The Presentation of Bullies in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens wrote the novel "Oliver Twist" as a way of expressing
his views on how the rich treated the poor, and how he felt about the
laws regarding the poor. At the time there was a huge gap between the
rich and the poor due to industrialisation. This meant that the poor
were left to survive in unpleasant, overcrowded conditions, and were
treated harshly by the rich. Dickens felt strongly about this
situation and wrote "Oliver Twist" with the intention of changing the
public's attitude towards the poor. He uses wit, sarcasm,
exaggeration, and emotional and deceptive writing to get his points
and feelings across to the reader. Dickens uses a variety of
techniques to expose Victorian Society's awful treatment of children
of the poor.
When we are first introduced to Mr Bumble or 'the beadle', we
immediately see him as a bully, due to the way in which Dickens
describes him, "Mr Bumble was a fat man, and a choleric," this quote
is also highlighting Oliver's starvation, by showing how well Mr
Bumble is fed. From the outset we see the bad tempered side of Mr
Bumble, and we realise that he has outbursts of anger, "…he gave the
little wicket a tremendous shake, and then bestowed upon a kick…"
Although Mr Bumble is seen as a bully, the function of his character
within this novel is to create humour and to allow Dickens to
criticise the authorities of the time. The way in which humour is
created is through his use, of malapropisms, "I inwented it," Mr
Bumble often misuses words or mixes up long words, and this highlights
his lack of education, although he does atte...
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...al times in his life presents Oliver as a much more complex and
three-dimensional character than we would at first assume. Oliver's
loving and determined nature is unaffected by the environments he
finds himself in, and in spite of all the difficulties he experiences,
he remains upright and virtuous. We see Oliver mature from an innocent
victim of the workhouse to a worthy young gentleman.
The reason Oliver is bullied is because he is seen as a lower class
within society than everyone else, this is due to being an orphan and
because his mother was thought to have been a prostitute. Even a
charity boy bullies Oliver.
Overall Oliver is seen as the hero, despite being forced into a life
of crime. All those who have done wrong pay the price, by loosing
their life, but the innocent shine through and survive, victorious.
...servation. His most important points were as follows: education taught the Negro to feel inferior, it has not prepared Negroes to make an adequate living in his community and mis-educated the Negroes are hindering racial development rather than aiding it.
In the end, he gave away about 90% of his own money to various causes. He also preached to others to do the same as in giving money for education and sciences.The problem, however, was that there was such a contrast between the rich and the poor. By this he was referring to the inequalities in rights, hereditary powers, and such things. He also felt we should have a continuum of forward progress, i.e.
...st and saw many problems with capitalism in the world; he believed it meant that wealthy people could live good lives at the expense of other less fortunate people.
...ing slavery, he extended his argument to indict the North and industrial capitalism. He asserted that the slave system was actually superior to the wage slavery of the North. He believed that slavery, by intertwining the economic interests of master and slave, eliminated the unavoidable conflict that existed between labor and capital under the wage system. But amount of money a master invested in his slaves made it economically feasible to mistreat them and ignore their working and living conditions.
He was very liberal and at one point even joined the Communist Party. He used his writings to display to people from around the world the way that business and government used and betrayed the average citizen.
He supported the common idea of the time that only property holders, who had something to lose, could vote responsibly. In order to expand suffrage to all adult white males, he proposed giving them all a plot of land so they could meet the requirements. However, he opposed allowing women to play a part in government, believing them to be both physically and mentally inferior to men. Not subscribing to the belief that only members of the upper class should rule, he assigned political positions based on qualifications rather than social class. He believed that small farmers lived the purest and most corruption-free lives and that an agrarian society made government purer than an urban one.
Mob mentality is the idea that when a big group of people are together they loose their sense of individualism and moral constraints to follow blindly what they are told. During the French Revolution mobs were highly prevalent as many of the population were starving, poor, and angry. In A Tale of Two Cities the author, Charles Dickens criticizes mobs by showing how dangerous they can be in many scenes.
I will focus on his definition of the underclass, what he believes to be causes of the
Have you ever witnessed or participated in an act of mob mentality? Many people without realizing it take part in a form of mob mentality, whether it is at a sporting event, concert, or even a protest or riot; these are all forms of mob mentality. The term “mob mentality” is usually something negative, where large groups of people deindivduate themselves. People lose control and are pressured to fit in with what the rest of the crowd is doing. In the book, A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, mob mentality has a big impact on the plot. A Tale of Two Cities, shows how mob mentality ties in with history repeating itself, portraying manslaughter and homicide, and also depicting riots.
clothes. All of these create images of evil and of a nasty man who you
...in the end he commits suicide by trying to lower himself down on a rope.
Charles Dickens novel, Oliver Twist, centers itself around the life of the young, orphan Oliver, but he is not a deeply developed character. He stays the same throughout the entire novel. He has a desire to be protected, he wants to be in a safe and secure environment, and he shows unconditional love and acceptance to the people around him. These are the only character traits that the reader knows of Oliver. He is an archetype of goodness and innocence. His innocence draws many people close to him. Each character is attracted to his innocence for different reasons, some to destroy it and others to build it. Their relationships with Oliver reveal nothing more about his personality. They reveal more about their own personalities. Therefore, Oliver is used not as the protagonist of the story, but as the anchor for the development of the other characters.
deserves no name as he is not a legitimate member of society so he has
Great Expectations and Oliver Twist are representative of the works produced by Charles Dickens over his lifetime. These novels exhibit many similarities - perhaps because they both reflect painful experiences that occurred in Dickens' past.
Charles Dickens shows notable amounts of originality and morality in his novels, making him one of the most renowned novelists of the Victorian Era and immortalizing him through his great novels and short stories. One of the reasons his work has been so popular is because his novels reflect the issues of the Victorian era, such as the great indifference of many Victorians to the plight of the poor. The reformation of the Poor Law 1834 brings even more unavoidable problems to the poor. The Poor Law of 1834 allows the poor to receive public assistance only through established workhouses, causing those in debt to be sent to prison. Unable to pay debts, new levels of poverty are created. Because of personal childhood experiences with debt, poverty, and child labor, Dickens recognizes these issues with a sympathetic yet critical eye. Dickens notices that England's politicians and people of the upper class try to solve the growing problem of poverty through the Poor Laws and what they presume to be charitable causes, but Dickens knows that these things will not be successful; in fact they are often inhumane. Dickens' view of poverty and the abuse of the poor