Unit 10: Higher Education Essay

The Pros and Cons Of Higher Education

In this essay I will discussing the pros and cons of higher education. I will be weighing it up and giving my overall opinion at the end. I am going to list and explain first the pros and then the cons.

The first pro that should be taken into consideration when thinking about Higher Education is that it makes you more employable. When stepping into the higher education world some will be doing the course they're doing because they want to develop skills they feel they will need in future life, which i will discuss later. But most are doing the course they chose because the career path that they have chosen links to it. So by choosing to go to higher education and picking a course that links to your career path you are essentially setting yourself up for success as you will gain skills from this course that will definitely help your case. Compared to someone who wants to dive into the career path you will be more equipped than them in terms of skills. Though it will take more time, you will have skills that will be beneficial to you. Increasing your skill set also increases your earning potential as it has been known that graduates earn more over the course of their lifetime than a person who hasn't gained a degree. 

Another pro of going into higher education is the gain of independence. In my opinion being able to work in a team of people is very important but what is also very important is being able to be independent as there are certain responsibilities that require you to be independent. By going into higher education you gain the skill of being independent and that helps you later in life and also at that point in your life you need to be responsible and independent for stuff like bills and your well being. Living without your parents which most higher education students do is extremely independent.

The final pro of going to higher education that I will be discussing is that you are provided an opportunity to make new friends and connections. What I mean by this is that by doing the course that you have chosen you meet people who also are pursuing the same career path and maybe even people who are accomplished in that area. You will gain contacts that will introduce to new opportunities. You also have new friends that when possible will support you with your workload and provide you with a possible career companion, someone you know is going down the same career path as you.

On the other hand there are plenty of cons when discussing this subject. For example one con of going into higher education is the cost of it. Expense is a big aspect to take into consideration when applying for universities and other things. For most it's the reason they decide not to go into higher education. Yes there are scholarships but not everyone can get one so for people who are less fortunate and maybe don't have the finances available for higher education they don't really have a choice but not to go. Student loans can help with that but even after you graduate you will have to start paying back the costs after you've earned over a specific threshold. 

Another con of higher education is that you will have an intensive workload. This con could be interpreted as a pro as the intensive workload prepares you for the real world and the type of workloads you will get in the business. But the intensive workload is sometimes very stressful as it will restrict you from doing certain things for your enjoyment. The intensive workload will definitely cut some of your free time short as there will be stuff that you have to get done urgently.

A final con that I have to discuss is the fact that you may change your mind.  After applying for your course and being a few weeks or months through the course you might have a change of heart and decide that it isn't the course for you. This means that you will have to leave the course and wait for the next academic year as that is when you can next go into another course. All the costs you've already paid for will not be refunded and if your living situation has changed it will now set you back.



Overall I think higher education is a good choice because the type of doors it opens and the things it can do for you in later life. Yes there are financial disadvantages but there are always ways around it.



https://smartandrelentless.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-higher-education-from-a-graduates-perspective/

Unit 10: Skills Audit

Skills Audit 

Strengths:

• Vocal Projection 
• Ensemble Work 
• Taking Direction on
• Stage Awareness 
• Physical Awareness 
• Articulation 

Goals:

• Organisation; learning lines and cues during the rehearsal period. 
• research skills; researching key facts that will help me in terms of context for this play.
• Taking criticism on board; taking people's criticism and thinking why they're saying that and how I can get them to think differently about it. 

Unit 10: Log

Wednesday 3rd October

On this day we visited the Westminster Kingsway Soho Centre to perform our monologues to a camera. This helped us practice the TV/Film aspect of acting and making sure that we know what type of skills we need when performing to a camera. This will help as an actor getting used to not only theatre acting techniques and skills but also TV/Film acting techniques and skills. It's important to be versatile when entering acting industry so that you as an actor can play a variety of different roles and different types of acting. I was told before filming my monologue that we should underplay the emotions and actions of our characters and look straight at the camera. This took a little bit of getting used to when first getting into the monologue but as I went along it got easier. Learning the skill of having stage stillness really helped with this as it was a very similar skill.

Friday 12th October

On this day we started our UCAS process. We had already handed in our first draft of our personal statement so we had gotten the feedback from the first draft and we are now starting to finish if off. We also got shown different examples of bad and good personal statements depending on how the person started their personal statement, so that helped us to understand how we should write ours.

