Chapter 47 in Oliver Twist

Chapter 47 in Oliver Twist

The opening paragraph of chapter 47 in Oliver Twist - "Fatal

Consequences" sets the scene for the rest of the chapter. We are also

given a detailed description of the character Fagin.

Straight away this demonstrates to us one of the techniques Dickens'

uses in his books. Giving the chapter the title "Fatal Consequences"

immediately gives the impression that something dark and evil is going

to happen. He tends to do this quite a lot - throughout the chapter he

hints to us, almost in riddle, what is going to happen.

Dickens uses phrases such as "the streets are silent" to describe the

place and time. This sets up and eerie, mysterious atmosphere creating

a sense of tension which helps to prepare the reader for the dramatic

events later on in the chapter. This is because they become suspicious

that something is going to happen.

When read again after reading the entire chapter, the phrase "dead of

night" can also be seen as a warning of what is to follow. It would be

an example of retrospective irony and as I said before, this tends to

be a common technique Dickens uses. In this phrase, the word dead

obviously refers to Nancy's death. Another word that does this is

"clots" found a few paragraphs later on. This gives us the image of

blood, an image that runs throughout the whole chapter.

Another way that Dickens makes it seem very tense is by using the

technique of alliteration. For example the "still and silent hour"

The chapter is set "two hours before day break" which along with the

tense atmosphere suggests to us it is a time when evil might dwell.

This also gives us the impression Fagin is evil...

... middle of paper ...

...k - "…the old, wet, dirty streets are my home".

Dickens makes the eventual murder of Nancy sound very violent and

powerful. He does this mainly because of the way he talks a lot about

blood. He uses the technique of alliteration to emphasise what is

going on such as "blinded with the blood". This makes it seem more

dramatic. Although in modern times this may not seem like such a

horrific murder, when the book was published there would not be all

the types of horror films and things there are now. To a modern reader

this would seem nowhere near as bad as a film such as "Hannibal", on

the contrary; it would probably seem rather mild. However, this is

another example of how times have changed since the book was written

by Dickens - readers back then would probably have thought the death

to be very gruesome and horrific.