TOPIC :- CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE NOVEL
" OLIVER TWIST "
"Oliver Twist" - the novel is considered as
a fictionalized version of the real life orphans which were popular at that
time. As the story progressed, introducing its hero into London's criminal
low-life. Dickens tells us that he wanted Oliver to represent the strength of
virtue in the fallen world : he is neglected, imprisoned and isolated. He
wanders in an unknown country and an unknown city, picking up dangerous helpers
and teachers. He is involved in cruelty, misery and nightmare and his child's
point of view, both radically and symbolically innocent, brings us close to the
sensations of helplessness and panic. It is easy to speak of Dickens's virtuous
character which they are but it is essential to notice his affective powers,
which are highly developed in Oliver.
* Novel : Oliver Twist is an extreme criticism of Victorian
society's treatment of the poor. The workhouses that were institutions of the Victorian
middle class was established to raise poor children. Poor families had vices,
which should have been discouraged and it was believed that poor husbands and
wives were separated in order to prevent them from having children and
expending the lower class. Poor children were taken away from their parents in
order to allow the state and the church to raise them in the manner they
believed most appropriate.
* The workhouse : The workhouse functions as a sign of the
moral hypocrisy. She does not provide them enough food or meal. The Victorian
middle class saw cleanliness as a moral virtue and the workhouse was supposed
to reserve the poor from the immoral condition of dirty things and filthy. Dickens chooses a weapon of satire on the
workhouse which itself as a filthy on the place. Mrs. Mann never insures that
the children practice good hygiene. Workhouses were established to save the
poor from starvation, disease, filth but we can find hardships on the poor. Mr.
Bumble's nature and his character shows middle class hypocrisy. He himself is
fat, well-dressed and the entire workhose is full of fat gentlemen who preaches
the value of enough diet for residents of the
workhouse.
* Middle class-lower class
: What the middle class characters think
of the lower classes that are naturally base, criminal, filthy and they consider
themselves as a clean and highly morally social cultures group. The behavior of
the workhouse people have been
satirized. For example the gentleman who call Oliver a "Orange".
After Oliver's request for more food, the board schemes to apprentice him to a
brutal master. Even when the upper classes claim to reduce the lower class predicament,
they only end up. Oliver is sent to a brutal employer after believing his fate
as a criminal and the board ensures his death. Instead of giving treatment of
good human beings the workhouse gives the treatment of vices. Vices ought to be
reduced but the condition was different there. One workhouse boy, with a
'hungry look" awaits to eat another boy. Workhouses force their residents
to become cannibals. The workhouse imitates the poor children slavery. They are
fed and clothed as little as possible and required to do tasks arranged by the
board. They are accepted to be happy and graceful to accept the miserable
conditions that have been forced on them. The character are absurd they show
opposite of what they are expected to do or they should do. The upper classes
are ignorant of the plight of the lower classes.
* Sowerberries : Noah Claypole
who is Mr. Sowerberry's apprentice who mistreats Oliver so his relation with
Oliver illustrates Victorian England's obsession with class destination. His
parents were not able enough to give him shelter and food or clothes. Noah has
become habituated to behave rudely with hatred towards those who are better off
than he. Oliver is even worse off than he is. Snobbery is a characteristic of the lowest as
well as the highest class of society. That kind of behavior seems a component
of class insecurity. The poor taunt those who are poorer than they. They
distinguish themselves from those who are even worse than them in life.
Dickens also criticizes the Victorian
characterization of the poor as immoral, criminal, filthy. Bur the character of
Oliver after all is virtuous, good and innocent. We also might expect a
criticism of a popular conception of the lower classes to describe many lower
class character who are essentially good, honest, hard worker. But Dickens does
not paint such a picture. The character of Noah exhibits the same stereotype
that Dickens satirizes. He - being the son of a drunkard seems to have
inherited all the treats that his father has, greedy, ugly, dirty.
Perhaps this novel was written to expose the
conditions in which the lower classes were expected to live, in which the poor
live their lives. Industrial resolution, economic conditions have been
portrayed well. Oliver and Sowerbbery's travelling for a dead paper's body. The
neighborhood is full of shop fronts that are "Fast closed . The husband
wife does not starve to death as a result of her "natural" laziness
but she starves to death because of economic realities of the society in which
she lives.
