Dickens Attitude toward Victorian Customs of Crime and...

Dickens Attitude toward Victorian Customs of Crime and Punishment During the novel called Great Expectations, Charles Dickens makes it obvious to us how he feels about crime and punishment in the Victorian era. This essay will examine some of the ways he expresses his feelings and makes his attitude clear. The first way that Dickens reveals part of his attitude is by the words and phrases he uses to describe the escaped convict. To show the readers that the man he is describing is an escaped convict, Dickens uses such words and phrases such as: A fearful man, all in course grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, (page 6) Dickens is trying to point out that he feels the treatment of†¦show more content†¦As I have mentioned before, each prisoner had to wear an iron on his leg. As well as the iron leg: Both were bleeding and panting and execrating and struggling and seemed to be bruised and torn all over. He could not so much as get his breath to speak, (Page 35 and 36) These two extracts from the book both show that the treatment was horrendous. Dickens mentions blood, bruising, etc, which paints a picture in the readers mind and makes them feel how poor the handling of criminals actually was. On addition to this, Dickens says that each prisoner had to stop and rest. This adds to the point that Dickens tells us, which is that the treatment of criminals was appalling. Compared to nowadays, there is a clear difference. The treatment of criminals today is luxury when matched against the treatment of criminals in Victorian times, which was exceptionally poor. Another point that I would like to talk about is the unfair power of a defence attorney at the time. Mr Jaggers, as we can tell from the book, is a defence attorney. In fact he is a very powerful one. He is in control of his clients and can make them do what he wants. The reason for this is because his clients depend upon him, otherwise he will not defend them and they will get sentenced. The point that I am trying to make here is that it is again unfair for the guilty person. Dickens is telling us that, although that may