Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist Essay

Charles Dickens’ Oliver TwistThe novel Oliver Twist is a criticism of the cruelty that children andpoor people suffered at the hands of 19th century society. It wasDickens first novel written under his own name when he was 24 yearsold and in it he already reveals his sharp, but comic comments andcriticism.

From the start Dickens makes it clear to the reader that poor peopleand the children of poor people; most especially a baby bornillegitimately; were of no consequence in the 1900s. The first personnarrator feels he need not “trouble” himself “as it can be of nopossible consequence” to tell us the place or date of Oliver’s birth.This concept is further revealed when he refers to Oliver as an “itemof mortality” and then later on in the chapter “it”. The childdeserves no name as he is not a legitimate member of society so he hasno place or importance: he starts life at the bottom of the Victorianfood chain. By having the narrator address Oliver as a “it” instead ofa “him” Oliver is dehumanised and so Dickens draws this to ourattention.

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Born into “this world or sorrow and trouble” our narrator seems tobelieve that Oliver’s chance of survival are extremely slim, so we aresurprised when Dickens has him say; “it was the best thing for OliverTwist that would by possibility have occurred” (being born in aworkhouse), he also tells us the baby “lay gasping on a little flockmattress rather unequally poised between this world and the next”. Allthe odds are against Oliver yet this neglect saves him life! Withamusing sarcasm Dickens suggests that if Oliver had been “surroundedby careful grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses and doctorsof profound wisdom, he would most inevit…

…ses Oliver’s “solitary incarceration” hesays enemies of the system claim that “Oliver was denied the benefitof exercise, the pleasure of society or the advantages of religiousconsolation” Dickens then defends this statement by sarcasticallysaying “as for exercise it was nice cold weather, and he was allowedto perform his ablutions every morning under the pump, in a stoneyard, in the presence of Mr Bumble, who prevented his catching a coldand causes a tingling sensation to pervade his frame, by repeatedapplications of the cane” Dickens sarcastically addresses exercise asbeing beaten, a physical punishment for Oliver.

Oliver is also abused mentally, at evening when the boys went to pray,Oliver was “kicked into the same apartment every evening” and there helistend to the other boys “ask god to guard them from the sins andvices of Oliver Twist”.

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