* Development in Oliver's
character : Oliver's attack on Noah is an important moment in the
development of his character. He is portrayed as sweet, docile, innocent.
Dickens wants his audience sympathy for the poor orphan. His sudden reaction
and anger makes him aware and more passionate human. We always have desire to
achieve those things which we have not got yet or we have not seen yet. We do
not have Oliver raised in the workhouse, he has never seen a family - love of
family - except the sowerberrys, who are childless. He has grown a little bit
from immaturity and realizes, his sense of familial love is string enough to
react in favour of his mother's defense. Dickens clearly shows that desire for
the love of the family is a natural thing and an impulse with which children
are born.
Oliver's trip to London has significance. It shows
the migration of the poor to the urban centers of England during the Industrial
Revolution. His hungry, exhausted condition is a result of the laws forbidding
beginning. The crimes committed by the poor on the people who passed the strictest poor laws and it has been clamed by
Dickens. Oliver must accept the aid of Fagin's gang. He experiences
domestically in his life. Fagin's house is filthy, they have plenty of food, no
one to scold or to be jealous of Oliver
his full share of the food.
* Characterization of Fagin
: Dicken's characterization of Fagin is
one of the uncomfortable and complicated characterizations. His
characterization is Jewish stereotypes. Fagin's character has been portrayed as
a "a very old shrivelled Jew" with a villainous look. His face does
not attract us or a kind of repulsive face. His eyes "glisten" as he
has desires for magnificent gold watch. He is a greedy person. Fagin obtains it
by having others to do the thieving for him. Others have been hanged for doing
Fagin's biding, they have to follow him and his rules. He is referred to as
"the Jew" or "the old Jew" and he is made a representative
for all Jews.
Fagin also represents a harsh parody of the
protestant work of ethic. Oliver really wanted to do work because he notices
Fagin's "Stern or strict morality" and we can find it when Charley
and Dodgew return home empty handed. Fagin instead of being elder, senior does
not work but forces others to do it for him. His character shows his misery,
lazy habits. He sometimes punishes them by denying them dinner. Victorians
punished, castigated the poor for laziness. But the work ethic they preached
was responsible for creating the perversion of that ethic that Fagin
represents. As a result of "stern morality" of charitable
institutions, Paupers have to choose between the harsh conditions of the
workhouses and the harsh conditions of the streets. Those who stay outside the
workhouse are often forced to turn to crime in order to survive.
* Oliver's experience in the
courtroom : Oliver's experience in
the courtroom highlights the position of the poor in the eyes of law. Mr. Fang
is the harsh, irrational man of the English legal system. The law has some rules
to listen to any unfortunate Pauper brought to face 'justice'. Without hard
evidence or witnesses, Brownlow does not believe that Oliver is the thief. Mr. Fang
convicts Oliver and sentences him to three months of hard labor. Oliver's
inability to speak us because of his sickness and it suggests the lower class's
lack of political power. In 1830's England, the right to vote was based on
wealth, so the poor has no any right, respect to the law. Moreover, the upper
classes consider their own conceptions of the poor upon them. They are dirty,
uneducated, immoral, immature and these characteristics redefining poor
people's identity so these acceptance of the poor's identity shows that there
is no truth so truth should not be expected from the poor class. Oliver cannot
even say his name because of his terror, so a court officer gives him the false
name of "Tom White". This process of renaming occurs. The name
"Oliver Twist" is no more authentic, for Bumble names him when he is
born. Oliver's identity has been determined by other more powerful people
throughout his life.
* Reformation in Oliver's life
: Oliver enters a new world when he is taken to Brownlow's hope. The English
legal system and the workhouse represent a value system based on punishment or
strict morals. The Brownlow household, in contrast works on a basis of forgiveness
and kindness. After some false identities, names imposed by others, Oliver
comes into contact with a portrait of a woman he closely resembles. With this
incident the novel's central secret and Oliver's true identity is established.
