Economic Injustice in Dickens and Gaskell's Victorian Fiction

Introduction: Fiction as a Lens for Economic Injustice

In his text on human commercial practices and economic behaviors, author James Black diverges from many of the drier and less nuanced textual considerations of socioeconomic dynamics. He does so by couching his discussion in frequent references to iconic works of fiction, which add a humanitarian dimension to many of his discussion points and help provide more complex rationales for why human beings in business and financial matters tend to behave the way they do. Beyond this, Black provides a compelling template for the consideration of broader sociological concerns — a framework that serves as an ideal starting point for examining pressing human issues such as poverty and labor conditions. With that framework in mind, this essay considers the works of Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, both of whom commented extensively on the economic affairs of their societies through highly politicized fiction.

Dickens and the Urban Poor in Industrial London

The issue of poverty — and particularly urban poverty during the Industrial Revolution — would come to define the fictional works of Charles Dickens. In the palpable social commentary that the British author offers, it is plainly apparent why writers such as Black have asserted the pertinence of allegorical fiction to discussions of far-reaching sociological and economic realities. For Dickens, the poverty, suffering, and inequality he witnessed daily in the slums of London was the most important inspiration for his body of work. As Perdue notes, Dickens worked tirelessly to produce vivid descriptions of the lives so many people were living in a city swelling with commercial activity and human population.

Perdue captures this reality in striking terms: "Rich and poor alike are thrown together in the crowded city streets. Street sweepers attempt to keep the streets clean of manure, the result of thousands of horse-drawn vehicles. The city's thousands of chimney pots are belching coal smoke, resulting in soot which seems to settle everywhere. In many parts of the city raw sewage flows in gutters that empty into the Thames. Street vendors hawking their wares add to the cacophony of street noises. Pickpockets, prostitutes, drunks, beggars, and vagabonds of every description add to the colorful multitude." (Perdue, p. 1)

Gaskell and the Exploitation of Women and Child Laborers

Here, Dickens offers a portrait that underscores a new kind of challenge to city life. While the Industrial Revolution was creating new opportunities for consumer convenience, commercial productivity, and even socioeconomic mobility, its earliest phases revolved around the exploitation of the poorer classes. As these populations gravitated to the cities for low-paying jobs in harsh conditions, their families crowded together in places of wretched filth, squalor, and disease. Dickens used the pages of his fiction not only to describe these conditions but also to create sympathy for the disaffected and to warn those living in excessive comfort of a coming mass revolt. Historically important novels such as A Tale of Two Cities spoke directly to the threat that widespread human misery would lead to bloody social upheaval.

This type of upheaval would manifest in steps toward progress that were also chronicled by history's most important writers. Among these was Elizabeth Gaskell, who is noted for her powerful advocacy on behalf of women laborers at a time when both their gender and their class contributed to profound inequality and exploitation. One of the frequently unspoken realities of the Industrial Revolution was the degree to which the growing factory and textile industries relied upon female labor. It is for this reason that works such as Gaskell's North and South are so critically important from a historical perspective. Her literal and realistic descriptions of labor organization efforts and the roles played by women provide — even within the context of her fiction — a lasting portrait of the time and place. As Lollar (1997) points out, "North and South is frequently praised for its 'realism in depicting the strike in Milton North which was based on the actual labor conflict in Preston in 1853–54.'" (Lollar, p. 1)

Conclusion: The Humanitarian Value of Victorian Fiction

As with Dickens, the work of Gaskell carries a very distinctive message: that a failure to bring greater equality and more humanitarian measures to the treatment of laborers would lead to discontent, social turmoil, and an erosion of the productivity growing at that time in leaps and bounds. Both authors understood that economic systems dependent on the suffering of the poor were inherently unstable, and both used their fiction as a vehicle to communicate that warning to a broad readership.