Portrayal of the Poor and Oppressed in the Select Novels of Charles Dickens and Mulk Raj Anand: A Comparative Study

Charles Dickens, the greatest English novelist of the Victorian Era, attempts to draw the attention of his readers with the theme of poverty, one of the central problems in some of his novels. Mulk Raj Anand, an eminent Indian writer in English, is notable for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society in his novels. The present article aims at making a comparative study of the poor and oppressed people in the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, and Untouchability by Mulk Raj Anand. The problem of poverty was very serious in English society of the late 19th century, and so Charles Dickens chose this theme as one of the central themes of some of his novels including Oliver Twist (1839). This novel represents the Victorian English society where the poverty is next to enormous wealth. Mulk Raj Anand’s debut novel Untouchability exposes the oppression, injustice, exploitation to the whole community of the outcastes in India. This novel covers the span of a decade from 1930 to 1940 when poverty, slavery and the inhuman exploitation of the masses were at the peak. Both the writers in their novels focus on the poor, suffering and wretchedness of the poor. The outcastes are exploited by almost all on the economic level too. To both the writers, exploitation of man is immoral and impermissible, particularly the poor and the illiterate. Both of them depict the lifestyle of the poor and the upper class.