BARRON'S BOOK NOTES
CHARLES DICKENS'S
OLIVER TWIST

CHARLES DICKENS: THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES

Few writers are lucky enough to have their first novels become
runaway bestsellers.  Yet that is exactly what happened when
25-year-old Charles Dickens published Oliver Twist in 1837.

Many readers already knew of young Dickens.  As a journalist, he had
written, under the pen name Boz, gripping newspaper accounts exposing
social conditions in England.  In another vein entirely, he had
written a bestselling collection of humorous stories called The
Pickwick Papers.  His journalistic sketches showed descriptive power
and the ability to influence people's political ideas; The Pickwick
Papers showed how he could create marvelous characters and sustain
lively comic scenes.  But with Oliver Twist, Dickens surprised
everyone by revealing yet another talent--for spinning a rich,
suspenseful web of plot.

One reason why Oliver Twist was so popular was that Dickens
understood what his audience wanted to read and was willing to write
it.  He gave them sentimental love scenes, a horrifying glimpse of
the criminal underworld, a virtuous hero in Oliver, and nasty
villains in Bill Sikes and Fagin.  And he wrapped it all up in a
complicated, puzzling mystery story.  Because Oliver Twist was
published in monthly installments, Dickens could leave his readers in
agonizing suspense from month to month.  All across England, readers
eagerly discussed what had happened in the most recent installment
and argued over what they thought would happen in the next one.
Oliver Twist was a part of everyday conversation, just as top-rated
television shows are for us today.

Yet, even though he was young and hungry for fame, Dickens wanted to
do more than just entertain.  He challenged his readers to consider
things they would rather have ignored.  He drew for them a picture of
London's slums that was shocking in its realism.  Victorian authors
were not supposed to acknowledge the existence of drunkards and
prostitutes, but Dickens did.  They were not supposed to use street
language, even in dialogue, but Dickens did.

Dickens wasn't the only one concerned about the poor, for poverty and
vagrancy had plagued England since the sixteenth century.  In 1834, a
few years before the publication of Oliver Twist, Parliament had
passed a Poor Law intended to end some of the worst abuses against
the indigent.  Yet the provision of the bill didn't go far in
providing relief for those who were suffering.

Dickens wanted to do something about the shameful poverty in England.
Although his readers didn't know this, poverty had personally scarred
Dickens.  His family had been quite comfortable when he was born in
Portsmouth in 1812, but his parents weren't very skilled at managing
money.  When he was about 12 years old, his family was confined to
debtors' prison, in London, an experience he later wrote about in
Little Dorrit.  Only the money left by his grandmother when she died
bailed them out.  His knowledge of prison gave Dickens a lifelong
obsession with prisoners and inhumane institutions.  The hunger and
loneliness that tortures Oliver Twist while he is a ward of the
parish were very real to Dickens during his own family crisis.

For young Dickens, the lowest point of his life occurred while his
family was in prison.  For six dreadful months, he was forced to work
as an apprentice in a bootblacking factory, pasting labels on bottles
of shoe polish.  Not only was the work exhausting, the experience was
humiliating.  In Oliver Twist he included a brief episode condemning
the apprenticeship system, but it was not until later, in David
Copperfield, that he could face writing about the factory in detail.

While Oliver Twist is not as autobiographical as David Copperfield,
many other incidents in the novel reflect Dickens' experiences.  He
deeply regretted not having had more schooling and suggests that in
Oliver's eagerness to learn.

In May 1837, his beloved 17-year-old sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth,
died, and many readers of Oliver Twist think he based the characters
of Rose and Nancy on Mary, as a way of working out his intense grief.
While Rose survives a dangerous illness, Nancy dies a brutal death.
Dickens himself felt Mary had deserted him; similarly, Oliver is
terrified that Rose will die and leave him.  Dickens was haunted by
dreams about Mary, just as Sikes is haunted by a vision of Nancy's
eyes after he has killed her.

