending her days in the workhouse (divorse was not an option for the poor back then).<br><br>Dickens was reflecting the society around him, but from a journalists point of view. If you read newspapers today, you still get the slightly hysterical high moral ground from many of them. His letters to the newspapers were of concern about the poor. How the rich refused to help, and how things could be improved.

oliver was written in the 1800's the time where poverty, starvation, slavery and corruption went on. Children without parents weren't fostered or adopted they were put into work houses they were fed gruel and they were in heaven when they got bread. society was evil slavery of children was over looked if they had no family then no one cared it was the way things worked. now life has changed child prostitution is illegal, slavery and curruption are minimal. in 1830's this was a way of life. Charles dickens wrote novels that told the truth. High class people were the only people who could afford books so he wrote about what happened to the lower class and opened up people's eyes to reality. people looked around them and said hold on a moment this really is happening. He engaged people in his own thoughts he woke up the people to the real world. <br><br>when we read murder mysteries we know that parts are unreal but dickens wrote evrything in great detail. Take the first scene of olivers life he was born into a dirty cold room, there were no nurses nobody of any medical itelligence there was someone from the church and drunk old bat. he puts these facts differently he puts in detail and makes you feel the surroundings of the young child. Dickens wrote the reality of the 1800's to awaken society tot he corruption and misuse of public funds. he awoke them to a life they were to blind to see.

I am following the story of Oliver Twist in Swedish television right now and I have seen the first two parts - including the one with young Oliver asking för more. <br>I have begun pondering on the society where that happened. When was it? How was it - really?<br>I would like some guidance to literature or sites that can enlighten me.<br>