Acc

• CONTEXT:

  the victorian era was one of extreme social inequality. there was an enormous gap between the classes
• CONTEXT:

  the poor law act of 1934 established workhouses, institutions that would provide food, clothes and shelter to the poor, in return for hard work and forced labour
• CONTEXT:

  the poor were treaty harshly, as if their poverty was of their own doing. the idea of workhouses was that the poor were too lazy to work, so the dreadful conditions of the workhouses would 'encourage them to improve themselves.'
• WRITERS INTENTION:

  Dickens hoped for change, he wished that his idea of social change would resonate through the social classes of England and the house of parliament.