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Charles John Huffam Dickens

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• Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic who is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period and the creator of some of the world's most memorable fictional characters. During his lifetime Dickens's works enjoyed unprecedented popularity and fame, and by the twentieth century his literary genius was fully recognized by critics and scholars. His novels and short stories continue to enjoy an enduring popularity among the general reading public.

• Born in Portsmouth, England, Dickens left school to work in a factory after his father was thrown into debtors' prison. Though he had little formal education, his early impoverishment drove him to succeed. He edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels and hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.

Charles Dickens

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Charles Dickens• Dickens rocketed to fame with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick

Papers. Within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, celebrated for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife's chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities, Dickens went on to improve the character with positive lineaments. Fagin in Oliver Twist apparently mirrors the famous fence, Ikey Solomon; His caricature of Leigh Hunt in the figure of Mr Skimpole in Bleak House was likewise toned down on advice from some of his friends, as they read episodes. In the same novel, both Lawrence Boythorne and Mooney the beadle are drawn from real life – Boythorne from Walter Savage Landor and Mooney from 'Looney', a beadle at Salisbury Square. His plots were carefully constructed, and Dickens often wove in elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor chipped in ha'pennies to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers.

Charles Dickens

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Charles Dickens• Dickens was regarded as the 'literary colossus' of

his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, is one of the most influential works ever written, and it remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. His creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to G. K. Chesterton and George Orwell—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand Oscar Wilde, Henry James and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism.

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Autobiographical elements

• An original illustration by Phiz from the novel "David Copperfield", widely regarded as Dickens's most autobiographical work.

• Authors frequently draw their portraits of characters from people they have known in real life. David Copperfield is regarded as strongly autobiographical. The scenes in Bleak House of interminable court cases and legal arguments reflect Dickens's experiences as law clerk and court reporter, and in particular his direct experience of the law's procedural delay during 1844 when he sued publishers in Chancery for breach of copyright. Dickens's father was sent to prison for debt, and this became a common theme in many of his books, with the detailed depiction of life in the Marshalsea prison in Little Dorrit resulting from Dickens's own experiences of the institution. Lucy Stroughill, a childhood sweetheart may have affected several of Dickens's portraits of girls such as Little Em'ly in David Copperfield and Lucie Manette in A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens may have drawn on his childhood experiences, but he was also ashamed of them and would not reveal that this was where he gathered his realistic accounts of squalor. Very few knew the details of his early life until six years after his death when John Forster published a biography on which Dickens had collaborated. Even figures based on real people can, at the same time, represent at the same time elements of the writer's own personality. Though Skimpole brutally sends up Leigh Hunt, some critics have detected in his portrait features of Dickens's own character, which he sought to exorcise by self-parody.

OLIVER TWIST

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Context• Oliver Twist opens with a bitter invective directed at the

nineteenth-century English Poor Laws. These laws were a distorted manifestation of the Victorian middle class’s emphasis on the virtues of hard work. England in the 1830s was rapidly undergoing a transformation from an agricultural, rural economy to an urban, industrial nation. The growing middle class had achieved an economic influence equal to, if not greater than, that of the British aristocracy.

• In the 1830s, the middle class clamored for a share of political power with the landed gentry, bringing about a restructuring of the voting system. Parliament passed the Reform Act, which granted the right to vote to previously disenfranchised middle-class citizens. The middle class was eager to gain social legitimacy. This desire gave rise to the Evangelical religious movement and inspired sweeping economic and political change.

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Context• In the extremely stratified English class

structure, the highest social class belonged to the “gentleman,” an aristocrat who did not have to work for his living. The middle class was stigmatized for having to work, and so, to alleviate the stigma attached to middle-class wealth, the middle class promoted work as a moral virtue. But the resulting moral value attached to work, along with the middle class’s insecurity about its own social legitimacy, led English society to subject the poor to hatred and cruelty.

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Context• Many members of the middle class were

anxious to be differentiated from the lower classes, and one way to do so was to stigmatizethe lower classes as lazy good-for-nothings. The middle class’s value system transformed earned wealth into a sign of moral virtue. Victorian society interpreted economic success as a sign that God favored the honest, moral virtue of the successful individual’s efforts, and, thus, interpreted the condition of poverty as a sign of the weakness of the poor individual.