* Relationship between clothing
and identity : The disguise that Nancy wears when she enters the polish
station reveals the difference between the middle and lower classes in Victorian
society. She seems to be a member of an elite class. She disguises herself as a
middle-class woman, and she acts as if she is an individual worth hearing. In
the attire of the middle-class she gains both a social voice and social
identity or visibility. She becomes an individual. Just as Nancy gains a
middle-class identity by changing her clothing, Oliver abandons his identity as
a orphan pickpocket when he leaves his pauper's clothes and is given a new suit
by Brownlow. Oliver gains the identity of a gentlemen's son by wearing the
clothing of a gentlemen's son. He is asked about his dreams what will he be in
future whereas at the workhouse, the authorities never bother to ask him his
opinion. In Victorian England an individual's profession determined a part of
his or her identity. His condition represents the silence of the poor. The poor
cannot define their social identity - instead elite classes define the identity
of the poor for them how they think of them.
* Class identity is correlated
with history too : Class identity is correlated with history. He is asked
to give his own life history. When Oliver was a Pauper, other people control
controlled his history as well as identity. When he is Sowerberry's apprentice,
Oliver attempts to gain control of his identity by denying Noah's insults to
his mother, but instead he receives a beating for trying to assert the correct
version of his past. Once he abandons his Pauper status, Oliver's right to
explain his past, Oliver's lack of connection to his past becomes an obstacle
in his life whereas the upper classes and member of the aristocracy are able to
establish their identities.
Nancy imposes another false identity on Oliver in
order to kidnap him. She calls him her "dear brother". Those who are
denied families in the novel often seeks for a family. In Fagin's family Oliver
was a brother to Nancy. Both are dependent upon him for their food and shelter.
Oliver confirms the worst stereotypes of the poor as a member of Fagin's pickpocket
band.
* Characters : Although most
major characters in Oliver Twist are either have good qualities or bad
qualities. Oliver and Mr. Brownlow are good character and embodiments of evil
like Mr. Bumble, Fagin and Bill Sikes. Nancy's character has moral extremes.
Dickens describes her character very well combines with her position as a young,
unmarried female at Pauper, implies that she is a prostitute - a profession
which arouses little sympathy or hatred also. Dickens in his preface to 1941
edition of the novel, shows that "the boys are pickpockets, and the girl
is a prostitute". She also attempts and schemes to bring Oliver back into
Fagin's gang. But she cannot buffer and see Sikes and Fagin for mistreating
Oliver and it shows her deep and passionate sense of morality. Most other
"good" characters we meet are good because they have no experience
with vie and degradation. Nancy knows degradation well yet she is good. Her
character has been portrayed well to ask whether an individual can be redeemed
from the effects of a bad environment. When Nancy regrets for returning back
Oliver to Fagin's care, shows that the boys might be involved in prostitution
too. Nancy's dialogue while pointing to Oliver is a famous one. " I
Have been in the same trade, and in the same service for twelve years
since". It shows her
absolute identification between the two characters. Victorian sensibilities
mandated that references to sexuality were avoided.
* Oliver's domestic relationship
with Fagin and his gang : Oliver's domestic relationship with Fagin and his
gang suggests that the environment in which one is raised is a determining
factor of one's character than biological nature. The need of companionship
plays a vital role and drives people to accept whichever community accepts them.
As Oliver too finds humor and joy in the
companionship of the thieves, so it shows how easy it is for Fagin to corrupt
Oliver. Friendless children will obviously adopt them as family any person who
is good and generous to them and will easily adopt that person's value. The
Artful Dodger (Jack Dawkins) and Charley Bates are aside from their crimes. As
Dodger's name implies his highly intellectuality and Charley is habitual to
laughing at little provocation. Both could have thrives in legitimate society.
The fact is that Oliver speaks in such a
sophisticated manner as compared to the rest of Fagin's boys. It suggests that
even when people are born into the bad or evil conditions, they can appreciate
and have goodness and morality. When the Dodger and Charley pick Brownlow's
pocket, and when Sikes, order Oliver into the house, Oliver reacts with shock
and horror at the idea of stealing. It is unclear where has acquired such moral
sense and he could not have learned it amid the life or death struggles of the
workhouse. The Dodger and Charley speak in the slang and abuse the street
children. They use the words like "seragged", "rum dog",
"preaching". But Oliver does not understand what such expressions
mean. He himself speaks in proper English. "I would rather go". Even
Mr. Bumble speaks in a comical vulgar language, it does not affect speech shows
his moral goodness.
