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Write a critical analysis of the novel by Oliver Twist
Children during the Victorian era
Critical analysis of oliver twist
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Victorian Societies' Terrible Treatment of Poor Children in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist
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.
Charles Dickens lived in the 19th century when there was a social
divide of the upper and lower class citizens. The poor lived in:
cramped, dirty and smelly conditions with no chance of money or
improved living conditions with a half decent life; whereas the upper
class had total luxury with everything done for them. This was mainly
due to the industrialisation of London where parts of Londonwas
transformed into business areas, which made the residential areas
horrible to live in. In Charles Dickens's novel "Oliver Twist" Charles
Dickens attacks the poor law of 1843 using wit, sarcasm, exaggeration
and pathos to get his point across to the reader. The 'Poor Law' means
that if you were poor, you were sent to a workhouse where you lived.
People moved to the city in search of life changing opportunities
including: jobs, money or housing. On the streets you would expect to
find orphans fending for themselves. Some children sold flowers,
became chimney sweeps or picking oakum. These types of children were
considered the lowest of the low; the people above them in the social
order were poor children with parents. To try and prevent homeless
people end up in the workhouses, the authorities made them as humanly
unbearable as possible; so that they can save money as it costs the
authorities a lot to feed, cloth, shelter them. The criminals of the
time had short lives. They were usually hun...
... middle of paper ...
...Oliver
notices that he: feeds, clothes, shelters them but doesn't see what he
actually is doing. He is using them for his own means to become rich.
Mr. Bumble, the Board and the authorities do not care about Oliver,
what happens to Oliver of even if he dies as he is an orphan; they
wouldn't make anything special out of his death if it was even their
responsibility. They think that it their own fault they are poor.
Everyone speaks down to him as though he knows nothing when he has one
nothing wrong
Fagin uses Oliver, and all the other children to steal for him without
giving anything good in return. If they don't get anything by the end
of the day, he doesn't feed them (if they don't do anything for him,
he doesn't do anything for them). Even though he provides shelter and
food, his intentions are wrong and bad.
confined to live in the slums. The slums were in a way like ghettos. They were very poor,
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.
A main factor in the storyline is the way the writer portrays society's attitude to poverty in the 18th century. The poor people were treated tremendously different to higher classed people. A lot of people were even living on the streets. For example, "He picked his way through the hordes of homeless children who congregated at evening, like the starlings, to look for the most sheltered niche into which they could huddle for the night." The writer uses immense detail to help the reader visualise the scene. She also uses a simile to help the reader compare the circumstances in which the children are in. This shows that the poor children had to live on the streets and fend for themselves during the 18th century. Another example involves a brief description of the city in which the poor people lived in. This is "nor when he smelt the stench of open sewers and foraging pigs, and the manure of horses and mules" This gives a clear example of the state of the city. It is unclean and rancid and the writer includes this whilst keeping to her fictional storyline.
In the ordinary world Oliver Queen started as what we would call Justin Bieber. A typical rich kid that believes they are above the law and are entitled to whatever they want. Oliver starts the journey after his father’s yacht sinks and washes up on an island. While on the island called Lian Yu, which translates to purgatory, he is determined to get off of the island to fix his father’s wrong doing. From the source Christopher Vogler wrote, he states that one must “die” and be reborn into a hero. During the death of the future hero the old person dies and the hero is born, Oliver dies on that island and when he returns to his family he is something else. When he returns attempts to right his father’s wrong doing by killing some of the people on the list Oliver was
He saw the results of poor parenting and he himself had witnessed the wretchedness of poverty. Several of his novels draw on these experiences and they include boys living through vindictive and humiliating experiences. One of these was "Oliver Twist," this was written to express Dickens feelings towards society and how it needed to be changed so that there was no difference between the rich and the poor and that we are all human beings. "Oliver Twist" was published in chapters or episodes for a magazine so the reader will want to read on. Dickens also did reading tours where he read extracts to a audience and because he had written the novel himself he captured the tones and the accents of the characters brilliantly.
Dickens' Attitude towards Education in Hard Times In the first chapter, Dickens introduces us with a glimpse of the story, with a descriptive insight into the school and its policies. We are not revealed the names of the characters in the opening chapter, but it introduces the schoolmaster by mere description of character and appearance. This, rather than introducing us by name, gives us a close and detailed description of one of the main characters, the schoolmaster, his views and manifestation of the school itself. This will help us understand the schoolmaster, Mr Gradgrind, and brings us to a clear understanding of his most important policy, a constant motif throughout the chapters, ‘Facts’.
Oliver seems doomed to a life of misery. Though deprived of education, affection and adequate food, Oliver still manages to triumph from rags to riches, when he finally finds happiness with his Aunt Rose Maylie and his guide Mr Brownlow. Oliver Twist is born into poverty as an orphan with no known family or inheritance. He is forced to be the property of the workhouse. He spends several years there where he is overworked, and suffers from exhaustion and malnutrition.
by turning him over to his uncle, who plans to ship him to England for his death,
"The Victorians were avowedly, unashamedly, incorrigibly moralists. They . . . engaged in philanthropic enterprises in part to satisfy their own moral needs. And they were moralists in behalf of the poor, whom they sought not only to assist materially but also to elevate morally, spiritually, culturally, and intellectually . . . ." (Himmelfarb 48(8)). Charles Dickens used characterization as the basis of his pursuit of this moral goal in the serialized Oliver Twist. His satyr was meant to draw parallels to the dark side of an era of British progress. One side of progress is wealth, the other side of the same coin is poverty, despair, misery and crime. Dickens allegorized evil in contrast to good through characterization and melodrama. "Most of the moral judgments of the reader are pre-made for him or her. As a result, the reader objectively absorbs the moral lessons Dickens has set forth" (Stoddard).
“Oliver Twist” was written in 1838 by Charles Dickens and was originally published as a monthly magazine before being published as a novel that was subsequently read by many Victorians. It was written not only to entertain, but to raise awareness for the many issues in the society of the day related mainly to criminal activity. One of the main problems was based around the differentiation in the class of people in the Victorian era. People from the middle classes were widely known think very little of the lower classes and often considered them the evil of society. He also uses the novel to raise the issues related to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and the way that it involved sending poor or orphaned people like Oliver to ghastly overpopulated workhouses where they were poorly looked after. Dickens also fights against the negative stereotypes of criminals and prostitutes such as Nancy who eventually shows the good in herself to protect Oliver from the hands of the deadly wrath of Bill Sikes.
Use of Language to Portray 19th Century London Society in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
along with the rest of his family to work in a factory to help repay
Many worked in dangerous working conditions. Living conditions were worse for the poor. Many turned to poorhouses which were set up by the government. The houses were designed to be deliberately tough places to deter people from staying on government aid. Family’s members were disconnected and treated harshly.
... to the many children who have gone through life unheard, opening society's eyes to the inhumane conditions that the poor children are forced to live through. Dickens does so by writing a "story of the routine cruelty exercised upon the nameless, almost faceless submerged of Victorian society" (Wilson 129). Dickens' work of social reform is not limited to Oliver Twist for "a great and universal pity for the poor and downtrodden has been awaken in him which is to provide the
killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet more famous cow who