Charles Dickens

Of all the writer’s I’ve read so far, Charles Dickens is the one I am most familiar with because of his writings such as “Oliver Twist,” and “A Christmas Story.” While reading “A Visit to Newgate” I came into a realization that Charles Dickens writes about the destitute and unfortunate, maybe just to inform people of how the other half lives. He did not want to “fatigue the reader with statistical accounts of the prison,” which helped me to envision his trip to the prison. He describes what he sees in detail, from furniture, dimensions of areas, the people he sees (guards and prisoners) and what the building looks and smells like. The first inmates he comes across are women. He describes an old woman and a young woman. I felt sympathy for these women in there. Would they have been there if they were up rooted in a better life with money and family who cared about them? Lots of questions came up in my mind while reading this. How did these people get into prison, what are they thinking, how did they get themselves into these circumstances and etc. He then came across a room with boys who were locked up inside this prison. This reminded me of Oliver Twist. I had the picture of Oliver’s orphanage that he lived in envisioned in my mind, and also the part where he leaves and gets involved with a group of boys who stole from people. The prison is the consequence of pick pocketing. Would those boys be in there if they had people guiding them in life, or were they just born bad? I believe that people are not born bad, but they become bad due to their outward influences. He then finds himself in the chapel, where there is an awkward silence. This place didn’t seem to be visited often. Usually the thought of chapels and God brings a peace of mind and serenity, but while he was describing the prison’s chapel, I was quite eerie, and an unpleasant place to visit. The last person he talks about is a man on death row. I don’t know what I’d be thinking if I was on a death row and had 2 hours to live. This piece of writing made me think about choices people make to get themselves in good or bad situations. It also brought about lots of questions that I still do not have answers to, and might never. It was a very moving piece of work.