Oliver is good and it creates confusion with the argument
that corruption is existed by the horrible living conditions of the lower
classes and environment effects the person especially the child rather than
inherently born into their characters. Morality can be born into character. Mr.
Sowerberry enlists Oliver to serve in funerals because of melancholy in his
face. He seems "unhappy". Other boys also think that Oliver has good
and innocent, kind face so it would be better for them to send Oliver to bag.
* Resemblance between Oliver and
the woman in the portrait : The resemblance between Oliver and the woman in
the portrait provides us with the pivot hint that the workhouse-born Oliver has
an identity that is worth discovering. Dickens does not seem to agree with the
Bumble's idea of paupers that the poor are born with greedy nature, selfishness
and with affinity for vice and crime. Vice and crime are natural in them. But
it sometimes seems as if Oliver has been born with an affinity for virtue and
love, just as he was born with his angelic face.
* Bumble : Bumble names Oliver
as a child born of "low and vicious" parents, shows the stereotype
that the poor inherit a criminal nature. Oliver was "low and vicious"
for trying to define his identity on his own terms. Mr. Bumble shows Brownlow
his own identification papers to prove his statement. His status as the
middle-class beadle for a workhouse gives him the right to speak for Oliver.
Bumble has power of the state to back up his word. Oliver only has his own word
to back him up. Outside the workhouse Oliver has no legal existence unless he
commits a crime and enters the courtroom. The poor people are considered as
criminals, "idle, lazy" paupers living on other's charity. The state
only recognizes their existence and them when they commit crimes, die or enter
the workhouses.
* Mrs. Corney : Mrs. Corney,
the middle-class matron of the workhouse, enjoys luxury than the paupers. She
enjoys herself in her room with blazing fire during the cold winter. The
facilities of hew apartment which draw Mr. Bumble's eyes and heart in her
direction, represent the money that might have been spent on the paupers under
her care. Hew life style is based on theft but she is robbing those who have
nothing, her theft will never be acknowledged. Middle class controls
conceptions of what is right and wrong. Church officials, intellectuals, public
officers who have authority to declare what is right and wrong are all part of
the middle class. With this control they are able to ignore their own thievery,
hates the lower classes, and at the same
time condemn the lower class version of thievery. Mrs. Corney and Mr. Bumble's
hypocrisy has been demonstrated well. Mr. Bumble notices that Mrs. Corney's cat
receives better treatment than the workhouse paupers. The cats bask in front of
a blazing fire while paupers freeze. Mr. Bumble remarks that he would drawn any cat. Mrs. Corney calls him a cruel
man for saying this. She ignores her own cruelty to the paupers. By treating
the paupers worse than animals these so called charitable officials destroy
their basic rights as human beings.
* Marriage of Mrs. Corney with Mr.
Bumble : This marriage is a parody of certain kind of middle class
marriage. His proposal was for material wealth. He verifies everything, hew
clothing is of good fashin and texture. Hew small box contains money. During
the Victorian era many marriages were economic arrangements for people of
middle class status.
* Introduction of Monks, Rose
Maylie and other characters : Monk's arrival draws the readers into
thinking. Dickens’s description of Monks as "a dark figure" who is
mysterious too. Rose Maylie imagines Oliver's entire history at a glance.
Rose's hypothesis about his past and personality are accurate. She believes
Oliver took part in the burglary because he has never known a mother's love or
he suffered ill usage too, the want of bread. She names all the miserable
conditions of poverty that may have driven him to hard with men who have forced
him to guilt. Like Brownlow and unlike the English legal system, the Mayliers
believe in forgiveness and kindness. Dickens has portrayed these characters well who believe that Oliver
is very good but born into a bad environment, those vices can be improved or
changed or removed by making them understand about good and material conditions
rather than punishing them. The Maylies believe that Oliver's surrounding have
determined his behavior but not his nature and for the first time in his life
Oliver is given the chance to narrate his life-story on his own terms. This
extent is the most important and necessary event in establishing his identity
as he has been separated from his surroundings .
Maylies's courtroom is so different from the typical
courtroom of the English legal system. In the courtroom of Mr. Fang which
Dickens depicts in the novel. Oliver is not permitted to speak up even in the
absence of conclusive avidence, the magistrate convicts him of the crime of
pick pocketing. In the courtroom of Maylies household, Oliver not only
testified for himself but he also admits his part in the attempted burglary.
