Here's what happened:
* John Dickens, a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, had accumulated substantial debt. He was known for his extravagant spending habits and poor financial management.
* He was arrested for debt and imprisoned in the Marshalsea debtors' prison. This meant that the entire Dickens family, including Charles (then ten years old), had to relocate to the prison with him.
* Charles's mother, Elizabeth Dickens, worked tirelessly to support the family while John was incarcerated. She took in laundry and other odd jobs to make ends meet.
* This experience profoundly impacted young Charles. He witnessed firsthand the harsh realities of poverty and the despair of those trapped by debt. This event, coupled with his father's repeated brushes with financial ruin, would later become a recurring theme in Dickens's novels, most notably in "Little Dorrit."
The imprisonment of John Dickens was a deeply traumatic event for Charles, who described it as a "black and dismal" period in his life. It shaped his worldview and deeply influenced his writing, leaving a lasting mark on his work and legacy.