Thursday 22nd November

On this day we visited the YATI centre and we had a practice audition to prepare for auditions for drama schools. We received feedback for what we did and how to improve it from Nicholas Khan. 

After performing this to other students, Rob and Nick, Nick gave me some feedback. He said that my vocal projection and articulation was good and the physicality of the character was very well portrayed. He said that something that I can improve on is my eye-line when speaking because it keeps slipping down and I kept looking down but if I keep the eye-line up then it adds power to the monologue instead of losing its effect. 

Unit 9: Log

Week 1:

We started off the school year with learning that we are doing a joint performance with musical theatre second years. The performance that we would be doing would be 'A Christmas Carol'.  After finding out that we were doing Christmas Carol we then had to watch a version of it all together, so we watched the 1951 rendition of A Christmas Carol. I thought that this version was very entertaining but because it was interesting to see how dramatic they made it in comparison to later versions of it like the Muppet's Christmas Carol or the Jim Carrey animation. They were versions that had a light hearted comedic tone to them. Whereas in the 1951 rendition it was quite dramatic. Although there were certain moments of comedy for example when the charwoman thinks that Scrooge is going crazy because he wished her a merry Christmas. But the dramatic tone outweighs the comedic, light-hearted tone. This doesn't make the production bad, I think it just doesn't make it emotionally available to all groups of ages and people watching the production. Maybe this is because back in those times people in the film industry weren't fully aware of all parts of society and that's why they wouldn't aim their films towards them.

The next day of that week we read through a synopsis of the story just smooth out details in the story that some people might not have known from watching it the previous day. After reading through the synopsis we were split into groups and were given the task to make a mind maps of what we enjoyed about the book if we had read it or what we enjoyed about the movie. We wrote down things like the Christmas carolers in the movie which we were thinking about incorporating into our performance in one way or another. Or the way Tiny Tim was presented in both the book and the movie was amazing and we were hoping to show exactly how important a character he is. Me and my group finished making the mind map of things we liked about the book and movie early so we were given an extra task to make a mind map of all the themes of the story. Some themes we came up with were; Grudges, Poverty and Family. Both of these mind maps help us to understand the story even more and when it comes to the performance we will be able to confidently tell the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge.

After this we stayed in the same groups and we had to choose a theme or a pair of themes and make them into a still image. We chose poverty vs wealth. The still image we created was of two people who were poor and struggling. They were asking Scrooge for money but he wouldn't be generous enough. Then a spirit was showing Scrooge the error of his own ways. We then had to create an improvised scene based on the still image. This was pretty easy because we basically just had to move and speak how we thought the character we were being in the still image would move and speak. For some it was easier than others as they knew their characters back story because they were Scrooge or a spirit but if we were a beggar then we would have to come up with the reason we were doing what we were doing, which is also fun. Another group had chosen the theme of change and made the the still image remaking Charles Darwin's evolutionary depiction. Straight away I could see that their theme was change as they made it very clear. Then when they added the lines they used lines from the actual script from different points of Scrooge life and his mindset. 

We were then put into groups of 5 or 6 and we had to make a remake of the Christmas Carol story. My group decided that we should modernize it. We decide that we could make the story into a game that's playing out. So we used Dungeons and Dragons because in that game there are choices which is similar to life. We modernized it by putting a game that young people are playing these days. Playing out the events of the story in the form of a game was really interesting and helped us see another angle of performing this. 

Week 2 

The first lesson of this week we worked with musical theatre and dance students that we would be working with for the rest of that term. Our main focus of that lesson was Tableaux. Tableaux is the official name for a still image which we were working on in the previous week. The main point about a tableaux is making a frozen image that tells a story very clearly. So if a member of an audience was looking at it they would understand it. We were put into 3 separate groups. In those groups we were given different places and we had to make a tableaux based on that place and show it to the rest of the class. The point of this was to see how effective our presentation of the place was and how the audience interpreted it. We then stayed in the same group and instead of given places we were told to pick a main theme and make a tableaux based on that theme. My groups theme was self reflection and we made a tableaux where we had Scrooge looking back at himself in the mirror remembering what he had been through and how he was going to change. We then showed it to the class and they had to guess the theme. One person guessed the theme but to help bring the clarity to the whole class people who were confused got the chance to slightly change the tableaux and make it more clear for them. This would help all of us as it shows us what makes tableaux more clear for the audience and what as an audience makes a tableaux interesting and intriguing to look at.  Things like levels, spacial awareness help to make a tableaux interesting to look at. A variety of different levels and particular spacial awareness really makes a difference. 

