Oliver Twist Critical Essay

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Oliver Twist Critical essay
Question: How does Charles Dickens represent the fate of the individual in the Victorian Era?
A critical analysis of the novel ‘Oliver Twist’ by Charles Dickens clearly suggests that Dickens represents the fate of the individual in the Victorian era. Being written in the Victorian era, Dickens focusses on themes relevant to this era. These themes include “the moving depiction of the evils of homelessness and its consequences”, “the powerlessness of children”, “greed”, “criminality” and “the limits of justice”. Dickens uses a variety of literary devices to effectively convey these ideas and through the use of this, it positions the audience to understand through the novel the fate of the individual in the Victorian Era.
Justice and its variant form are very important in Oliver Twist and is a theme used by dickens to represent fate of certain individuals in the Victorian era. By the end of the novel, almost all characters face justice, the good characters living happily and the bad characters suffering. Oliver, Rose and just about all the other characters live happily while the bad and evil character Fagin and Sikes both get hanged. The reader is already wary of the justice system because of how close Oliver becomes to being an innocent victim of it. Thus despite Dickens making sure the good characters have happiness and the bad characters receive the punishment they deserve, Dickens clearly makes sure that it is not the usual story where the good guys end happily while the bad guys suffer. Such is the result of Nancy’s death when she gets killed by Sikes after trying to save Oliver from the hands of Fagin and Sikes and return him to Mr Brownlow. Symbolism plays a major part in expressing this theme. Nancy’s decision to meet Brownlow and Rose on London Bridge reveals the symbolic aspect of this bridge in Oliver Twist. Bulls- eye, Sikes’s dog is a symbolic element of the character of Sikes, displaying similar characteristics. The dog leaves bloody footprints on the floor of the room where the murder is committed. Not long after, Sikes becomes desperate to get rid of the dog, convinced that the dog’s presence will give him away. Yet, just as Sikes cannot shake off his guilt, he cannot shake off Bull’s-eye, who arrives at the house of Sikes’s demise before Sikes himself does. Bull’s-eye’s name also conjures up the image of Nancy’s eyes, which haunts Sikes until the bitter end and eventually causes him to hang himself accidentally. That Sikes own dog ultimately leads to Sikes demise is evidence of symbolism being used to represent the theme of “the limits of justice” and how it represents the fate of the individual in the Victorian era.
Oliver’s struggle to be free of Fagin and Sikes and his desperate search for a loving and nurturing home, express the theme that forms the heart of the book: the moving depiction of the evils of homelessness and its consequences. Being an orphan, Oliver was living poor conditions, with gruel being his meal for breakfast lunch and dinner. That too, only a spoonful. It was not only Oliver who was suffering the poor living conditions but also the rest of the orphans in the orphanage. One day, the children in the orphanage decide they can no longer take this and that someone must be brave and stand up to Mr Bumble (Orfan owner). At this instance, all eyes turn to Oliver and he eventually agrees to do so. The next day, he says to Mr Bumble after finishing his gruel “Please Sir, I want some more”. At this instant, as if Oliver committed such a big crime, he is sold to the Sowerberry family. In this section of the novel, Dickens successfully expressed the difficulties faced by the poor in the Victorian Era. The theme is further demonstrated through the use of verbal irony when Dickens refers to the workhouse as “a regular place of public entertainment for the lower classes”. The statement is ironic, given how much the orphans were suffering in the workhouse and helps represent Oliver’s fate in the Victorian era.