The criminal underworld of Fagin, Nancy, and Sikes in Oliver Twist
was as well-known to Dickens as the workhouses and debtors' prisons.
As a court reporter and journalist, he had seen the seamy side of
urban life.  He had met hardened criminals like Sikes and women like
Nancy.  He had little sympathy for criminals like Fagin, who abuse
and corrupt others, yet he knew that there were others--like Nancy
and Charley Bates--who were criminals only because of their
environment, and who might still be reformed.  Later he became
actively involved with Urania Cottage, a refuge for homeless women,
including prostitutes.  Knowing they had led rough lives, Urania
Cottage was set up as an environment where they could feel at home
and prepare themselves for a better life.  Dickens' sympathy for
Nancy is clear in Oliver Twist.  Typically, he was motivated to get
involved, to try to change conditions for girls like her before it
was too late.  The 1830s were a time of growing concern about social
issues and energetic reform.  As a popular writer and public
personality, Dickens had a power to do good.  He could reach a vast
middle-class audience, shocking them into action by his dramatic
storytelling.  Oliver Twist, which began to appear in serial form in
1837, was only the first of Dickens' novels to increase social
concern and help bring about reform.

Ironically, Dickens' own death at age 58 is linked inadvertently to
Oliver Twist.  Dickens was a frustrated actor who eagerly took part
in amateur and professional theatrical performances.  Reading from
his own works, he drew huge, enthusiastic crowds whose admission
tickets helped to pay the novelist's bills and support his large
family.  His final dramatic program, a reading of Nancy's murder and
Sikes' hanging, was physically and emotionally exhausting.  His body
wasn't equal to the demands he made on it.  On June 8, 1870, as he
was working on his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, he
collapsed and died.

OLIVER TWIST: THE PLOT

Oliver Twist is born an orphan when his pretty vagrant mother dies in
a parish workhouse to the annoyance of Bumble the beadle.  Oliver is
raised by parish charity, unloved, underfed, and overworked.  At the
age of nine, after he dares to ask for seconds at dinner one night,
he is sold as an apprentice to a local undertaker, Mr.  Sowerberry.
Taunted by another apprentice, Noah Claypole, about his unmarried
dead mother, Oliver valiantly gets into a fistfight and is eventually
locked in the cellar for punishment.  Then, taking matters into his
own hands, Oliver runs away to London.

The first person he meets in London is the enthusiastic Artful
Dodger, who offers him a home with a "gentleman" named Fagin and his
group of boys.  Oliver is happy there, until he discovers to his
horror that they're thieves.  One day, while being trained by other
boys, Oliver is falsely arrested for picking an elderly gentleman's
pocket.  In the courtroom, however, Oliver collapses.  He attracts
the pity of his accuser, Mr.  Brownlow, who takes him home.  Oliver
gets his first taste of kindness and wealth there as he is nursed
back to health.

The first time Oliver leaves the house, Fagin's gang kidnaps him so
he won't give evidence against them.  Back in the London slums,
Oliver earns the affections of a young prostitute named Nancy who
sticks up for Oliver when Fagin and her lover, Bill Sikes, try to
abuse him.

Unfortunately for Oliver, he's just the right size to help Sikes
commit a robbery, and he is taken along on a dangerous job.  But,
Oliver is wounded in the attempt and is taken in by the Maylies, the
people Sikes wanted to rob.

In the idyllic months that follow, Oliver stays with Mrs.  Maylie and
her niece Rose and grows to love them.  He's sad that their attempts
to find Mr.  Brownlow are unsuccessful, but otherwise things seem
perfect.  Rose falls seriously ill but recovers.  Rose has other
troubles, however; her romance with Henry Maylie is impeded by the
fact that, because she thinks she is illegitimate, she's unwilling to
damage his political career by marrying him.

Safe as he feels, Oliver dreams one night of his troubled past.  When
he wakes, the evil Fagin and an unknown companion are lurking outside
the window.

One of Fagin's cohorts, a grim fellow named Monks, visits the Bumbles
to buy the evidence of Oliver's parentage--a locket left by his
mother.  Monks throws the locket into a river, then presses Fagin to
recapture Oliver and make a thief of him.