After that all groups merged tableaux and we made one massive tableaux. Taking on all of the changes from other people and incorporating it 

into the massive tableaux is what made it very special as it was spaced out very well and included a variety of different levels. 

The next exercise we had to do was create tableaux appropriate for the 2 party scenes. We split into 2 groups one group did the Fezziwig party and our group did the Fred's party. Not only did we have to create the tableaux for the party scene but we had to bring it to life and make it move. It was interesting to see what different kind of dances we all came up with what we had and the dances were similar in terms of dances that a group can do but they were different in terms of tempo and the amount of people that were dancing in the two different groups were also different. One group decided that nearly everyone should be dancing whether it's all the same dance or different. The other group only had one pair dancing together so maybe they thought that the less people dancing and the more people acting naturalistic then the tableaux would be more effective and in my opinion it was. 

Again we merged together to make one moving, dancing tableaux. This felt really nice as it filled the space completely as a real party would. I think everyone had the feeling that they actually felt they were in a party whereas previously I don't think they would've felt it as strongly. 

The next day of this week we had auditions for the roles that we wanted in the play. I auditioned for the role of Bob Cratchit. We had to read a small passage from the script as that character. We then had to sing any song that we had prepared. I didn't have a song prepared but I sang the chorus of Merry Christmas. I feel that my Sight reading went very but my singing wasn't great because I'm not confident in my singing ability. 

Week 3 

To start off the week we had to make a timeline of what we were going to be doing for the lead up to the performances we would be doing on the 12th and 13th of December. The timeline helps us to realize where we are and where we need to be at a certain time. We can then set general goals for the class and personal goals for ourselves for when the performance comes around so that when it is time to perform we are 100% ready. Next we had the task of creating an improvisation of the events of each ghost. There were multiple groups and they each got a different ghost whether it was future, past or present. The group that I was in got the past ghost so we had to improvise/ summarise the key events of when the ghost of Christmas past is involved in this story. These kind of improvisation summary exercises are very valuable because it helps all of us to more understand the story characters and also if we were thinking of playing a certain character, by doing these improvisations we get more in touch with characters as we don't have a script telling us what the character is saying but we have to figure out over time what our character is thinking at certain times. We then get feedback from our fellow students and they can help us by telling us what worked and what didn't work to either keep and use for the final performance or change it and adapt it for it to help us. 

On this day we got casted to the roles that we were going to be playing for the final performance. The roles that I was given was the role I auditioned for, Bob Cratchit, and also Old Joe. I am glad to be playing 2 quite different characters as they are different in age, profession and passion. This will help me as an actor playing different characters and increasing my range. We did a sight read of the play with everyone reading the role that they got. This helped us get used embodying our characters vocally. 

On the final day of the week we went through pages 1-15 blocking it and seeing how the scenes look off the page. This session was mostly focused on the nuances and starting to bring it to life with background characters and making the stage come to life. We didn't have the whole cast but we were still able to apply the nuances and make the scene come to life. We would have to make notes for the missing actors so that when they do come back they can slot straight back into the scene and it won't be difficult. 

Week 4

We started off the week by going over the scenes that we blocked on Friday. Today we had the actors that were missing last week so we could properly rehearse our scenes with the people playing the characters that they were actually casted as. This helps everyone as it gets them getting used to working with that person and learning lines. It also helps everyone as an ensemble not have any confusion coming to future days.

We went through the script very fast paced so that we could get used to the entrances and cues. This will help us think ahead and think about where we are next and what scene we were in next. Then when it comes to the final performance it will be easier for us to remember our cues because of how familiar we are with the play in all situations.

This is the choreographed dance that we learnt in the last lesson of the week.

Week 5

This week we started off with character work. We lied on the floor and closed our eyes. When we opened our eyes we had to be our characters and go through a normal day as them. After we finished the day we went round the class explaining what our character was doing. My character Bob Cratchit was mostly focused on his kids making sure they were ready in the morning but apart from that he pretty much worked the whole day. We were asked what our character was wearing, this will help us later when deciding what kind of costume of character will be wearing. We then walked around the room as our character and asked to make our movements bigger and more animated. We had to think of a word to describe our character and I chose Jolly as Bob Cratchit is quite a positive and happy character.  To finish off the lesson we moved on to hot seating. When hot seating we had to be in character and answer the questions from classmates in character. I found this hard at times because when asked sad questions about Tiny Tim's health I decided on a more serious tone but I got feedback that because of how positive and jolly a person I am I should be trying to be positive even though the topic is a saddening one. This will 100% help me in future rehearsals. 

