THE ARTISTIC REPRESENTATION OF THE SOCIAL STATUS OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS IN THE WORKS OF CHARLES DICKENS

Abstract

Abstract: This article examines the artistic representation of the social status of children and adolescents in the novels of the nineteenth-century English writer Charles Dickens. The study is based on Oliver Twist and Great Expectations and analyzes how issues such as social inequality, poverty, orphanhood and marginalization of children are depicted within the framework of Victorian society. The research draws on social-constructivist theories of childhood (P. Aries, H. Cunningham), principles of Victorian realism (R. Williams) and modern approaches to Dickens’s social criticism. Using historical-literary, comparative, textual and sociological methods the article demonstrates that child characters in Dickens’s novels function as central artistic instruments for exposing moral crises and social injustice, while simultaneously promoting humanistic values.