Even though Oliver has been away, Nancy often thinks about him.  When
she overhears conversations between Fagin and his strange accomplice,
Monks, she becomes worried that Oliver is in danger.  She drugs Sikes
and seeks out Rose Maylie who happens to be passing through London.
Nancy reveals that Monks is Oliver's half brother, and that, in order
to keep an inheritance for himself, Monks may cause harm to Oliver.

Rose finally finds Mr.  Brownlow and enlists his help.  They meet
Nancy on London Bridge to learn more about Monks.  When they offer
Nancy refuge, she refuses, insisting that she must go home to Sikes,
whom she loves even though he is brutal to her.  What she doesn't
know is that suspicious Fagin has had her followed and that her
conversation has been overheard.  Angered by Nancy's betrayal, Fagin
incites Sikes to such fury that he beats Nancy to death.  Brownlow,
using Nancy's information, locates Monks.  Evil Monks is, ironically,
the son of Brownlow's best friend, and Oliver Twist is his
illegitimate younger brother.  Their father, who hated Monks' mother
and loved Oliver's, wrote a will leaving most of his money to the
younger son, Oliver--unless he turned out to be a criminal.  That is
why Monks plotted with Fagin to make Oliver a thief.  After wandering
around for two days, Sikes is finally tracked down and surrounded by
police in a hideout.  He hangs himself accidentally while trying to
escape.  The threat to Oliver is eliminated.

Brownlow forces Monks to reveal the rest of his information:  not
only is Oliver entitled to a fortune, but his mother was Rose
Maylie's sister!  All at once, Oliver has money and a family too.
The questions about Rose's parents are answered, and she can marry
Henry Maylie.  Fagin is arrested, convicted, and hanged.  His gang is
scattered.  Monks goes off to America, where he later dies in prison.
Mr.  Brownlow adopts Oliver and they all live happily in the county.

OLIVER TWIST: OLIVER TWIST

The orphan Oliver is a loving, innocent child.  In his rags-to-riches
career he finally finds happiness with his aunt, Rose Maylie, and his
mentor, Mr.  Brownlow.  But at birth, his prospects aren't very
bright.  His mother dies, leaving him in a public workhouse deprived
of affection, education, and adequate food.

Most readers agree that Oliver is generally quiet and shy rather than
aggressive.  But when he is nine years old, he does two bold things
that change his life.  At the workhouse, he asks for more food
(Chapter II) and when he's an apprentice he beats up Noah Claypole
and runs away (Chapters VI and VII).  After that, most of the things
that happen to him are out of his control.  They are the result of
luck--either good or bad--or the active intervention of someone else.

When he arrives in London, he finds himself in the clutches of Fagin
and his gang of thieves.  Twice he is rescued by the very people that
Fagin's gang is trying to rob, first Mr.  Brownlow, and later Mrs.
Maylie.  Both times Oliver is ill and must be nursed back to health.
Then his half-brother plots to destroy him.  Oliver's affectionate
nature, along with his weakness and innocence, earn him the pity and
love of the good people he meets.  At the same time, his goodness
makes him the victim of Fagin, Sikes, and Monks because they
persistently scheme to turn him into a thief like themselves.
Because Oliver discovers that good people are successful and evil
ones are punished, he turns out to be a happy, secure, honest person.

Dickens choice of Oliver's name is very revealing, because the boy's
story is full of "twists" and turns.  These twists are eventually
unraveled, and the truth about his family is discovered.  The web of
crime that he gets entangled in when he lives with Fagin's gang is
straightened out--"untwisted"--by the truth Brownlow uncovers.  Some
readers feel that Oliver receives less attention as the novel
develops than he does in the beginning.  These readers suggest that
Oliver's personality doesn't change much, and they point out that
he's always honest, trusting, and affectionate despite the conditions
he lives in.  For these readers, the adventures of Nancy, Sikes, and
Fagin overshadow Oliver's story even though he is the novel's hero.