On this day we discussed what we wanted the audience to feel and how we could bring that about. We needed to completely committed in the performance to make sure that the audience fully feels with whatever character they need to feel with. If any scene is not done with full commitment then the audience will feel that and won't fully get the message or feel the emotions of the scene. Also taking them on that journey that Scrooge is taken on is very important so that they understand why Scrooge changes instead of leaving the performance thinking why did he change. We then blocked through the whole script.

Week 6

In our first lesson of the week we did a full casted line run. This line run was useful to us as again it helped us vocally to get used to our character and the way we should be communicating with other characters in the play based on the relationship between them.


On the next day we had our first proper dance rehearsal where we learnt 2 dances. One dance was for the Fezziwig party and the other for Fred's party.

This dance is for Fezziwig's Party and comes right after his introduction. 

This dance is for Fred's party and comes just before his scene.

Performance Evaluation.

We performed 'A Christmas Carol' 3 times. Once to an audience of random students from the college on the 12th December. Twice on the 13th December, once to an audience of acting students from the college and school students and then the matinee performed to parents, careers and friends. 

Rehearsals

During the rehearsal period we were at the start just running through it and blocking it. This helped us get familiar with the script as we hadn't learnt lines yet and also to help us start getting into the character's mind we were on stage doing what we thought the character would be doing. Then as we got further into the rehearsal period we of course went off script and that is when the biggest change is made because once we start off script rehearsal we are confident enough with the lines that we don't have to look at the script and we're not thinking about the lines predominantly but instead thinking about how our character would do certain things and where we should be next if we are coming on. At this stage of  the rehearsal period we can start to also think about entrances, exits and cues. Cues in my opinion were the important aspect of this performance along with actors, actresses and dances passion when performing dances or anything else in the performance. As we got closer to the performance dates it was easier to see what scenes needed work with. For example the Cratchit scenes in the play weren't up to scratch in terms of the other scenes, this is probably because of the fact that not all the actors would be in sometimes for that scene so if the attendance was better then the scene would've been better. 

Performances. 

First Performance (12th December)

In our first performance we performed to random students in the college. I feel like even though all performances should have our utmost passion and dedication this first performance was a way to feel out the audience, see how they would react to certain things in the performance and maybe how we could maybe make the performance more entertaining or eye catching for the rest of the performances. The fact that the audience was quite small kind of helped us actors because we didn't have as much pressure compared to if the audience was bigger. This helped us relax and have a bit more fun with it. To improve on this performance we got feedback that our voices were not projected enough and there were times that the audience couldn't hear us. We had to take that on board and make sure we will implement that feedback onto our next performances. 

Last 2 Performances (13th December)

For our last 2 performances we were performing to acting students and other students of the college in the afternoon and then parents, family and friends in the evening. These performances were definitely better than the other one because we were able to start a new day with our feedback and implement it onto the characters we were playing. The audiences being in bigger attendance also I think gave a little edge to the performances as we were all eager to please and entertain them.

Unit 11: Essay

Should James Bond be a Woman?

Within this essay I will be exploring the debate around whether a franchises' main character can be changed when being adapted for the screen. I will be looking at a variety of examples including the debate of whether the character 'James Bond' should always be cast as a white male. Another case I shall discuss is the predicament that Scarlett Johansson found herself in when withdrawing from a transgender role.

