A mere recital of
general grievances is not likely to have much effect on the public
mind. But a novelist who can interest a considerable body of readers in
a few well-chosen characters, who can subject his fictitious personages
to the evils which he means to expose, and thus arouse the sympathy and
indignation of a large number of people, can make a novel of purpose a
very effective weapon of reform. Individuals are much more interesting
than bodies of men, and the sufferings of little Oliver Twist or of the
inmates of Dotheboys Hall, as related by Dickens, will arouse public
attention far more actively than the report of an examining committee.
But although a novelist may accomplish great results by such devotion
to a philanthrophic object, he can hardly avoid injury to the artistic
effect and permanent value of his work. Many passages in Dickens'
novels which have had a great influence in the cause of reform, cannot
fail, in the future, when the evil exposed is no longer felt, to be a
drag on the works which contain them.
Charles Kingsley described the grievances of mechanics in "Alton
Locke," a work in which the artistic elements are much subordinated to
the didactic. A more powerful novel of purpose is Mrs. Gaskell's "Mary
Barton," which enlists the sympathies of the reader very strongly with
the trials of the manufacturing classes.
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