Maylies are concerned with the fact that Oliver can be saved from committing
crimes than with punishing him for the crime that he committed . For the
Maylies Oliver's entire history and personality, nature matter rather than any
single action of his.
Mr. Losbern - Maylies's physician conversation with
Giles and Brittles elaborates the two kind of moral authority by which
character can be judged in Oliver Twist. Losbern appeals to Giles fear of God's
authority of morality to keep him from part in the burglary. Losbern says that
Giles will be responsible for Oliver's death of his statement send him to the
English Courtroom. But the novel suggests that the spiritual authority of God
would sentence Giles for complicity in the death of a child. Giles, Brittles
and Losberne are all certain that it was indeed Oliver who committed the crime.
The three men are ready to exercise mercy where court system is not.
* Confusions : Due to Mrs.
Maylie and Rose Oliver comes into a normal family life. But have Dickens's
characterization of the upper-class family complicates his opriginal intension
to give voice to the poor. Oliver is the object of women's kindness Mrs. Bedwin
- housekeeper at Mr. Brownlow's house and Nancy both behave nicely with Oliver.
But here Maylie women are upper-class and Dickens's portrayed of them creates a
confusion and bias toward the lower class for whom this novel has been written.
Now Oliver's life has totally changed. He has been
given freedom, leisure to do nothing all day but read, pick flower, play the
piano, take walks.
* Countryside and city life
: Oliver's migration and move to the
countryside after coming into the high class society of the Maylies plays vital
role in the novel. Dickens suggests that rural life is superior to city life.
In the country, even poor people have "clean houses",
"peace". Poor people have sufficient comfort. Dickens's portrait of
rural poverty as perfectly pleasant cannot be accurater as compared to the numbers
of peasants who prefer to migrate to the city in his time. The condition of the
poor in cities is horrible, the extravagant and immoral lives too.
* The relationship between Harry
and Rose : This relationship shows
that marriage based on love is difficult. Dickens values it highly than
marriage based on social station. Rose and Mrs. Maylie both believe that
marriage based on love is problematic. She cannot do so. As a nameless girl,
she says to Harry that his friends will suspect about her identity. In other
words, she fears that outsiders will believe that she slept with Harry outside
and secured his hand in marriage. She shows her awareness of "respected so
called society". Rose thinks of others low people would react and consider
their marriage "sordid". It's a kind of satire upon society and its
beliefs. Victorians who belonged to the middle and upper classes often married
for economic reasons. Individuals usually married someone from a similar
economic and social class because if they do not marry the same persons who
have the same economic and social status that will harm them. Logicallyh we
might think that a marriage between two people of different classes was more
liokelyh to be based on love and highly spiritual values, it would violate the
material interests.
Rose regrets that she cannot offer Harry an
economically profitable and socially acceptable marriage but Dickens critizes
socially and economically motivated marriage. Mr. Bumble and Mrs. Corney have
one such marriage, Bumble lead a miserable life. They dislike each other. He
bases his marriage on class similarities, not on personal compatibility and the
result is a complete disaster.
Like Nancy and Oliver, Bumble learns of the influence
that clothing exercises upon identity. Bumble gives up his position as the
beadle to become the workhouse master. Having exchanged one identity for another,
he now regrets the change. The power and dignity that a man privileged are not
qualities inherent in the men who occupy them. They are like clothing,
purchased and worn, they can be taken off as easily as they were put on.
* Oliver true identity is revealed
: Various people seek to conceal
Oliver's identity for their own personal gain. Oliver's identity is related
with Monks's identity. It becomes clear that Oliver and Monks are brothers. The
meeting of Nancy and Rose represents the clash between two different worlds.
Rose has been raised, amid love and plenty and as a result her virtue and
kindness are almost unreal. On the other hand, Nancy has struggled for survival
in the streets and instead of virtue, her life is full of crime and violence.
Both were nameless orphans. Rose has good luck to be taken by Mrs. Maylie who
offered her a better life to escape from her unfortunate condition. Rose also
offers Nancy a similar life to escape but it is already late for Nancy. Dickens’s
argument is that the environment in which people are raised and the company
that they keep have a greater influence on their quality of character than they
any inborn gets. Rose and Nancy were born in similar circumstances, only the
environment in which each was raised has made them so different.