Through the theme of ‘greed’, Dickens manages to successfully express the fate of the individual in the Elizabethan era. There are a number of characters in the novel who play a major role in expressing this theme, these being mainly Fagin and Bill Sikes and the theme leads to the success of some and the downfall of others. All Fagin is after throughout the novel is money and he uses the young boys to build his wealth however due to his greediness, he does not care about the wellbeing of the boys, his sole focus being on the valuables the bring to him. This is evident when Oliver is taken into the home of Mr Brownlow, who takes very good care of him, like what a father would give to a son, and despite the care and protection Oliver is receiving, Fagin and Sikes together make a plan to retrieve Oliver due to the fear that he might tell Brownlow of their criminal activity. The criminal activity they undergo also comes from their greediness. When Nancy takes Oliver from Mr Brownlow’s custody, despite the potential consequence of what could have happened if Oliver had opened up to Brownlow on their criminal activity, he still has his criminal mindset and continues to commit crimes, in particular pickpocketing and this is ultimately due to his greed. This is further evident when he says “When the boy is worth a hundred pounds to me, am I to lose what chance threw me in the way of getting safely, through the whims of a drunken gang that I could whistle away the lives of! And me bound, too, to a born devil, that only wants the will and has the power”, referring to Oliver and shows the depth of his greed and exploitation of the people around him. The fate of the individual in the Victorian Era is represented through this theme in ‘Oliver Twist’ as his greed is the reason Fagin runs the criminal organisation and ultimately what leads to him losing all of his wealth at the end of the novel.
The theme of ‘criminality’ is important in Charles Dickens representation of the fate of the the Victorian era in this novel, given how it is used in the novel and how crime was a huge problem in London in the 1830’s, when Dickens was writing this novel . While crime is a theme also relevant to today’s society, the extent to which crime existed in the Victorian era was greater, especially considering it was a lot harder to find the villains due to the lack of technology. In Oliver Twist, the criminal organisation is both what saved Oliver and also what almost ruined him. It saved him as if he hadn’t had met the Artful Dodger and been introduced to Fagin’s criminal gang, he could well have starved to death, unless he himself chose to resort to stealing, which is exactly what he was being taught to do and trying to avoid. In an Era when crime was a major problem faced by society, Dickens wanted to show how criminals really lived, in order to discourage poor people from turning to crime. When Fagin says “What a fine thing capital punishment is! Dead men never repent; dead men never bring awkward stories to light”, he reflects on how capital punishment is a motivator for criminals like him as it would not matter once he is dead, making evident his crimal mentality. Through the theme of ‘criminality’, the fate of the individual is shown in the novel through what happens to the main villains in the end of the novel. Bill Sykes, who with Fagin is one of the primary villains ultimately gets killed while Fagin loses all the wealth that he obtained from the boys who pickpocketed the valuables for him. And Oliver, who didn’t engage in any of this criminal activity gets taken by Mr Brownlow and goes on to live a great life. However, despite all this, Fagin’s character doesn’t change, with him still having a criminal mindset, as with the Artful Dodger, which is summed up when he says “Once a thief, always a thief”.
The characterisation of the novel plays a major role in expressing the theme of “The powerlessness of children”. Dickens is deeply interested in the plight of the powerless in ‘Oliver Twist’, and this is mostly evident through the children in the novel. Oliver is continually reliant on others- Mr Bumble, Fagin and Sikes. All are completely different characters as while Oliver is shy, Fagin and Sikes are serious criminals while My Bumble is powerful man, the church official for the workhouse in which Oliver stayed in until asking him for more gruel. Despite the hard work he puts in to survive after escaping the house, he only ends up surviving because he is accepted by Fagin, although this was before he found out about Fagin being the leader of a criminal gang. Oliver’s powerlessness is further shown from his decision to not say anything about Fagin’s criminal gang, despite being away from their presence, due to his fears of what they would do to him if they found out. When he gets caught for stealing Mr Brownlow’s wallet when it was actually the Artful Dodger, no one even listens to what he has to say and this is clear evidence of “powerlessness” of children in the Victorian era. This is further expressed through the use of satire. Satire is evident when Mr Bumble sarcastically calls himself a “humble” author to Oliver and it allows the reader to contrast the characters of Mr Bumble and Oliver, improving the readers understanding of the powerlessness of Oliver, which is used in this context to represent the powerlessness of children in general in the Victorian era, thus their fate in the Victorian era.
The fate of the individual in the Victorian Era is represented through the themes addressed and their relevance to that era. The use of certain literary devices stated assists in conveying the significance of these ideas in relation to the themes of “the moving depiction of the evils of homelessness and its consequences”, “the powerlessness of children” and “the limits of justice”. These themes feature prominently in the article, as Dickens way of representing the fate of the individual in the Victorian era.