To some other readers, Oliver is a powerful character because he
symbolizes all abandoned and mistreated children who can be rescued
by love.  They point out that Dickens uses his skills at creating
character to make Oliver particularly appealing.  While the subject
of an orphan rescued by a generous benefactor was extremely popular
in English fiction, Dickens' Oliver Twist is the one best remembered.

Everyone agrees that Oliver's moment of greatest glory comes when he
announces to the master of the workhouse:  "Please, sir, I want some
more."

OLIVER TWIST: MR. BUMBLE

A beadle's job was to maintain order in churches and other parish
institutions, and Mr.  Bumble relishes his work--especially keeping
the poor in line.  He takes a special responsibility for Oliver
Twist, from the day he names the infant to the time when people like
kindly Brownlow and evil Monks ask for information about the orphan's
past.  But the evidence that Dickens provides (in Chapters XVII,
XXXVII, and XXXVIII) suggests that Bumble's interest is self-serving.

Some readers find Bumble revolting and others find him laughable.
His hypocrisy is obvious--he is fat while his clients are thin, and
self-important although he expects them to be humble.  He revels in
his fancy beadle's uniform and pompously wields his cane against
whomever is handy.  Readers who find him hateful claim he'd sell
anybody or anything to make a profit.  Those who think he is a
harmless buffoon are amused by his grammatical errors,
mispronunciations, and "bumbling" incompetence.

Halfway through the book, Bumble changes.  When he marries Mrs.
Corney he loses his authority.  She makes all the decisions,
including the one to sell Monks the evidence that proves that Oliver
is Monks' brother.  After the conspiracy is exposed, Bumble and Mrs.
Corney are punished by being removed from their jobs and end up
paupers in their own workhouse.  Is this a fitting end?  Do they
deserve it?  It all depends on how you read the tone of Dickens'
satire on Bumble the beadle.

OLIVER TWIST: THE ARTFUL DODGER

A talented pickpocket, recruiter, cheater, and wit, Jack
Dawkins--known as the Artful Dodger--is a charming rogue.  It's no
wonder Oliver is impressed by him and follows him willingly to
Fagin's school for thieves.

Some readers feel that the Dodger's charms simply make him a bad
example for Oliver and the other boys.  On the other hand, you might
think of him as a misguided, but generous, teenager with the
potential to straighten out and be successful.

Consider the way Dickens makes the Dodger more appealing by
describing his outrageous clothes and uninhibited manners.  At times,
he seems more like a free spirit than a conscious crook.  Notice that
he's arrested before Nancy's murder.  Some readers feel Dickens did
this so that the Dodger is not implicated in that grim act.

His fans agree that his finest hour is during his trial when he
indicts the legal system's treatment of the poor.  The court thinks
it is sitting in judgment on him.  Isn't just the opposite true?

OLIVER TWIST: FAGIN

Fagin is a master criminal whose specialty is fencing (selling stolen
property).  He employs a gang of thieves--some of them ignorant
children--and is always looking for new recruits.  That's why he is
glad when the Dodger brings Oliver home.  He finds out later from
Monks that he can make a profit from turning Oliver into a criminal,
and he's even more pleased.

Dickens describes in detail Fagin's unwashed body, his matted red
hair, filthy clothing, broken teeth, and black fingernails.  His
actions aren't very pleasant either.  When he meets stronger men, he
fawns over them.  Most readers find that behavior repulsive and
cowardly, as they do his habit of calling people "my dear." They also
agree that when Fagin plots against the weak he is ruthless and
greedy.

To other readers Fagin seems like a villain straight out of
melodrama--skulking through the dark London alleys and called "the
old gentleman" (a common nickname for Satan).  Even his red hair
links him to descriptions of Judas, the betrayer of Jesus.  To
Victorian readers, the fact that he's a Jew would have indicated that
he was greedy, alienated, and unsympathetic.  To modern readers,
however, Fagin's Jewishness may mean something else--that he's been a
victim of prejudice.

