查尔斯·狄更斯的第二部小说《雾都孤儿》讲述了一个孤儿在英国伦敦的罪犯中成长的故事。这本书是狄更斯最受欢迎的作品之一，以其对贫穷、童工和19世纪中叶伦敦贫民窟生活的残酷描写而闻名。

贫困

《雾都孤儿》出版的时候，狄更斯的许多同胞生活在极度贫困之中。最不幸的是被送到济贫院，在那里他们得到食物和住宿，以换取他们的劳动。狄更斯小说的主人公小时候就在济贫院里。为了挣粥，奥利弗每天都在采摘麻絮。

"Please, sir, I want some more." (Oliver, Chapter 2) "Oliver Twist has asked for more!" (Mr. Bumble, Chapter 2) "I am very hungry and tired...I have walked a long way. I have been walking these seven days." (Oliver, Chapter 8) "Bleak, dark, and piercing cold, it was a night for the well-housed and fed to draw round the bright fire, and thank God they were at home; and for the homeless starving wretch to lay him down and die. Many hunger-worn outcasts close their eyes in our bare streets at such times, who, let their crimes have been what they may, can hardly open them in a more bitter world." (Chapter 23)

人性

狄更斯不仅作为一位小说家，而且作为一位社会批评家受到人们的敬仰。在《雾都孤儿》中，他用敏锐的眼光剖析了人性的弱点。这部小说的社会背景，包括伦敦贫苦的下层阶级和旨在遏制他们的刑事司法系统，使狄更斯能够探索当人类沦落到最底层时会发生什么。

"The doctor seemed especially troubled by the fact of the robbery having been unexpected, and attempted in the night-time; as if it were the established custom of gentlemen in the housebreaking way to transact business at noon, and to make an appointment, by the twopenny post, a day or two previous." (Chapter 7) "Although Oliver had been brought up by philosophers, he was not theoretically acquainted with the beautiful axiom that self-preservation is the first law of nature." (Chapter 10) "There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast." (Chapter 10) "But death, fires, and burglary, make all men equals." (Chapter 28) "Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercises, even over the appearance of external objects. Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colours are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision." (Chapter 33) "Oh! the suspense: the fearful, acute suspense of standing idly by while the life of one we dearly love, is trembling in the balance; the racking thoughts that crowd upon the mind, and make the heart beat violently, and the breath come thick, by the force of the images they conjure up before it; the desperate anxiety to be doing something to relieve the pain, or lessen the danger, which we have no power to alleviate; the sinking of soul and spirit, which the sad remembrance of our helplessness produces; what tortures can equal these; what reflections of endeavours can, in the full tide and fever of the time, allay them!" (Chapter 33)

社会与阶级

《雾都孤儿》讲述的是一个贫穷的孤儿，更广泛地说，是一个被压迫的人，它充满了狄更斯关于阶级在英国社会中的角色的思想。作者对保护上层阶级而让穷人挨饿和死亡的制度提出了高度批评。在整本书中，狄更斯提出了关于社会如何组织自身以及如何对待最贫困成员的问题。

"Why everybody lets him alone enough, for the matter of that. Neither his father nor his mother will ever interfere with him. All his relations let him have his own way pretty well." (Noah, Chapter 5) "I only know two sorts of boys. Mealy boys, and beef-faced boys." (Mr. Grimwig, Chapter 10) "Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine." (Chapter 37) "We need be careful how we deal with those about us, when every death carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted, and so little done- of so many things forgotten, and so many more which might have been repaired! There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, in time." (Chapter 8) "The sun—the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man—burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray." (Chapter 46)