Subject: Poverty
in Victorian England
Subtopics:
The causes of poverty:
population increases, class distinctions, lack of education, labor supply and
demand; Industrial Revolution and its impact on the working poor; child labor
and exploitation; Charles Dickens as a model for poverty-rights advocacy
Research Question(s): What
caused the vast disparity between the exorbitantly wealthy and the pitifully
poor in Victorian England? How did
the progression of society and its laws exacerbate or mitigate this disparity?
Relevance: Poverty is a central and
permeating theme throughout Oliver Twist. Oliver’s struggle with poverty is a
central to his story; without it, the poignant encounters of charity and
goodness he experiences would be lost.
Dickens uses poverty to both highlight the positive aspects of Victorian
life in this way as well as expose the negative underside of Victorian society.
Research Plan: I will begin my research
by establishing the factual basis of poverty during the period. Once I’ve set out the numerical and
quantifiable basics of the subject, I’ll expand my focus to sociological and
anthropological issues. I’ll use
Internet sites and databases (such as Victorian Web) to find essays, articles
and spreadsheets relating to my topic.
Surely the library has a collection of books or other reference
materials that will help shed light on the broad topic as well as the specifics
of my subject. If not, I may use the inter-library loan to acquire some appropriate texts. I expect an abundance of illustrations
and visual representations of poverty and its difficulties to survive the
period; they should be relatively simple to find via Internet or
encyclopedia/reference text.
Furthermore, I imagine the suffering and emotional turmoil caused by
poverty to have motivated other artistic expression such as poetry.
Questions/Concerns: Perhaps this
topic might be difficult to narrow down.
How do I choose on what I should focus? Also, how should I incorporate all of the relevant
information I gather into my paper (eg. illustrations, poetry, ect.)?