Readers who feel some sympathy for Fagin argue that he's just making
a living the best way he can.  Others say that he behaves as he does
because he's been discriminated against, or because the slum
environment bred him to crime.  They make the point that Dickens' own
feelings were mixed--he named Fagin after a boy who had befriended
him years earlier, but who was associated with Dickens' most unhappy
memories.

Fagin is a man of considerable intelligence, though corrupted by his
self-interest.  He feels a fleeting moment of pity for Oliver before
he sends him off to be Sikes' accomplice.  His conscience bothers him
after he is condemned to hang.  He does have a wry sense of humor and
an uncanny ability to understand people.  Measure these traits
against the evil he does.  Is he a villain or a tragic figure?

OLIVER TWIST: MR. BROWNLOW

Brownlow is a generous man, concerned for other people.  Not only
does he withdraw his accusation of Oliver, he takes the boy home with
him and nurses him out of his fever.  True, he is intrigued by the
boy's resemblance to a long-forgotten face--Agnes Fleming--but he
also develops a fatherly love for the boy.

Brownlow is quick to feel pity for Oliver, yet when he believes he is
right he does not hesitate to enforce his will.  He insists that
Monks must restore the identity and fortune he has stolen from
Oliver.  He posts a reward for Sikes' capture and is untroubled by
Fagin's hanging.

Many readers argue that Brownlow seems to be a caricature of a
virtuous man.  They point to his attitude toward Nancy, especially
his conviction that she should change her lifestyle.  Other readers
ask:  If Brownlow is so virtuous, why does he ignore the law in order
to see that his own version of justice triumphs?  Though he does more
good than harm, to get at Monks he keeps what he knows about Fagin
temporarily from the police.  Then, to force Monks to reveal his
information, he protects him from arrest.

OLIVER TWIST: BILL SIKES (SYKES)

Sikes is a bully, a robber, and a murderer.  Because he is an ally of
Fagin, they are often described as the two faces of evil in the
novel:  Fagin plans the crimes; Sikes carries them out.  The scenes
in which Sikes brutally beats Nancy to death and then accidentally
hangs himself in his frenzy to escape her haunting eyes are, for many
readers, the most frightening moments in the novel.  Dickens often
selected these passages for his popular dramatic readings.

It's possible that Sikes' evil is so frightening because it is so
physical.  From the beginning, he is compared to a beast.  He uses
brute violence to bully, intimidate, and injure other people like
Nancy, his unwilling accomplice Oliver, and even clever but cowardly
Fagin.  Also, Sikes seems to lack much power to reason:  He can't
figure out Nancy's behavior, and he doesn't realize Fagin is
manipulating him.

Some readers explain Sikes' behavior as a result of the brutalizing
conditions of the slums in which he lives or his weakness for
drinking.  Compare him, as a villain, to Fagin.  Who seems more evil
to you?

OLIVER TWIST: MONKS (ALSO KNOWN AS EDWARD LEEFORD)

Though Monks first appears late in Oliver Twist he is crucial to the
novel's outcome, for he is Oliver's half-brother.  Because he wants
to destroy the boy's chance of inheriting their father's estate, he
enlists Fagin to turn Oliver into a criminal.  Like Fagin, Monks is a
stock villain, lurking in shadows and uttering curses with a sneer.
What lies behind Monks' evil?  Since he was born a gentleman and has
inherited a fortune, you can't blame poverty or the slums for making
him a criminal.  Like Fagin, Sikes, and Nancy, Monks lacks family
love and moral upbringing.  Do you think this accounts for his
behavior?

Monks is driven by hatred for his illegitimate half-brother.  He goes
to great lengths--enlisting Fagin and the Bumbles to insure that
Oliver can never gain his inheritance.  But his hatred makes him
outsmart himself:  if he hadn't gone looking for Oliver, he would
have kept the entire fortune for himself.  He was the only person who
knew the boy's identity.  Is he destroyed by a jealous passion, or is
he a twisted soul who'll use any excuse to commit crimes?