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Motifs• Disguised or Mistaken Identities The plot of Oliver Twist revolves around the various false identities that other characters impose upon Oliver, often for the sake of advancing their own interests. Mr. Bumble and the other workhouse officials insist on portraying Oliver as something he is not—an ungrateful, immoral pauper. Monks does his best to conceal Oliver’s real identity so that Monks himself can claim Oliver’s rightful inheritance. Characters also disguise their own identities when it serves them well to do so. Nancy pretends to be Oliver’s middle-class sister in order to get him back to Fagin, while Monks changes his name and poses as a common criminal rather than the heir he really is. Scenes depicting the manipulation of clothing indicate how it plays an important part in the construction of various characters’ identities. Nancy dons new clothing to pass as a middle-class girl, and Fagin strips Oliver of all his upper-class credibility when he takes from him the suit of clothes purchased by Brownlow. The novel’s resolution revolves around the revelation of the real identities of Oliver, Rose, and Monks. Only when every character’s identity is known with certainty does the story achieve real closure

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Motifs• Hidden Family Relationships The revelation of Oliver’s familial ties is among the novel’s most unlikely plot turns: Oliver is related to Brownlow, who was married to his father’s sister; to Rose, who is his aunt; and to Monks, who is his half-brother. The coincidences involved in these facts are quite unbelievable and represent the novel’s rejection of realism in favor of fantasy. Oliver is at first believed to be an orphan without parents or relatives, a position that would, in that time and place, almost certainly seal his doom. Yet, by the end of the novel, it is revealed that he has more relatives than just about anyone else in the novel. This reversal of his fortunes strongly resembles the fulfillment of a naïve child’s wish. It also suggests the mystical binding power of family relationships. Brownlow and Rose take to Oliver immediately, even though he is implicated in an attempted robbery of Rose’s house, while Monks recognizes Oliver the instant he sees him on the street. The influence of blood ties, it seems, can be felt even before anyone knows those ties exist

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Motifs• Oliver’s faceOliver’s face is singled out for special attention at multiple points in the novel. Mr. Sowerberry, Charley Bates, and Toby Crackit all comment on its particular appeal, and its resemblance to the portrait of Agnes Fleming provides the first clue to Oliver’s identity. The power of Oliver’s physiognomy, combined with the facts that Fagin is hideous and Rose is beautiful, suggests that in the world of the novel, external appearance usually gives a fair impression of a person’s inner character

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Review and conclusion

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Review• Oliver Twist is born into a life of poverty and misfortune in a

workhouse in an unnamed town. Orphaned almost from his first breath by his mother’s death in childbirth and his father’s unexplained absence, Oliver is meagerly provided for under the terms of the Poor Law, and spends the first nine years of his life at a baby farm in the 'care' of a woman named Mrs. Mann. Oliver is brought up with little food and few comforts.

• Around the time of Oliver's ninth birthday, Mr. Bumble, a parish beadle, removes Oliver from the baby farm and puts him to work picking oakum at the main workhouse. Oliver, who toils with very little food, remains in the workhouse for six months. One day, the desperately hungry boys decide to draw lots; the loser must ask for another portion of gruel. The task falls to Oliver, who at the next meal tremblingly comes forward, bowl in hand, and makes his famous request: "Please, sir, I want some more."

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Review• A great uproar ensues. The board of well-fed gentlemen

who administer the workhouse hypocritically offer five pounds to any person wishing to take on the boy as an apprentice. A brutal chimney sweep almost claims Oliver, however, when he begs despairingly not to be sent away with "that dreadful man", a kindly old magistrate refuses to sign the indentures. Later, Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker employed by the parish, took Oliver into his service.

• He treats Oliver better, and because of the boy's sorrowful countenance, uses him as a mourner at children’s funerals. However, Mr. Sowerberry is in an unhappy marriage, and his wife takes an immediate dislike to Oliver — primarily because her husband seems to like him — and loses few opportunities to underfeed and mistreat him. He also suffers torment at the hands of Noah Claypole, an oafish but bullying fellow apprentice and "charity boy" who is jealous of Oliver’s promotion to mute, and Charlotte, the Sowerberrys' maidservant, who is in love with Noah.

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Review One day, in an attempt to bait Oliver, Noah insults

Oliver's biological mother, calling her "a regular right-down bad ‘un". Oliver flies into a rage, attacking and even beating the much bigger boy. Mrs. Sowerberry takes Noah’s side, helps him to subdue, punching, and beating Oliver, and later compels her husband and Mr. Bumble, who has been sent for in the aftermath of the fight, into beating Oliver again. Once Oliver is sent to his room for the night, he does something that he hadn't done since babyhood — he breaks down and weeps. Alone that night, Oliver finally decides to run away, and, "He remembered to have seen the waggons, as they went out, toiling up the hill. He took the same route," until a well-placed milestone sets his wandering feet towards London.

