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Chapter II. The analysis of Oliver Twist

1. Main summary of Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist or the Parish Boy’s Progress is Charles Dicken’s another masterpiece that appeared in serial form in two years from 1837 to 1839 and appeared in the book shape in 1838 in three volumes. This popularity of being published in the book shape even before its serialization ended demonstrates its force and strength as a story. The novel was adapted for various films, plays, tableaus, and course books across the globe. Also, multiple Academy Award-winning 1968 motion pictures. This masterpiece depicted poverty-stricken London and how poor conditions can lead children into crime. The story of the novel revolves around an orphan child, Oliver Twist, who lives in dirty places where innocent children undergo forced slavery, rigorous child labor, and untold sufferings. Yet the fog of these sufferings does not impact the purity and innocence of Oliver, leading him to win the ultimate battle for survival. The novel unfolds the story of an unfortunate boy, Oliver Twist, a poor orphan soul, who spends most of his early years at a child farm in Mudfog located north of London, with several other poor children having less or no amenities of life. Oliver’s mother dies right after his birth after which the helpless child is sent to a parochial orphanage where he receives ill- treatment. After nine years of suffering and maltreatment, he reaches a warehouse, where once again, he becomes the victim of cruelty and starvation. Upon demanding more food for his fellow sufferers and himself, his owner, Mr. Bumble, becomes furious and decides to apprentice him to Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker of the parish, to get rid of him.

After facing continued mistreatment from Mrs. Sowerberry and Noah Claypole, the fellow apprentice because he was promoted as mute, Oliver runs away. He reaches London, where he meets Jack Dawkins, known as ‘the Artful Dodger’, who directs him to an “old gentleman,” Fagin, a criminal gang leader. He then shares a place with other juvenile criminals at Fagin’s place. Once he goes out with his companions, Dodger and Charles Bates, who pick Mr. Brownlow, an older
man’s pocket, and disappear, leaving Oliver to be caught. ¹⁰The poor boy has to go behind the bars for a crime he has never committed. Fortunately, this time, his luck favors him, and he gets relief by the testimony of a bookseller, who happens to witness that crime. Mr. Brownlow, the victim, feels sorry for Oliver and takes him home. Mr. Brownlow finds a striking resemblance between Oliver and a woman in a painting, who was his friend’s wife.
Oliver’s rescue annoys Fagin so much because he was afraid of the whole gang being outed by him, that he shifts his headquarters and appoints Nancy, his trainer, to trace Oliver. Oliver, on the other hand, is enjoying life at Mr. Brownlow’s home, but life leads him to another misery. When Oliver goes out to pay for a book Mr. Brownlow has entrusted with, the gang finally reaches him and takes him to Fagin, he now keeps him under strict captivity after this. To get him entirely under his command, Fagin decides to involve him in a heinous crime – a robbery at a house – where Sikes and Toby Crackit assume the responsibility of taking him there. He enters the house through a window.

Unfortunately, the owners wake upon, and the ensuing noise and resulting tumult lead Oliver to receive a gunshot and fell in a ditch unconscious. On regaining consciousness, he realizes that he was taken care of by a kind lady, Mrs. Maylie, and her niece, Rose, whom he was supposed to rob with the gang. Later finds out that Rose was his late mother’s sister making her his aunt. Once recovered, he decides to meet Mr. Brownlow, who has provided him the comfort of home for the first time, but he does not find him. Meanwhile, Fagin and his mysterious partner, Monks, are still after Oliver. By chance, Nancy overhears Monks and Fagin’s plot against Oliver and decides to rescue the boy. She, then, meets Mrs. Maylie and discloses the destructive plan that Monks, Oliver’s half-brother, wants to ruin Oliver’s life so that he can have the whole inheritance. Stunned by this horrific truth, Mrs. Maylie tells Nancy’s story to Mr. Brownlow.