OLIVER TWIST: NANCY

Nancy is the hapless product of the slums, the pupil of Fagin, and
the abused mistress of Sikes.  Although she is a prostitute and an
accomplice of crooks, she has the instincts of a good person.  She
protects Oliver as soon as she sees the threat to him, even though it
means landing in trouble with Fagin and Sikes.  More perplexingly,
she is faithful to Sikes because she loves him, in spite of his
abuse.

For many readers, Nancy is the most important character in the novel.
They argue that the most memorable scenes are the ones she is
in--when she visits Fagin's den, when she waits for Bill to come
home, or when she meets with Rose Maylie and Brownlow to help save
Oliver.

In contrast, other readers insist that she is just a cliche--the
typical prostitute with a heart of gold.  They think that Dickens
glosses over the truth about a life like Nancy's.  Why do you think
Dickens works to make her appealing?  Does this make her more or less
realistic?

OLIVER TWIST: ROSE MAYLIE

At least on the surface, Rose is very different from Nancy.  Though
both were orphans, Rose was rescued as a child by Mrs.  Maylie and
grew up secure and protected.  Like Nancy, she is compassionate and
devoted to Oliver, but in contrast Rose is innocent of the hardships
and evils of the world.  Idealistically, she refuses to hurt Henry's
career by marrying him.  Similarly, Nancy risks death to stick with
her man.  Rose is intelligent enough to recognize that the threat to
Oliver is real and wise enough to go to Brownlow for help.  She's
also open minded enough not to judge Nancy too harshly.

Oliver loves Rose because she is so beautiful and good.  She
represents, for him, the idea of what a perfect woman should be.
After he is "adopted" by Rose and Mrs.  Maylie he is able to feel
secure and happy.

Because Rose knew what it was like to be rescued from an unhappy
childhood, she urgently wants to rescue Oliver, and Nancy too.  In
that way, she is a representation of all the good instincts of
Victorian society.

What upsets Rose the most is the dread that she is illegitimate and
therefore stained by the sin of her unknown mother.  Later, when she
finds out she is Agnes Fleming's sister and Oliver's aunt, she thinks
she is tainted by her sister's sin.  In these ways, Rose illustrates
the great importance her society attached to purity and innocence.
Dickens makes clear that she is a pure flower of womanhood.


OLIVER TWIST: SALLY THINGUMMY

Sally Thingummy, a pauper, nurses Oliver's mother and steals the
locket and ring that holds the key to the orphan's identity.

OLIVER TWIST: AGNES FLEMING

Agnes Fleming is Oliver's mother.  She left home in shame and died
when her illegitimate child was born.

OLIVER TWIST: MR. SOWERBERRY

An undertaker, Mr.  Sowerberry accepts Oliver as an apprentice
mourner.  He is forced by his wife's cruelty to abuse the boy until
Oliver runs away.

OLIVER TWIST: NOAH CLAYPOLE

A charity boy, Noah Claypole torments Oliver.  He is employed by
Fagin, under the alias of Bolter, and spies on Nancy.  He ends up as
a police informer.

OLIVER TWIST: CHARLEY BATES

Charley Bates belongs to Fagin's gang.  He is so disgusted by Sikes'
evil ways that he gives up crime and becomes a farmer.

OLIVER TWIST: BET (BETSY)

Bet is a whore like Nancy.  She loses her sanity when she is required
to identify Nancy's corpse.

OLIVER TWIST: FANG

Fang is a police magistrate and represents the worst abuses of
judicial power.  Dickens modeled him on a real-life magistrate named
Laing who was removed from office in 1838.

OLIVER TWIST: MRS. BEDWIN

Mrs.  Bedwin, Brownlow's housekeeper, cares for Oliver and provides
his first real mothering when Brownlow rescues him from Fang.

OLIVER TWIST: MR. GRIMWIG

Mr.  Grimwig is Brownlow's friend.  He has a tender heart under his
gruff exterior and joins the effort to secure Oliver's inheritance
after initially doubting the boy.

