sses the need for Dickens’ message of social reform. Through his exact accounts of what actually goes on in those places, Dickens is able to satirize the conditions of apprenticeships. Through biting and humorous satire, Dickens is able reveal his thoughts against the abuse of children in the work places. Dickens “made his mark in 19th century England with humor, creating a cast of characters that exemplified all that he loved, satirized, and hated about society” (Bender 15). Charles Dickens is able to observe the abuse of child labor without being blinded by the laws that are made to justify abuse. Through Oliver Twist, Dickens presents the reality of the happenings to children in workhouses and apprenticeships where “some are killed off in the name of charity and others grow fat in the name of parish service and those who survive the workhouse are made slaves to assist in the burying the one group and fattening the other...great many birds...killed by one stony law” (Gold 41). Dickens observes the system of child labor and rather than taking a subtle stand, he works though his novels to open the eyes of society on issues pertaining to the poor. Dickens spends much of his creative life trying to reprimand society’s Lee 8treatment of children and does so by showing the existence of child labor in his novel. Because of his great use of satire, Dickens goes far beyond the surface of child labor to extending his depiction of poverty to the abuse in workhouses and apprenticeships. He gives voice to the many children who have gone through life unheard, opening society’s eyes to the inhumane conditions that the poor children are forced to live through. Dickens does so by writing a “story of the routine cruelty exercised upon the nameless, almost faceless submerged of Victorian society” (Wilson 129). Dickens’ work of social reform is not limited to Oliver Twist for “a...