The first case study I shall be exploring is the Scarlett Johansson situation. Scarlett Johansson, most known for her role in 'The Avengers' as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow had withdrawn from a role in the upcoming movie 'Rub and Tug'. She had the role of the transgender male Dante Gill a.k.a Tex. The movie was based on a true film about how he ran a string of massage parlors in the 1970s and 80s which became fronts for prostitute dens. The reason Scarlett Johansson withdrew from the role is because of the backlash that she received from people, mostly from transgender actors. Some people have argued that casting a non-transgender to play a transgender role is offensive but others say the best actor should be prioritized over them being transgender. Transgender actress Trace Lysette says that Scarlett Johansson stepping down was a move in the right direction as she also believes that non-transgenders shouldn't play transgender roles. She said that she hoped a transgender man plays the role like intended.                                     
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/movies/scarlett-johansson-rub-and-tug-transgender.html


Another case study that is slightly different is the controversy that was caused by actress Noma Dumezweni, who is black, was cast as Hermoine Granger in the theatrical adaptation of Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. Even though she had previously won awards for her acting some fans objected her being casted and say that the characters identity has been changed. The reason this case study interested me a lot is because it picks up on some of the most debatable points of my subject point. The author of any book has created an identity for their characters so why should it change when being adapted. Although in this case the author of Harry Potter, J.K Rowling hadn't specified a specific race for Hermoine I think the fans were mostly objecting because of the previous Hermoine Granger being so prominent on screen and now she had become part of Hermoine's identity. Emma Watson played Hermoine Granger in all the Harry Potter movies from 2001 till 2011. So for the fans to see a main character that a actress has played for 10 years change race is maybe something that they weren't expecting since they had become so familiar with Emma Watson portraying her. You could also argue that the main reason people adapting books to screen don't change any aspect of the character is not just to keep it accurate but so the fans of that book are not angry and they do not tarnish the reputation of the book.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-06-07/new-harry-potter-play-causes-excitement-and-controversy


A case that also interested me was the case where books called 'Witcher' was being developed into a show by Lauren S. Hissrich. The show-runner had cast a main character Ciri who was originally a white woman in the books and in the video game the same. So you can imagine the shock from the loyal fans when the actress casted to play the originally white female character is Asian. Some could see this as racism but the real reason that this casting angered the fans is that they had a real commitment to the story and to see someone just disregard their commitment, they felt disrespected as fans. The backlash was so bad that the show-runner Lauren S. Hissrich coming off of twitter, which is where most of the backlash came from. This brings me to the point of this subject that the fans are the most important factor of these cases. The fans are the ones who have fell in love with the stories of their favorite characters and for them to hear that it's being changed from what they are used to can cause backlash as we've seen in some of these cases. Most cases of casting backlash is caused by the actor/actress that has been casted not suiting or matching a character or real life persons description based on the fact that fictional created characters when being adapted to screen change or the fact that an actor/actress playing a well known public figure who has since past and not being remotely connected to them in terms of their identity. This leads me on to my next case study.
https://www.themarysue.com/the-witcher-ciri-backlash/


The case study I will discuss next is the case where Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson received backlash for casting himself in the upcoming 'John Henry and The Statesman' as John Henry himself. He received massive backlash for not casting an actual African American to play the role of John Henry as John Henry was African American himself. John Henry worked as a steel-driving man, a man who's job it was to hammer a steel drill into a rock to make holes for explosives. According to legend he died racing a steam-powered rock drilling machine . A race that he won. The main reason Dwayne gave for casting himself as John Henry is that he was excited to play his childhood hero.  Most were disappointed to not see a dark skinned black man play a dark skinned black man who worked himself to death. In this case the main reason it stood out to me is that it was quite different to the other ones in the fact that the fans or public were showing discontent not because the wrong actor was casted to play a long lived favorite character of theirs from a book but they are discontent with the accuracy of the casting. I think that in some cases characters should be cast accurately to their race but only when it's a true story or a film/series based on a real person. It's then that it is important to show who they really are.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dwayne-johnson-faces-backlash-after-casting-himself-as-john-henry-in-new-netflix-movie/



The main case study of this essay is the title of this essay. Should James Bond be a woman? James Bond is the main character in the book series 'James Bond' written by Ian Fleming. The first James Bond novel appeared in 1953 'Casino Royale' and have since then been adapted into films, the most recent being 'Spectre' which starred Daniel Craig as James Bond. Since this franchise has been around for so long it makes sense that hardcore fans of the franchise will be frustrated at the fact that their favorite main character's gender will be changed the next time they see them. A particular fan of the franchise Chips O'Toole wrote an online article about the situation arguing that a female playing a Bond spy is just a way of getting a woman into a position of empowerment by giving them a big roll on the big screen where in fact he sees it as bastardizing a traditional and classic character dating back more than half a century ago. Even Academy Award-winning Rachel Weizs, who is also married to Daniel Craig, came out and pointed out that Ian Fleming had devoted a lot of time to create this character and how he is particularly male so why would they try and jump on the back of the fame of James Bond rather than trying to create something new for a female actress to be. Fans of James Bond particularly point out the fact that changing his gender to female takes away a lot of things that makes James Bond a character they love, like how he is a womanizer or an awesome spy. Some say it's a great idea to have a female spy similar to bond, but to make her own standalone series instead of leeching off of the success of Bond already.
https://www.dmarge.com/2018/05/female-james-bond.html