OLIVER TWIST: TOBY CRACKIT

Toby Crackit is a housebreaker who works with Sikes.

MRS. CORNEY (later MRS. BUMBLE)

She runs the workhouse where Oliver was born.  A greedy person, she
retrieves Agnes Fleming's treasures from Old Sally and sells them to
Monks.

OLIVER TWIST: DR. LOSBERNE

Dr.  Losberne, the Maylie's physician, treats Oliver for his wound
and conspires with the Maylies to protect Oliver from the police and
give him a chance in life.  He is part of the group that insures
Oliver's future.  Sometimes his enthusiasm gets him into trouble.

OLIVER TWIST: HENRY (HARRY) MAYLIE

Henry Maylie loves Rose and wants to marry her, but she refuses
because she believes she is illegitimate and therefore might hurt his
chances to win elections.  To win Rose, Henry gives up a political
career and becomes a clergyman.


OLIVER TWIST: SETTING

The major action of Oliver Twist moves back and forth between two
worlds:  the filthy slums of London and the clean, comfortable houses
of Brownlow and the Maylies.  The first world is real and
frightening, while the latter is idealized, almost dreamlike, in its
safety and beauty.

The world of London is a world of crime.  Things happen there at
night, in dark alleys and in abandoned, unlighted buildings.  You can
find examples in Chapter XV, when Oliver is kidnapped, and in Chapter
XXVI, when Fagin meets Monks.  Such darkness suggests that evil
dominates this world.  The rain and fog enveloping the city seem to
intensify the dismal atmosphere.  You'll notice that Dickens often
uses weather conditions to aid in setting a scene.  In Oliver Twist
bad things often happen in bad weather.

In contrast to Fagin's London, the sunlit days and fragrant flowers
of the Maylies' cottage (in Chapters XXXIV and XXXV) or the handsome
library at Brownlow's (in Chapters XIV and XLI) teem with goodness
and health.  Many readers feel that the scenes set in these places
are less memorable than those in the slums.

The setting changes frequently, in no predictable pattern, but the
greatest number of scenes are set in London.  The following table
shows the movement in the novel from setting to setting.

                                                        Maylie's
Oliver's          London           Brownlow's           Home or
Birthplace        Slums            House                Cottage

Chapters 1-7      Chapters 8-11,   Chapters 12, 14      Chapters 22,
part of 17        13, 15, 16       part of 17           28-36
23-24, 27, 37     18-21, 25, 26    41, 49
                  38, 39, 42-48
                  50, 52

Chapter 40 takes place in a London hotel and Chapter 53 at an unnamed
country village.

OLIVER TWIST: THEMES

There is not much difference of opinion about what Dickens intended
Oliver Twist to communicate to readers.  The following are major
themes of the novel.

1. THE INFLUENCE OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Do living conditions determine what happens to people?  If so, we are
to believe that those of Dickens' people who are deprived of good
influences are doomed, while those who enjoy love and security
flourish.  Oliver, for example, is rescued in time, while Nancy
cannot escape death.  Dickens depicts the degrading effects of
poverty, especially hunger, which turns humans into struggling
animals.  Dickens may also be arguing that criminals are made, not
born.  Do you think Dickens is right?  Does the influence of
environment explain the bad things done by people?

2. ALIENATION

People who are emotionally or physically deprived become cut off from
human interaction.  Sometimes this alienation from other people makes
them withdrawn and passive, like Oliver, who is terrified of being
abandoned.  Consider also Sikes' aggression, Nancy's depression, or
Monks' vindictiveness, as results of alienation.  Is Dickens saying
that, whatever its cause or effect, alienation is destructive?

3. THE POWER OF TRUE LOVE

Many forms of love appear in Oliver Twist, whether between man and
woman or parent and child (including adopted children).  Dickens
seems to suggest that affection is the only source of real strength.
Brownlow's love saves Oliver.  Rose and Henry find happiness together
after all their suffering.  But love is not successful if it is
one-sided.  Nancy's love for Bill, though sincere on her part, fails
because it is not returned.  Love also fails when it is motivated by
greed or self-advantage:  The Bumbles' marriage and the relationship
between Noah and Charlotte mock true love.