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Psychology • Oliver Twist is probably not the most brilliantly delving

psychological novel, but then it's not supposed to be. Rather, Oliver Twist gives us an impression of the social situation at the time it was written, and is does so with a Hogarthian gusto. Mr. Bumble, the beadle, is an excellent example of Dickens' broad characterization at work. Bumble is a overlarge, terrifying figure: a tin-pot Hitler, who is both frightening to the boys under his control, and also slightly pathetic in his need to maintain his power over them.

• Fagin, too, is a wonderful example of Dickens ability to draw a caricature and place it in a story that moves quickly and always keeps our attention. Less the pantomime villain that is portrayed in a number of its adaptations, there is a streak of cruelty in Dickens' Fagin, with a sly charisma that has makes him such a lasting archetype.

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Importance of Oliver Twist

• Equally, the importance of Oliver Twist as a crusading work of art (hoping to show the difficult circumstances with which the poor in Dickens’s time had to live) should not be underestimated. It is certainly an excellent work of art, but it is also a testament to the hopes for a better, more enlightened age.

• A delightful story--peopled with larger than life, very human characters--Dickens' Oliver Twist is a considerable achievement. Funny and incredibly sad, the novel is complete in all its aspects. Oliver Twist is a powerful indictment of the times in which the novel was written.

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Conclusion Throughout the novel, Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens uses

many of his strengths of description to make his point on the condition of the poor in London. Dickens is able to touch on topics such as the conditions of workhouses, prostitution, and burglary. On top of all these things he also delves into each individual character and is able to find clever ways of making their inner-workings clear by using dialogue and relating them to their surroundings. All while doing these things, he scolds the bad treatment of the often forgotten lower class. Yet he also tries to use certain characters to set examples of good morals and values like those found in Rose Maylie and Mr. Brownlow. Oliver was very fortunate to find these people, considering how awful his life could have turned out.

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Conclusion The charity and compassion that existed in these people’s

hearts allowed Oliver to be saved from a certain and lonely death. Dickens related very much to the sufferings of the poor and thus in this novel was determined to show how wretched it could make people like Bill Sikes and even Fagin. All these reasons combined make Oliver Twist very crucial in showing the modern world how much things have changed yet, have also stayed the same. For example, although pick-pocketing has become a thing of the past, burglary and prostitution still exist as detestable happenings in society. Charles Dickens expertly portrays life in the 1830’s full of the good, bad, and ugly as they all strived to make it in a world that was unforgiving and cruel.

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Characters of the Plot1. Oliver Twist2. Fagin3. Nancy4. The Artful Dodger5. Charley Bates6. Bill Sikes7. Mr. Brownlow8. Mrs. Maylie9. Rose Maylie10. Harry Maylie11. Mr. Grimwig12. Mr. Losberne13. Mr. Bumble14. Mrs. Corney15. Edward Monks16. Agnes Fleming17. Mr. Leeford18. Monks’s Mother19. Noah Claypole20. Charlotte21. Mr. Fang 24

Oliver TwistThe novel’s protagonist. Oliver is an

orphan born in a workhouse, and Dickens uses his situation to criticize public policy toward the poor in 1830s England. Oliver is between nine and twelve years old when the main action of the novel occurs. Though treated with cruelty and surrounded by coarseness for most of his life, he is a pious, innocent child, and his charms draw the attention of several wealthy benefactors. His true identity is the central mystery of the novel.

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FaginFagin is pretty clearly a bad guy. For a long time, people thought that Fagin was

based on a real guy who sold stolen goods (a.k.a. a "fence") named Ikey Solomon. Ikey Solomon happened to be Jewish, but the stereotype was there before Solomon or Fagin came along – the limited number of careers open to people of Jewish descent did indeed drive some Jewish people to illegal activity.

