Question

What does Charles Dickens seem to be implying about the rich and the poor in this excerpt from chapter 2 of Oliver Twist? They [the board members] made a great many other wise and humane regulations, having reference to the ladies, which it is not necessary to repeat; kindly undertook to divorce poor married people, in consequence of the great expense of a suit in Doctors' Commons; and, instead of compelling a man to support his family, as they had theretofore done, took his family away from him, and made him a bachelor!

Answer 1

Answer:

What Charles Dickens was exposing through his social novel "Oliver Twist", and especially in this particular excerpt from the book, is the view that the rich of England, and especially London, had on the issue of poverty, particularly how to stop the increase in numbers of poor people. Thus, it portrays how well-to-do English people prefered to go with the option of stopping poverty by preventing poor people from marrying and thus producing more children, through divorce of poor couples, and separation of those who were poor.

This is part of the themes that are exposed in "Oliver Twist" the social novel by Charles Dickens, that was published in a serial, between 1837-39. It was not published as a book per se until 1839. "Oliver Twist", also known as "The Parish Boy´s Progress", exposes the hypocrisy of English society during the 19th century, especially when dealing with such difficult issues as child labor and poverty, and how to handle them.

Answer 2

The rich believed that poverty could be ended by preventing the poor from having more children.