¹⁰ Harvey, Bruce Nd, “Analysis of Oliver Twist” March 12, 2009
In the past Edwin Leeford, Oliver’s father was married to Monks mother but was separated due to unhappy marriage. Later, he was associated with an elderly man who was friends with Mr. Brownlow, had two daughters of whom the eldest one was seventeen years old, Agnes, and falls in love with her but it was kept as a secret. When Edwin visits Rome to save a dying old man, he dies too. Whereas Agnes dies while giving birth to Oliver.
When Nancy has a midnight meeting with Mr. Brownlow and Rose on the London bridge where he directs them to the Monks’ place, Noah who has stolen the money from Mr. Sowerberry flee to London, joins Fagin to spy on Nancy, hears everything, and immediately informs Fagin about these new developments. Fagin misdirects Bill Sikes by stating that she has informed him which she didn’t. Nancy’s double-dealing and betrayal anger him and in a fit of rage beats her to death.
On the other hand, he also hangs himself, though, accidentally while trying to steal money from Fagin to escape from London and settle in France. Meanwhile, Mr. Brownlow and Maylie trace Monks, who finally admits everything and expresses the reason for his hatred toward Oliver. Oliver finds that Monks is his half-brother and their father has left the bulk of his fortune to Agnes Fleming, Oliver’s mother. Finally, the troubles, miseries, and misfortune leave Oliver after he receives his share of the property. Fagin gets punished for his crimes and is hanged. While Monks dies in the prison even after Oliver happily shares half of his fortune with him, apparently he misspends his money, turns to crime, and ends up in prison and Rose marries her sweetheart Harry Maylie. Mr. Brownlow legally adopts Oliver.
Charles Dickens was well versed in the poverty of London, as he himself was a child worker after his father was sent to debtors’ prison. His appreciation of the hardships endured by impoverished citizens stayed with him for the rest of his life and was evident in his journalistic writings and novels. Dickens began writing Oliver Twist after the adoption of the Poor Law of 1834, which halted government
payments to the able-bodied poor unless they entered workhouses. Thus, Oliver
Twist became a vehicle for social criticism aimed directly at the problem of poverty in 19th-century London.
Oliver Twist was very popular when it was first published, partially because of its scandalous subject matter. It depicted crime and murder without holding back— causing it, in Victorian London, to be classed as a “Newgate novel” (named after Newgate Prison in London). While critics often condemned such novels as immoral, the public usually enjoyed them. Because the novel was also published serially, the anticipation of waiting for the next installment (and its many cliffhangers) also likely contributed to its popularity. To this day, Oliver Twist is enjoyed by many for its historical social commentary and exciting plotline. It has been adapted for film several times, including in 1948 (directed by David Lean) and 2005 (directed by Roman Polanski).
In his preface to Oliver Twist, Dickens emphatically expressed resentment at the practice in popular literature of depicting rogues, like Macheath in The Beggar's Opera, as dashing figures, leading lively and colorful lives. He considers such misrepresentations as a potentially harmful influence on impressionable minds. Dickens firmly maintains that the nature and behavior of his seemingly extreme characters reflect truth without distortion, however implausible they may seem.
Dickens is frequently charged with offering a view of the world that exaggerates reality. A novelist, however, communicates his interpretation of life through the medium of fiction. His accomplishment grows out of a blend of experience and imagination. In judging the writer's success, we have to grant his purposes and goal. Dickens was fascinated by extreme behavior and attitudes. He had a peculiar talent for exaggeration. For him, real life was the springboard for fancy. Thus the world of story he created is a mirror in which the truths of the real world are reflected.
Oliver Twist is a good illustration of Dickens's belief that the novel should do more than merely entertain. It should, he believed, be directed toward social reform. This does not mean Dickens was a propagandist who held forth idealistic goals as cures
for the ills of the world. Although he bitterly attacks the defects of existing
institutions — government, the law, education, penal systems — and mercilessly exposes the injustice and wretchedness inflicted by them, he does not suggest the overthrow of the established order. Nor will you find any easy answers or pat solutions.
Dickens's attitudes and themes reflect a general approval of the English state and society. He could not have had such enormous popularity if he had not in a large measure voiced sentiments and values that motivated the readers of his times. Dickens looked upon almost all institutions with suspicion, including religious movements. In Hard Times, trade unionism is shown to be loaded with the potential for mischief, in the manner of all oppressive forces when those in power fall prey to corruption and abuse. Dickens had little confidence in systems as agencies of good but placed his faith in people.
To bring about improvements, he depended upon the release of the goodness that he felt to be inherent in all human nature. Dickens kept a strong belief that people, if they were not stifled, would behave with fairness. As a result, he firmly hated all individuals, institutions, and systems that he regarded as standing in the way of natural human goodness. He does not believe this endowment of human goodness is indestructible. In Oliver Twist, he acknowledges that the trait of goodness in humanity can be irretrievably lost if it is subjected to ungoverned corrupting influences.
For this reason, Dickens lays great stress on environment in the development of character and regulation of conduct. Although he had little faith in the operation of politics, he rested his hopes for progress on education. But schooling must be well conceived and administered. In many of his books, Dickens demonstrates with the full strength of his satiric lash how education, in the hands of the wrong authority figures, can become as bad if not worse than ignorance. It is noteworthy that whenever Oliver Twist's fortunes begin to rise, his benefactors immediately take an interest in his education.
Dickens is often accused of being weak or lacking in character portrayal. But in
this regard, as in other feats of dramatic exposition, Dickens's distinctive gifts as a storyteller yielded the most remarkable creations. Dickens was more concerned with the outer behavior of people than he was with the exploration of psychological depths. For the most part, his characters are considered "flat" because they don't reveal varied facets of personality or develop as the narrative unfolds. Instead, they remain unchanged through the course of events and interaction with other characters.¹¹
Since they are not gradually built up into complex human beings, characters may sometimes suddenly act contrary to expectations.
Some of Dickens's more eccentric characters may seem overdrawn, but they usually discharge a serious function in his fiction. They are not to be looked upon as representative types of actual humanity. Second-rank characters regularly are given some identity tag or trait when they are first introduced, often by being labeled with some idiosyncrasy. They are readily remembered thereafter by the recurring peculiarity of speech or behavior, even when they have little to do with the mainstream of action. Thus, Dickens's secondary characters are usually the most memorable. His unsavory figures also tend to stand out more than the models of rectitude and propriety. This is because it is more difficult for a writer to dramatize or signify by a phrase or gesture. As a result, Dickens's protagonists are frequently pallid, unconvincing figures who lack the vitality and individuality that distinguish the villains and secondary characters.
Dickens loved the operatic and demonstrative narrative intensity that has been called melodrama. His characters reflect this. The principals fall into two groups whose natures are predominantly white (virtuous or proper) or black (villainous and mean-spirited bordering on violent) . The serious characters between whom the essential conflict takes place therefore embody the extremes of virtue and viciousness.
The novels of Dickens are marked — many would insist marred — by an erratic looseness of construction that may confuse readers who are more used to unified