The final chapter about Fagin shows how alienated Fagin was from the rest of society. And not just from society, but from the entire human race. He’s in a crowded courtroom, and is surrounded "by a firmament all bright with beaming eyes". The crowd of people is reduced to this one feature: their "eyes”. So Fagin is made into a spectacle, and his own sense of individual identity is totally squelched by their "inquisitive and eager eyes." In this scene, Fagin seems totally numb to what is happening to him, and he ends up watching what goes on in the courtroom "as any idle spectator might have done“ . And later, when he looks into the crowd, "in no one face could he read the faintest sympathy with him". So Fagin is out of sympathy with the entire mob here – no one can identify with him.

And that’s not at all surprising, given how frequently he’s cast as sub-human, or rat-like, or demon-like. For example, right after he finds out about Nancy’s conversation with Rose and Mr. Brownlow, he "looked less like a man than some hideous phantom”, or when he’s in prison, when his face looks "more like that of a snared beast than the face of a man".

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NancyA major concern of Oliver Twist is the question of whether a bad

environment can irrevocably poison someone’s character and soul. As the novel progresses, the character who best illustrates the contradictory issues brought up by that question is Nancy. As a child of the streets, Nancy has been a thief and drinks to excess. The narrator’s reference to her “free and agreeable . . . manners” indicates that she is a prostitute. She is immersed in the vices condemned by her society, but she also commits perhaps the most noble act in the novel when she sacrifices her own life in order to protect Oliver. Nancy’s moral complexity is unique among the major characters in Oliver Twist. The novel is full of characters who are all good and can barely comprehend evil, such as Oliver, Rose, and Brownlow; and characters who are all evil and can barely comprehend good, such as Fagin, Sikes, and Monks. Only Nancy comprehends and is capable of both good and evil. Her ultimate choice to do good at a great personal cost is a strong argument in favor of the incorruptibility of basic goodness, no matter how many environmental obstacles it may face.

Nancy’s love for Sikes exemplifies the moral ambiguity of her character. As she herself points out to Rose, devotion to a man can be “a comfort and a pride” under the right circumstances. But for Nancy, such devotion is “a new means of violence and suffering”—indeed, her relationship with Sikes leads her to criminal acts for his sake and eventually to her own demise. The same behavior, in different circumstances, can have very different consequences and moral significance. In much of Oliver Twist, morality and nobility are black-and-white issues, but Nancy’s character suggests that the boundary between virtue and vice is not always clearly drawn. 27

The Artful DodgerThe Artful Dodger is one of the most famous and memorable

characters in the novel. The Dodger’s real name is Jack Dawkins. He provides comic relief in part because of his anti-establishment, devil-may-care attitude, but also because of the odd juxtapositions of opposites that he provides. He can’t be more than twelve, but he acts like a full-grown man, and even wears men’s clothes (with the sleeves rolled way up). He talks and walks like a man, and the contrast between his attitude and his size is pretty funny. He also is one of the main "canters" of the novel – he speaks almost entirely in thieves’ cant, which gives Dickens a chance to show off what he knows, and gives the reader the titillating impression that he or she is glimpsing some authentic view of the criminal underworld.

Some critics think that the Artful Dodger is based on the historical robber and prison-breaker, Jack Sheppard. It’s possible, especially given that Dickens’s friend William Harrison Ainsworth was writing a novel about Jack Sheppard at the same time that Dickens was working on Oliver Twist. 28

Charley BatesCharley Bates serves the same role as the

Dodger – comic relief – but in a slightly different way. The Dodger is funny because he’s so knowing, and knows too much for his age, so that the contrast creates the comedy. Charley is just his dumb sidekick. He thinks everything is hilarious, and that crime is just one long joke against the system. That is, until Sikes murders Nancy. You could say that Charley is the one character in the novel that undergoes a major change: after the murder, Charley decides that crime isn’t actually so funny after all, and goes straight. In the final chapter, Dickens tells us that Charley became a farm hand and was pretty happy with a country life.

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Bill SikesSikes is brave and strong, for sure, and he’s a straight shooter. He

doesn’t like it when Fagin talks around the point or tries to cover things up. He’s no liar, whatever else he might be. So, reluctantly, we have to admit that Sikes has a few admirable qualities. But he’s also stubborn, distrustful, and has what one might call some anger management issues.

He is also a brutal professional burglar brought up in Fagin’s gang. Sikes is Nancy's pimp and lover, and he treats both her and his dog Bull’s-eye with an odd combination of cruelty and grudging affection. His murder of Nancy is the most heinous of the many crimes that occur in the novel.

Dickens got the idea for such a character from a historical criminal named James Sikes (a.k.a. "Hell and Fury") who lived (and was hanged) in the 1720s – a period of criminal history that Dickens was particularly interested in.

