Industrialization and Exploitation of Children – An Analysis of Charles Dickens’ novels

The problem of exploitation of child is specially a problem of industrial society though it was prevalent in the agro-based society as well. The abuse of children in various forms has become one of the burning problems of modern society. It is observed that the industrialized society has been responsible for overall personal degradation of child including child labourers. Of all the writers dealing with the theme of child as social victim, Charles Dickens is one of the most prominent writers who through his various novels tried to project the exploitation of child as a major social ill of the nineteenth century England. As such the novels of Dickens dealing with the plight of child in both agricultural and industrial societies have a universal appeal.