The Victorian age was a period of contradiction: as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution the middle class became richer and richer whereas the exploited working class suffered from deprivation and injustice.

The change brought about by the Industrial Revolution was ruthless: slums grew at an incredible pace as people moved to the cities to work in mines, factories and industries. New inventions prompted developments and new industries started. The upper and classes prospered whereas the lower classes became poorer and poorer.

The typical Victorian values further marked this contrast. Especially for the upper and middle classes, the values of the Church, family and home were fundamental. Authoritarian fathers and submissive mothers were at the basis of the patriarchal family. Morality and respectability were key but the other side of the coin showed disease, deprivation and a high mortality rate. So if, one the one hand society became almost puritanical and philanthropy and charity became a duty, on the other hand the lower classes were forced to live in overcrowded and degraded slums lacking any form of hygiene.

Children worked long hours in textile mills, in mines and as chimney sweepers. Poverty was almost considered a crime and people were imprisoned for debts.

The moral ideals and beliefs of the upper and middle classes appeared as hypocritical, as the origin of their wealth was the very heart of the degraded conditions the working classes were to suffer.

However, no revolution took place, on the contrary, many reforms were passed particularly in areas such as health and education.

A sort of a silent pact between the wealthy and the poor ones contributed to maintain a certain order and this is the sense of the word "compromise". The working class generally accepted the structure of society imposed by the dominant classes, they supported their privileges, accepted their (all too often) hypocritical ideals and, in return, the upper classes often (moralistically) helped the poor ones with donations, volunteer work and a general acceptance of new reforms.

Philantropy was somehow a hypocritical way of making up for debt the wealthy had contracted with the poor ones.

The figure of the benefactor is typical of this period and is often to be found in the literature of the time. Certainly often in Dickens.