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Mr. BrownlowMr. Brownlow is Oliver’s first friend and mentor.

He’s had a rough life – he was going to marry his best friend’s sister, but she died on the morning of their wedding day. And then his best friend died far from home, too. So one would think that Mr. Brownlow would be a bitter, cynical old man, but he’s not. He still has faith in people. He’s kind of a book worm – the first time we see him, he’s so absorbed in reading a book at a bookseller’s stand in the street that he doesn’t notice the Dodger and Charley trying to pick his pocket. But he’s no wimp, either. When Mr. Fang, the magistrate, insults him, he stands up for himself immediately. He’s also a loyal friend, and dedicated to doing what’s right. Generally, he’s a stand-up guy.

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Mrs. MaylieMrs. Maylie is a very kind and wealthy woman. She apparently makes a

habit of taking in questionable orphans, even though she already had a son of her own. Once, when she was on a holiday in Wales, she saw a cute little girl who was being brought up by the villagers and, despite the stories that had been circulating about how this girl was bad news, Mrs. Maylie decided to take the girl in. Of course she never regretted it, because Rose Maylie grows up to be the sweetest young lady in the world. Later, a little boy appears on her doorstep, wounded after having attempted to rob her house, and of course she takes him in, too – she even lies to the detectives who come to investigate the break-in to protect the kid.

If she had a taste for adopting orphans, that she’d at least go for the ones who didn’t seem to have criminal propensities, but no – Mrs. Maylie seems to like saving children who might otherwise be prone to crime. It’s also weird that Mrs. Maylie keeps adopting children who turn out to be from the same family – Rose, as it turns out, was the younger sister of Oliver’s dead mother.

Although an old lady, she’s very firm and vigorous – she goes on long walks, and her posture is pretty amazing. And even when Rose is dying of the fever, Mrs. Maylie only loses her cool once – and once she dries her eyes, she’s all business. She cares deeply for Rose and Oliver, but she’s also very rational, and does what needs to be done.

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Rose MaylieRose is the sweetest, loveliest, most virtuous young lady ever. She’s pretty much a stock Victorian heroine. She’s self-sacrificing, loving, kind to animals and small children, and blond. She is occasionally prone to fevers, but doesn’t die of them.

But Rose differs from those other heroines in some interesting ways: first of all, she’s not aristocratic by birth. In fact, her birth is somewhat questionable. They think, at first, that she is illegitimate, and then later they realize that even though she isn’t illegitimate, she still has a stain on her family honor (her sister got pregnant without being married). Perhaps because of her own questionable background, Rose is able to sympathize with folks who are down-and-out in ways that other, more aristocratic, heroines might not. She’s the one who begs Mrs. Maylie to take Oliver in and protect him, and she’s able to pity Nancy, rather than condemn her. In response to Rose’s sympathy, Nancy says, "if there were more like you, there would be fewer like me!“.

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Harry MaylieHarry doesn’t actually appear all that much in the novel, but from what is

able to gather, he’s the typical Victorian hero: young, attractive, active, devoted to his mother and lover, nice to children, good with horses, and blond. He shows up for the first time just as Rose is over the worst of her illness, and it is learnt that he’s been in love with her for pretty much his entire adult life. His devoted adoration of Rose Maylie is pretty much his defining characteristic.

The reason he isn’t living with his mother and Rose at the beginning of the novel is because he was staying with a rich uncle, who was planning out some kind of fancy political career for him, as a necessary preface to inheriting his fortune. But when Harry realizes that Rose can’t or won’t marry someone whose public life might expose her (and her questionable birth) to ridicule, Harry changes his entire career path. He ends up becoming a minister in a little country church, marrying Rose and living happily ever after.

The only other time we see Harry is when he’s on horseback, egging on the crowd outside the house where Sikes is trying to escape. Harry takes an active interest in capturing Sikes and bringing him to justice – partly out of a sense of what is due to Nancy, and partly, out of affection for Oliver. He’s not a complicated guy.

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Mr. GrimwigMr. Grimwig is a typical Dickens character: he is

eccentric, and his eccentricity takes the form of a frequently repeated verbal or physical tick. His favorite expression is, "I’ll eat my head!" – and he repeats that phrase so often, and so oddly, that that’s pretty much all there is to his character. He’s reducible to his own eccentric expression. He has other characteristics – he’s stubborn, contrary, abrupt, hard on the outside, but marshmallow-y soft on the inside, and very fond of Rose. But he’s memorable primarily as the "I’ll eat my head!" guy, and that’s one of the striking things about how Dickens writes minor characters – they’ll often be reducible to some odd or eccentric expression or gesture.

