The society of Oliver Twist was a very cruel and uncharitable place. England was overpopulated with the poor who were forced to live in workhouses, uncharitable places made buy the rich as shelters for the poor. The people who worked in the workhouse starved and forced the poor to do hard labor, all because they were letting the poor live in the workhouse. Because of this, a criminal underclass is established by those who would rather steal from the rich in order to survive, than to slave in the workhouse and to risk death from starvation and/or exhaustion. The richer social classes tend not to feel sympathy for the misfortunes of the poor, but rather to mistreat and put them down.
England of 1838 was greatly populated with poor people. The government of the day, trying to find a way to help these people, but also get them off land where rich can live established laws called the Poor Laws. The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act paved the way for parishes making workhouses, just like the one Oliver had to slave in. These workhouses were supposed to serve as a relief for the poor, but the poor were better off not joining a workhouse at all. The parish tried to make the workhouse environment as bad as possible. The inhabitants were starved and slaved to the brink of death.
A workhouse was governed by a group of usually fat people called the board. They were people who looked down upon the poor, and were extremely intolerant and very hypocritical. When Oliver asked for more, it was treated as an extremely large sin by the board members who would have asked for second helpings of food many times in their lives.
Because of the bad living conditions of workhouses, many poor people escaped to London, and established a criminal underclass. A criminal underclass was a class of people that were rich enough to live a normal life, but only because they stole from the rich. These people much rather stealing and living a good life than slave in the workhouses, even if that meant risking being caught stealing and being punished for it. This class of people was considered even lower than the poor on the social pyramid. Oliver was dragged into a criminal underclass by Fagin and his crew. Life in the criminal underclass is life risking as Dickens's book Oliver Twist shows when Oliver is caught for a crime that his criminal friends committed.
The rich treated the poor and mis fortunate with disgust, as if they were cockroaches. They only believe that they and those of their social class are right. No matter how much of the truth that a poor person speaks, it will be overruled by whatever a person of higher class says, be it truth or not true. The rich also have no care at all for the fates of the poor. They would rather get rid of them from their land. So instead of giving the poor money or other things that could help the poor live, they give themselves the right to sell the poor off. The board of parishes thought that they had the right to sell off Oliver at the start of the novel.
Also, the rich in the book seem to only give to the poor if they have something in return. A classic example is the workhouse, where the poor are given housing, in return for hard labor. The rich never gave charity out of the goodness of their hearts.
The society Oliver Twist had to live in was a cruel and uncharitable place. Poor outnumbered the rich; however the rich treated them with disgust and hatred. The poor who could not survive on their own tried their luck in workhouses, places parishes set up to give them shelter, in return for hard labor, and where the poor are starved to the brink of death. Poor people who try their luck in big cities developed a criminal underclass. The people of this class lived by stealing from the rich and were in risk of having them punished for the crimes they commit.
