THE PREDICAMENT OF THE POOR IN CHARLES DICKENS’S GREAT EXPECTATIONS AND BUCHI EMECHETA’S THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD

This research explores the representation of poverty in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, employing Marxist literary criticism as the central framework. Although the novels are set in vastly different cultural and historical contexts Victorian England and colonial/postcolonial Nigeria both works expose the struggles of the underprivileged and critique the social and economic systems that sustain inequality. Through a Marxist lens, the analysis demonstrates that poverty is not an individual failing but a structural outcome of class divisions, material scarcity, and systemic exploitation. Furthermore, the study argues that Dickens and Emecheta, despite their cultural differences, converge in their depiction of the poor as victims of social injustice, while at the same time portraying their endurance in the face of hardship.