The Presentation and Criticism of Dualist Hierarchy in Frances Trollope’s Michael Armstrong: The Factory Boy and Charles Dickens’ Hard Times

The article reads the presentation and criticism of the dualist hierarchy in Frances Trollope’s Michael Armstrong: The Factory Boy and Charles Dickens’ Hard Times. This article has used Val Plumwood’s concept of dualist hierarchy in her book Feminism and the Mastery of Nature as a theoretical tool to explore how they criticized the injustices and inequalities of England’s dualist hierarchy. England in the Victorian era became prosperous with advanced industrialization and imperialism. However, the wealth remained in the hands of the rich people. The gap between the lifestyle of the rich and the poor became huge. The ordinary people suffered pollution, poverty, malnutrition, and various injustices. Frances Trollope and Charles Dickens consciously presented the social hierarchy and the two worlds of the rich and the poor, as well as how the poor people were dominated and exploited by the rich. In their presentation, the authors vehemently criticized the dualist hierarchy of English society.