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Mr. LosberneMr. Losberne is a country doctor and

old family friend of the Maylies. He’s unmarried and he’s very attached to that family, and actually moves to the country when they leave Chertsey because the neighborhood is too boring with them gone. He’s friendly and gregarious, always ready to pity the unfortunate, but he’s also abrupt and reckless, and occasionally stubborn. No wonder he gets along so well with Mr. Grimwig.

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Mr. BumbleMr. Bumble is the beadle in the town where Oliver is born. As beadle, he’s

responsible for running all of the "charitable" institutions in the parish – including the baby farms and the workhouse. He also gets to wear a special cocked hat, of which he is very proud. If Mr. Grimwig is the kind of one-sided character who can be reduced to an expression, Mr. Bumble can be reduced to his beadle hat.

Mr. Bumble likes power, and he likes to use it. Frankly, he’s kind of a sadist, but he’s not without a few redeeming qualities. When Oliver pours his heart out to him on the way to Mr. Sowerberry’s, and says, "‘I feel as if I had been cut here, sir, and it was all bleeding away;’ and the child beat his hand upon his heart, and looked into his companion’s face with tears of real agony", Mr. Bumble is actually moved. He does have a heart! But the trouble is, that he doesn’t act on his pity – he seems to feel like it’s a weakness, and he doesn’t want to lose face. He seems to think that he won’t be respected if he shows pity to anyone. This is one of just a few instances in which Dickens seems to want us to see Mr. Bumble as a real character, and not just a one-sided meanie.

Mr. Bumble’s soft spot is what allows us, later on, to feel sorry for him (but only slightly). He marries Mrs. Corney for her money, and loses his post as the beadle to become the master of the workhouse. Little does he know that the workhouse can’t have two masters, and Mrs. Corney (now Mrs. Bumble) is already it. She beats him and humiliates him, and we almost pity him – but then we’re reminded how much he used to enjoy beating and humiliating the paupers and orphans. At the end of the novel, Mr. and Mrs. Bumble are so reduced that they end up living at the workhouse where they used to lord it over others. 37

Mrs. CorneyMrs. Corney is cautious, distrustful, cruel, and power-

hungry. We first meet her when she’s fixing herself tea in her snug little room on a blustery winter’s day. The snugness of her little room is in sharp contrast to the bitterness of the rest of the workhouse, where the paupers have to live. She feels sorry for herself, though, despite the snugness, because she’s a widow, and kind of lonely.

When Mr. Bumble arrives to flirt with her and then to propose, Dickens keeps us from feeling at all sympathetic by satirizing her – he repeatedly refers to her as a "discreet matron," meaning that she won’t allow anything improper to happen with Mr. Bumble. But "discreet" also means that she won’t commit to anything without knowing what she’s getting into. She’s certainly "discreet" in that sense. Dickens uses her to satirize the workhouse system that was run by people more interested in taking care of themselves than of the poor.

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Edward MonksEdward Monks is the primary villain of the novel, in that he’s

the one who’s really out to get Oliver, but because he appears in so few scenes, he’s listed lower than some of the arguably more "minor" characters. George Gissing, another Victorian novelist, argued that one "blemish" of Oliver Twist was "Monks, with his insufferable (often ludicrous) rant, and his absurd machinations". Monks' "machinations" do certainly play a big role in the plot of Oliver Twist.

Monks goes after Oliver for no reason other than pure malice. After all, Oliver’s got no way of knowing who his parents were, and even if he figured it out, he would have no way of knowing that there was a will that would have left him some money. Monks' mother had already burnt the will, and had attempted to ruin Oliver’s mother’s little sister (Rose) for no reason other than spite. Sure, Monks' father’s attempt to cut him out of the will might have hurt Monks' feelings. But after the will was burnt, he’d collected all the money.

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Edward MonksGissing’s other criticism is that Monks rants too much.

Maybe he’s right – Monks does tend to go on a bit, and when he does, he works himself up into a frenzy.