Overall in my opinion I feel that fan adored characters from established franchises, books or films can be changed but only in the sense where the whole character has been changed. For example changing the original spider-man (Peter Parker) to a new spider-man (Miles Morales). In this case they changed the character but they made a new one instead of the character being very similar to the other. They have similarities but they are not the same in ways where the audience would be upset. Also when it comes to casting I feel that if you are going to cast a character completely different to how they are written then it would only make sense to do that to the other characters in the story, otherwise there's only one character that has changed and the others are all the same instead of all the characters changing then we know the story has changed in some way as all the characters are different in some way.

Unit 9: Research 'Context'

In this unit we are working on 'A Christmas Carol' written by Charles Dickens. In this post I will be putting all my research to do with the play and the writer to help me with context when performing this to other people.

A Christmas Carol is a Christmas story about a man named Ebeneezer Scrooge who had no Christmas spirit and hated when it came around to that time of year. He's selfish with his money never gives to people in need and has no means to change. On the day of Christmas Eve Scrooge went home that evening after the day of work and receives a visit from his dead partner Jacob Marley. Marley tells him his story and tells him that he will be visited by 3 spirits will visit him over 3 nights. After Marley delivers that message he leaves and Scrooge falls asleep. He wakes up moments before the ghost of Christmas past appears, a childlike ghost with a bright glowing head. The ghost takes him on a journey through past Christmases showing him his old clerk Fezziwig and Belle a woman who leaves him because of his lust for money. Scrooge shows signs of regret.
The next ghost is the ghost of Christmas present, shows him Christmases of the present including the Cratchit family and his own nephew Fred's party. Towards the end of the visit Present shows Scrooge 2 starved children, Ignorance and Want living underneath his robe. Then the ghost of Christmas yet to come appears and leads him through a sequence of mysterious scenes all with people talking about an unnamed man that has recently died. Scrooge is anxious to find out who this man is the ghost of Christmas yet to come points to a tombstone with his Scrooge's name on it. He then promises to honor Christmas and wakes up in his bed on Christmas day. Ecstatic with the chance he runs out on to the street, sends a giant turkey to the Cratchit house and attends Fred's party. As the years go on he honors his promise and treats Tiny Tim as his own son.

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/christmascarol/summary/

Charles Dickens Research

Charles Dickens, like most legendary writers started as a journalist. His story is a rags to riches story. He was born in Portsmouth on the 7th of February 1812 to John and Elizabeth Dickens. Charles was 2nd born of 8 and while he was a child his father was a pay clerk in the navy office, but the family was struggling financially so they had to move about a lot until the settled in Camden Town a poor neighborhood in London. At the age of twelve Charles worked with working class men and boys in a shoe polishing factory. The same month he started working Charles' father John Dickens was sentenced to Marshalsea prison for failing to repay his debt. Despite trying to raise money to keep his father out of jail on 23rd February John Dickens was sentenced to prison. Being alone and working in the factory for so long, he developed depression and anxiety. This clearly influenced his fiction and effected his adult life as when he walked past a factory he would still burst out crying. Learning what influenced his fiction choices helps to identify the context of the book and what type of time Scrooge and every other character were living in.


https://www.notablebiographies.com/De-Du/Dickens-Charles.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/dickens_charles.shtml

https://www.shmoop.com/charles-dickens/childhood.html

Victorian times poverty

Rich and wealthy Victorians enjoyed a easy and relaxing life whereas poor Victorians were quite the opposite. They had rough and hard lives. Most either ended up working in the work houses or early death. There weren't any charities or anything like that so they couldn't afford anything. They needed money to buy food and clothes and money was hard to come by. Most children as soon as they could would go to work because money was so important and the more children you have working, the more chance of getting more money you get and the more money you get the better your living conditions and more food. Also many children died to diseases as the families wouldn't have money to pay for the medication.  

http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/victorians/poor.html