Nancy confronts Rose with information about Oliver
stands in opposition to her earlier decision to get Oliver back to Fagin. As
she causes Oliver to become a thief earlier by sending him to Fagin, hew
decision to reveal the information she holds about his inheritance may cause
him to be healthy. This nobel act of Nancy differs her from victorian
stereotypes of the poor as immoral. Nancy has been a thief since childhood, she
drinks to excess, she is prostitute, she is virtuous. Dickens suggests
something with her characterization that the violation of property laws sexual
mores cannot exist with deep generosity and morality.
In many ways, Nancy has characteristic of vice and
seems more virtuous than Rose, who also seems virtuous. But here Dickens wants
us to understand the difference because Rose loses nothing by helping Oliver
but Nancy loses her life. Nancy the paragon of vice and Rose the paragon of virtue. He shows the criminal
activities of everyone in his social circle. Fagin can send Nancy to talk to anyone outside his circle of
criminal associates.
Nancy seems to regret her life of vice but she
refuses Rose's offer to help her change it. Her love for sikes is more crucial
to her decision to return to her old life that she stayed too far from the path
of moral goodness. The society treats Nancy's and Rose's romanticism in light
that reveals some prejudices against the poor. It is considered a virtue when a
woman like Rose is unconditionally faithful to a young man like Harry. When a
woman like Nancy does the same to dreadful fellow like Sikes, it becomes
violence and suffering.
The way Fagin uses his strategy to use Nancy's
possible lover to control her through blackmailing . He reveles Nancy's betrayal and gang's code of silence to Sikes in the worst
manner. He describes Nancy's betrayal in such a way as to inspire Sike's
murderous rage. Having Nancy killed is as beneficial to Fagin as to Sikes.
Fagin always inspires others to do work for him and he uses others. He knows Sikes
very well to manipulate him into commiting the horrible crime.
Oliver Twist explores varities of justice - served by
the English court system. Spiritual or goodly justice, sike's crime, personal
justice, individual's own conscience. Sikes most cruel crimes happend
instantly, as Sike's guilt and his own conscience too hints him and leads him
to mental torture. Nancy's dead eyes disturb him. His escaping from London, he
feels as everyone is watching towards him suspiciously. Siker's dog, Bull's
eye, acts as a kind of walking name tag. The dog follows him everywhere. His
own animal lives his mark at the scene of crime his footprints with blood cover
the room where Nancy is killed. Bull's eye also functions as Sikes. The animal is vicious, brutal like its
owner. Sike's desire to kill the dog symbolically represents a desire to kill
himself.
* Conclusion : Oliver the child of Leeford's love affair, is
virtuous and innocent, Monks the result of an economic marriage, is morally
twisted, immoral and obsessed with health. Dickens shows the disastrous consequences
of economically motivated marriages.
Throughout Oliver Twist, Dickens criticizes the Victorian
stereotype of the poor as criminals from birth. Monks too has been a criminal.
Brownlow adopts Oliver so once the mystery of his real identity is revealed, he
quickly runs to another as Brownlow's adopted son. Fagin dies on the gallows, Sikes
hangs himself by accident. Mr. and Mrs. Bumble are deprived of the right to
hold public office again. They enter into the poverty and suffer as they has
forced in paupers in the past. Monks is not provided any mercy. He is a
criminal from birth, he continuous his evils. There is no redemption. Everyone,
Oliver's friends enjoy a blissful life.
The end throws some light to the dead Leeford's
character the father of Oliver. He states in his will, that if his child were a
son, he would inherit his estate. He would prefer not to give his child hid
property to make his child suffer and realize if he does any single crime. He
would like to give his child a lifelong poverty as well as illegitimacy if the
son ever committed a wrong in his childhood. In the same way the court is
willing to punish Oliver for his crimes committed by another. Leeford is ready
to punish Oliver for any small misdeed because he hated his first son, Monks.
At the story's end, crimes are punished harshly and devilish character are still hereditary devils at the end. The real change is that Oliver is now
acknowledged as a hereditary angel rather than a hereditary devil. No one can
escape the identity dealt to him or her at birth. Mr. Bumble and Fagin may not
have been mistreating a defenseless child - but child who was born for a better
life.
