My first extract is “Murdering the Innocents”. Life was very difficult for the poor in the Victorian era. It was very different depending on your class. Dickens used the novels to express his views on the difficult lives of the poor. For example, there were no laws about how long people could work; this had an effect on the number of machine-related accidents that occurred in the Victorian era. Many children worked too long, resulting in injury or even death. The children who were lucky enough to go to school had a better life in the sense that they received an education there, but the teachers there were strict and used the cane and there were large classes that taught to a wide range of students. Dickens makes us interact with the characters. The title of the first extract is “murder the innocent”. This suggests that the extract is about murder, it suggests killing children, and yet the extract does not involve the murder of children. The title is a metaphor which, in my opinion, means to kill what makes a child, a child. This suggests that “the innocent” are destroyed. It also references the section of the Bible where King Herod orders that all children under the age of 2 be killed so that the "new king" would not be a threat to him. In this extract, Dickens explores the poor. He tries to show the rich how difficult the lives of the poor are compared to theirs. Dickens wants to emphasize that in his time, school was all about facts and figures. He wanted children to have imagination and so he was very critical of the education they received. For example, in the extract, Gradgrind asks Bitzer for his definition of a horse, the definition was not imaginative, you would not be able to imagine a horse...... middle of paper. .....I'm trying to get his message across to show kids that there are people less fortunate than them and that they should appreciate what they have, and I also think he's trying to make them understand to what extent the lives of the poor are closed to the rich. I found the description of the boys on the boat the most effective because it talks about the children trying to row the boat across the thick lake of dye and pollution. The sections show that educational and industrial cities moved beyond the Industrial Revolution, that education advanced by having many more schools, teachers, and laws against student mistreatment. Additionally, children under 13 are not allowed to work at all and those over 13 have limited hours until around age 15 or 16, where more variety is available, and most of the pollution has disappeared, leaving clear skies again, and the machines are safer.