Here's the start of an argumentative essay for you, now you continue...
Topic: Do you agree that Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist to criticise the cruelty that English children suffered in the nineteenth century?
The novel Oliver Twist is a criticism of the cruelty that children and
poor people suffered at the hands of 19th century society. It was
Dickens' first novel written under his own name when he was 24 years
old and in it he already reveals his sharp, but comic comments and
criticism.
From the start, Dickens makes it clear to the reader that poor people
and the children of poor people; most especially a baby born
illegitimately; were of no consequence in the 1900's. The first person
narrator feels he need not “trouble” himself “ as it can be of no
possible consequence” to tell us the place or date of Oliver’s birth.
This concept is further revealed when he refers to Oliver as an “item
of mortality” and then later on in the chapter “it”. The child
deserves no name, as he is not a legitimate member of society so he has
no place or importance: he starts life at the bottom of the Victorian
food chain. By having the narrator address Oliver as a “it” instead of
a “him”, Oliver is dehumanised and so Dickens draws this to our
attention.