Victorian Influence On Charles Dickens's “A Visit To Newgate“

The “spirit of the age” was dead and Romanticism was over. Eighteen year-old, Victoria, had become queen in June 1837. This date just so happened to fall around the start of one of the biggest literary movements of all time, the Victorian era. One of the most distinctive features of Victorian literature is its social orientation. As the ambiguities of rank and wealth reared their ugly heads, Charles Dickens’s was there, delivering the truth, the truth that lay behind the snobbery and malaises of the upper class. In “A Visit to Newgate,” Dickens approaches the issues of the poor and impoverished through the dismal display he reported of the Newgate prison in London. The report of this prison was given not only to awaken the upper classes to the sadness of the lower classes, but to also show the journey into the deep structures of the social world of the Victorian era. The report also portrayed the struggle of women in society. Through Dickens’s eyes, the reader is able to view the inside of the jail as well as the people of the prison, the poor in which make up the internal structure of the pristine Victorian era, the internal structure in which Dickens had b

In order to wake these ignorant people up to the realization of the injustices and tortures that society imposes and ignores, Dickens gives the reader insight into the mind of a man condemned to death. The reader is able to feel his final thoughts of the inescapable presence of death:

A major concept in Victorian literature is for the authors of the time to reveal their vision of the deep structures of the social world. Dickens used this method of writing in two different ways; he describes the prison’s physical, structural layout, and he describes the people who make up the heart and blood of the prison. Dickens gives a physical description of the layout of the Newgate prison so that the reader feels its airtight, suffocating structure, describing one part of the prison as appearing to be and “iron cage, about five feet ten inches in height, roofed at the top, and defended in front by iron bars”, much like the cages that animals would be kept in (Dickens, page 1337). In knowing that Dickens felt exploited as a young child in the window of the shoe-blacking factory, one could even make the assumption that this “iron cage” metaphor is, too, journeying into the depths of Dickens’s own life. The cage that the people of the prison reside in, expose them to passerby’s eyes, like animals in the cage of at a zoo. Dickens felt this same class humiliation; therefore he subtly expressed those feelings in this report. As Dickens travels further into the depths of the prison, he begins to note the prisoners themselves:

Seven hours! He suffers himself to be led to his seat, mechanically takes the bible, which is placed in his hand, and tries to read and listen…Six hours left. Tell him not of repentance! Six hours’ repentance for eight times six years of guilt and sin…He is a condemned felon, guilty and despairing; and in two hours more will be dead. (Dickens, pages1344-1345)

Dickens’s life revolved around the evolutions that occurred during the Victorian era. As a culture’s government, economy, and activities evolve, the artists of the era modified, too, by incorporating the change they see in the world into their books, canvases, or sculpting. Dickens wrote “A Visit To Newgate” in 1835, which was part of the Early Victorian Era, a time of troubles. During the Early Victorian Age, there were very dramatic changes both positive and negative. The effects of these changes were seen in Britain’s economic, social, and political areas. The British Empire had reached its height, covering a fourth of the world’s land. Industry and trade had expanded rapidly, and science and technology had made great advances. The middle class had grown enormously, as did the poor, working class. In general, Victorian writers dealt with the contrast between the prosperity of the middle and upper classes, and the wretched condition of t

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