The underclass in the works of Charles Dickens and its Marxist themes

Subagyo, Kukuh Prayitno

Jurnal bahasa, sastra, seni, dan pengajarannya
Vol. 40, No. 1

In his novels, Dickens delivers important social messages through his empathetic characters living lives of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, and exploitation under the so-called capitalistic system. These underclass people holler their plight of injustice and crises of the actual social milieu. From a Marxist perspective, these multiple crises are embedded in themes of exploitation, class consciousness, sacrifice, and revolution. Hence, the realism disguised under literary devices could hopefully accomplish dual purposes: both as a means of provoking a new kind of “social consciousness” among the bourgeoisie and as a means of raising the proletariat’s class consciousness.