Dickens was not an active reformer

The argument

This argument turns on a distinction between depicting a social problem and working to remedy it. The case concedes a great deal of what admirers claim for Dickens. He did use his fiction to draw attention to the conditions endured by working-class people in England, including poor housing and inadequate sanitation, and in doing so he placed those conditions before a readership that might otherwise have ignored them. The question raised is whether that amounts to being a social progressive, or whether it describes a novelist who found compelling material in poverty. What is said to be missing is agency directed at change. Dickens was not himself an active reformer: he did not hold clear goals that he wished to achieve in helping the poor, and in the absence of such goals his writing had no programme behind it. Attention without a stated aim produces sympathy rather than reform. That is why the depictions can appear benevolent but misguided — benevolent in their evident feeling for the people portrayed, misguided in offering no account of what should actually be done, by whom, or at whose expense. The division of labour this implies is the heart of the complaint. Having raised the subject, Dickens allowed other people to focus on material help: the practical work of improving housing, drainage and wages fell to campaigners, officials and legislators who did have specific objectives. He supplied the sentiment and left the substance to others. A social progressive, on this understanding of the term, is someone who pursues particular changes in the arrangements of society. By that standard the evidence of the novels is not enough, and Dickens was not a social progressive.

Premises

Counter-arguments

It seems a little harsh to criticise Dickens for not being an active reformer. He used his writing to draw significant attention to public issues, and encouraged lawmakers in parliament and those who worked for charities - in other words, the people whose full-time jobs were active reform, so would be much better at it than Dickens - to help in more material ways. Not every social progressive is an active reformer, and it is perhaps enough that Dickens focused so much public attention on previously overlooked issues related to poverty.

Rejecting the premises

1. Not everyone could be an active reformer, and Dickens was perhaps right to allow people who knew more about improving the poor's material conditions to do the actual reform work. 2. His writing was still beneficial because it drew public attention to serious issues of poverty and poor living standards.