An interesting thing to note about Monks' frenzies is that he’s not just wild with hatred – when he has "fits," it’s not because he’s completely lost his self-control. Although Dickens never names the disease or disorder that causes those fits, most critics believe that Dickens intended to describe symptoms of epilepsy. His frequent "fits" have, over time, left an imprint on his face, and not just from biting his lips. Mr. Brownlow says that Monks' "evil passions, vice, and profligacy festered till they found a vent in a hideous disease which has made your face an index even to your mind" (49.57). So Monks' physical disease has made his face as distorted and ugly as his vice and crimes have made his mind.

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Agnes FlemingAgnes gets the first and the last words of the novel, so even

though she’s only alive for about five minutes at the beginning, we figure she’s actually pretty important. Agnes is Oliver’s mother.

A retired naval officer’s daughter, she was a beautiful, loving woman. Oliver’s face closely resembles hers. Agnes, as later learnt, is nineteen years old when her father’s new friend (who is about thirty or so) falls in love with her. She is young and has never been in love before, and she falls for him. He keeps saying that he can’t get married, but is mysterious as to the reason why. Her lover is called away to Italy, and dies there, and she runs away from home to avoid shaming her father by having a child out of wedlock. After falling in love with and becoming pregnant by Mr. Edwin Leeford, she chooses to die anonymously in a workhouse rather than stain her family’s reputation.

And that’s where the story picks up in the first chapter: she

arrives at a workhouse, has her baby, and dies.41

Mr. Leeford 

Oliver and Monks’s father, who dies long before the events of the novel. He was an intelligent, high-minded man whose family forced him into an unhappy marriage with a wealthy woman. He eventually separated from his wife and had an illicit love affair with Agnes Fleming. He intended to flee the country with Agnes but died before he could do so.

Monks’s mother 

An heiress who lived a decadent life and alienated her husband, Mr. Leeford. Monks’s mother destroyed Mr. Leeford’s will, which left part of his property to Oliver. Much of Monks’s nastiness is presumably inherited from her.

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Noah ClaypoleNoah’s another typical minor Dickens character, in that he’s grotesque,

absurd, and exaggerated. He’s skinny, lean, and eel-like, and has a taste for oysters and sneaking.

Noah’s a pretty fun character. He starts out the novel as an apprentice in Mr. Sowerberry’s shop. He was a charity boy, and the other kids made fun of him. So as soon as Oliver arrives, Noah is pretty jazzed about having someone even lower on the social ladder than he is. Finally, someone he can dump on! Dickens takes this circumstance to moralize about how everyone likes to stomp on the people below them:

“This affords charming food for contemplation. It shows us what a beautiful thing human nature is, and how impartially the same amiable qualities are developed in the finest lord and the dirtiest charity-boy.”

Noah’s obviously a source of comic relief and, like the Artful Dodger, the comedy comes partly from contrast: Noah’s absurdly scrawny, and Charlotte is burly and tough; but Noah bosses her around, and she submits like a lamb. Noah’s awfully fond of power, but too cowardly to do anything but sneak around, spy on people, and rat them out if he thinks it’ll be good for him. 43

Charlotte

The Sowerberry’s maid. Charlotte becomes romantically involved with Noah Claypole and follows him about slavishly.

Mr. Fang

The harsh, irrational, power-hungry magistrate who presides over Oliver’s trial for pick-pocketing.

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Our own personal reaction to this Dickensian classic is that we really liked it. We must admit to being a bit of a Dickens fan, and we love the way that he produces vast novels populated by such memorable characters. The story of the archetypal Dickensian orphan who manages to survive the evil plots of others to enjoy the place in society that he deserves is one that everybody can relate to, and it is certainly a gripping narrative as we fear Oliver will be hung or captured or killed at various stages in the narrative.

Having said that we like it, at the same time however it is not the best Dickens novel by a long stretch. When we think more closely about the story, there are a number of problems with it, in our opinion, or aspects that make it less challenging than a work like Great Expectations. Firstly, we would argue that the very goodness of Oliver is problematic, as he remains innocent and angel-like in his goodness throughout the entire novel, no matter what is done to him. The best example of this is of course when he pleads with Fagan to repent before his death at the end of the novel. This seems to me to be rather unrealistic. Secondly, based on this first point, all of the characters with the exception of Nancy are either good or bad. Nancy is the only character that is presented as occupying a space in the middle of these two extremes. Again, this points to a rather simplistic view of characters, as in reality we all have good and bad elements. Apart from this quibbles, however, this novel is an excellent story that has become a classic.

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Done By

Amruta M HegdeClass XI A

KV No:-1, Mangalore

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