The Victorian Literature

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.