ISSN2320-2882
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Paper Title

Capital, Class, and Commodification: A Marxist Reading of Charles Dickens's Selected Novels

Authors

MALATHESHA. S

Keywords

Marxist Criticism, Class Conflict, Commodification, Victorian Novel, Oliver Twist, Hard Times.

Abstract

Charles Dickens remains one of the most powerful literary voices of the Victorian era in exposing the inequities and contradictions of a rapidly industrializing society. His novels repeatedly confront the realities of class divisions, poverty, and the pressures of capitalist modernity. This article examines Oliver Twist (1838) and Hard Times (1854) through the lens of Marxist literary criticism, with particular attention to how Dickens dramatizes class conflict and the commodification of human life. Drawing on the theoretical insights of Karl Marx alongside later critics such as Raymond Williams and Terry Eagleton, the study interprets Dickens's fictional world as a space where the struggles of the poor, the exploited, and the marginalized are narrated against the dominant ideologies of Victorian capitalism. Methodologically, the article adopts a qualitative, interpretive case study of the two novels, engaging in close textual analysis informed by Marxist concepts such as alienation, surplus value, and commodity fetishism. The findings suggest that Oliver Twist exposes how poverty and childhood itself are commodified within pre-industrial urban England, while Hard Times extends this critique into the mechanized logic of industrial capitalism, where workers and even education become reduced to instruments of production. By situating Dickens within a broader critical framework, the article argues that his novels not only reflect the tensions of nineteenth-century society but also resonate with contemporary debates on inequality, labor, and the commodification of human existence.

How To Cite

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IJCRT — journal style
"Capital, Class, and Commodification: A Marxist Reading of Charles Dickens's Selected Novels", IJCRT - International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts (www.ijcrt.org), ISSN:2320-2882, Vol.14, Issue 1, page no.d417-d426, January 2026, Available :https://ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT2601416.pdf
APA — 7th edition
S, M. (2026). Capital, Class, and Commodification: A Marxist Reading of Charles Dickens's Selected Novels. International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts, 14(1), d417-d426. https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2601416
MLA — 9th edition
S, MALATHESHA. "Capital, Class, and Commodification: A Marxist Reading of Charles Dickens's Selected Novels." International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts, vol. 14, no. 1, 2026, pp. d417-d426, https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2601416.
Chicago — 17th, bibliography
S, MALATHESHA. "Capital, Class, and Commodification: A Marxist Reading of Charles Dickens's Selected Novels." International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts 14, no. 1 (2026): d417-d426. https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2601416.
Harvard — author–date
S, M. (2026) 'Capital, Class, and Commodification: A Marxist Reading of Charles Dickens's Selected Novels', International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts, 14(1), pp. d417-d426. Available at: https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2601416
IEEE — numbered reference
M. S, "Capital, Class, and Commodification: A Marxist Reading of Charles Dickens's Selected Novels," IJCRT, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. d417-d426, Jan. 2026.
Vancouver — biomedical
S M. Capital, Class, and Commodification: A Marxist Reading of Charles Dickens's Selected Novels. IJCRT. 2026 Jan;14(1):d417-d426.
AMA — 11th edition
S M. Capital, Class, and Commodification: A Marxist Reading of Charles Dickens's Selected Novels. IJCRT. 2026;14(1):d417-d426. Accessed at https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2601416
BibTeX — Zotero, Mendeley, LaTeX
@article{IJCRT2601416, author = {MALATHESHA. S}, title = {Capital, Class, and Commodification: A Marxist Reading of Charles Dickens's Selected Novels}, journal = {International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts}, volume = {14}, number = {1}, pages = {d417-d426}, year = {2026}, month = {January}, issn = {2320-2882}, url = {https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2601416} }
RIS — EndNote, RefWorks
TY - JOUR AU - S, MALATHESHA. TI - Capital, Class, and Commodification: A Marxist Reading of Charles Dickens's Selected Novels T2 - International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts JA - IJCRT VL - 14 IS - 1 PY - 2026 SN - 2320-2882 UR - https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2601416 SP - d417-d426 ER -

Issue

Volume 14 Issue 1, January-2026
Pages : d417-d426

Article Information

Pages
d417-d426
Published
January 2026
Registration ID
IJCRT_300469
Published Paper ID
IJCRT2601416
Research Area
Medical Science All
Author Type
Indian Author
Location
Harihar, Karnataka, India
Licence
CC BY 4.0 · Open Access
ISSN & Impact Factor
2320-2882 · IF 9.17
Downloads
190

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International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts Published by IJCRT Publication
2320-2882 ISSN
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© 2026 — Authors hold the copyright of this article. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and The Open Definition. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Declarations

Funding

No external funding was received for this study.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the reviewers and the editorial board of International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts for their careful reading and constructive comments, and all colleagues who supported the preparation of this manuscript.

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