¹¹ Brians, Paul. “Charles Dickens and his famous work: Oliver Twist” February 25, 2005
works. In the case of Dickens, it may be difficult to discover what the center of a work is — what it is precisely about — which should be expressible in a succinct statement. The plot is woven out of an involved central intrigue that can be hard to unravel because of the distractions of subordinate and irrelevant incidents.
The resort to melodrama, particularly in the rendition of great crucial scenes, can defeat the writer's designs. When the effort to portray tragic intensity lapses into melodrama and sentimentality, the effect upon the reader is reduced. Pathos must be utilized with care, otherwise readers may resent having their feelings exploited. In his humor , Dickens's exuberance also carried him beyond the bounds of moderation, but he seldom lost sight of his intentions. He liberally indulged in humorous riffs solely to ornament the story and amuse his audience. He also made use of humor for satiric effect by exaggerating weakness or vice to reduce it to maximum absurdity. When particularly aroused by an offense against humanity, Dickens may introduce the exaggeration of caustic irony — saying the opposite of what he really meant, but trusting the reader to "get" the true intent — that resolves into open sarcasm.
But whatever faults Dickens may have, they are the faults of genius. Many of the technical flaws in his works were imposed by historical circumstances. He was not only a confirmed moralist but a supreme storyteller. He fully recognized that in order for the world to receive his message, his books had to be read. That meant that he had subtly to attract his readers by taking into account their tastes and desires.
When Dickens began writing, the novel had not yet reached the state of development and acceptance it was later to reach. People who read novels expected to be entertained. Fiction was looked upon as light reading and at the time was not always considered respectable. Shrewd novelist that he was, Dickens provided his readers with lively diversion while soothing their consciences with moral flavoring.
The novel as a literary form was still developing, so Dickens followed the
eighteenth-century tradition that favored long, rambling tales, freely embellished
with uplifting attributes. In addition, the form of Dickens's books was partially dictated by the needs of serial publication.
Serialization prescribed an episodic structure rather than a tightly contrived plot conveyed by a dexterously linked story. Each installment needed to be in some degree an independent entity with its own center of interest, while at the same time leading up to a height of suspense in anticipation of the next issue.
For Dickens, this episodic format meant that he was often writing the installments of a particular novel to keep up with the publication schedule of a magazine, sometimes barely keeping ahead of the typesetters. He had no opportunity for revising and polishing his efforts after a novel was finished, and a work might never be planned as a whole. The author sometimes knew no better than his readers what was to happen next. On November 3, 1837, writing about Oliver Twist, Dickens observed to his friend and biographer, John Forster: "I hope to do great things with Nancy. If I can only work out the idea I have formed of her, and of the female who is to contrast with her. . . ." In September 1838, when the novel was almost completed, he confided to Forster that he had not yet "disposed of the Jew Fagin, who is such an out and outer that I don't know what to make of him." In that same work, the author had intended to have Rose Maylie die, but he later rejected the opportunity for a pathetic scene and allowed her to recover.
Whatever imperfections Dickens's writing may contain, his extraordinary popularity can leave no doubt that he was the reigning literary figure of his day. His works represented the blending of his genius with a tradition he inherited from the times in which he lived. In spite of his occasional grouchiness, Dickens supported the best of which Victorian England was capable. And each succeeding generation has affirmed the original judgment by paying homage to the generosity of his spirit and the immensity of his creative achievement.
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¹² Smith Andrew. Victorian age and its representatives. Edinburgh. May 15. 2009

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