4. CHARITY

Oliver Twist suggests that charity, like love, must be honest to have
integrity.  Dickens indicates that true concern for people is found
in individuals, not in institutions.  The charity that succeeds in
Oliver Twist is the generosity of Brownlow and Mrs.  Maylie.  The
workhouse fails.  As you read, you'll want to think about the
accuracy of Dickens' viewpoint.

5. THE PROCESS OF GROWING UP

Oliver Twist is about growing up.  Many of the characters are young,
and they must make choices about their future.  Oliver, the novel's
main character, is the most obvious example.  Nancy, Rose, Harry, the
Dodger, and Charley make choices too, and must live with the
consequences.  Why do you think that--with the possible exception of
the Dodger--all of their instincts are right?  What does that tell
you about Dickens' attitude at this point in his life?  Do you agree
with him?

6. THE POWER OF MORALITY

Mrs.  Maylie and Mr.  Brownlow don't shun Oliver or Rose because
they're illegitimate or condemn Nancy for her sexual behavior.  Yet
Dickens leaves no doubt that Nancy must pay the price of
sin--death--as Oliver's mother Agnes had.  In this way, Oliver Twist
conforms to Victorian morality.  Our modern attitudes toward
sexuality are different.  Do you think the novel still has relevance
for readers, or is it too old-fashioned and narrow-minded?

OLIVER TWIST: POINT OF VIEW

A third person, omniscient narrator--a narrator who isn't a character
but who knows everything that is happening and what all of the
characters are thinking and doing--tells the story most of the time
in Oliver Twist.  The narrator describes events and repeats
conversations so that you can understand and evaluate what is going
on.  The court scene in Chapter XI illustrates how an omniscient
narrator tells a story, and so does Chapter L when Sikes is cornered.
Most readers agree that Dickens' narrator is fairly objective and
reports things accurately.  But sometimes the narrator gives details
that emphasize a character's bad qualities.  Then he is trying to
influence your reaction to the character.  Look at the descriptions
of Gamfield, Sikes, and Fagin, for examples.

Occasionally the narrator interrupts the story he is telling, and
speaking in his own voice, as "I", urges you to accept particular
ideas.  Near the end of Chapter XII, for example, the narrator
explains why Charley and the Dodger helped chase Oliver and called
him a thief.  The narrator's personal involvement emphasizes his
concern for making his satiric points.

When a writer changes from one narrator to another, it is usually to
draw attention to the subject being discussed.  Some readers believe
that the first-person narrator sections of Oliver Twist resemble the
journalistic sketches Dickens was accustomed to writing.  The shifts
may signal the crusading purpose that was as important to Dickens as
telling an exciting story.

OLIVER TWIST: STYLE

Oliver Twist is written in many different styles.  At times the
dialogue is lean and dramatic as, for instance, during Nancy's
murder.  The story develops quickly and there are very few
descriptive details that aren't directly related to the murder.
Similarly, when Dickens' wit is at its sharpest, the language slashes
at phoniness and hypocrisy (for example, in Chapter XXXVII).  His
comic exaggerations, in descriptions of Bumble or the Bow Street
Runners for instance, make most readers chuckle.

Elsewhere, though, the language may seem stilted and artificial to
you because of the long, winding sentences full of colons,
semicolons, and parentheses.  Dickens' language can also be very
sentimental.  (Look at the love scenes between Rose and Henry or the
description of Oliver at the beginning of Chapter XXX.)

Remember that this was Dickens' first novel and he was still learning
the technique of writing a long book.  But his work as a reporter had
trained him to use detail in the scenes that describe the slums.  His
years of theater-going had prepared him to build scenes of suspense.

Though Dickens was trying to describe the world realistically, the
language doesn't always show how people in the slums talked.  Not
even Sikes uses four-letter words.  Explicit sexual scenes are left
out too.  Dickens wanted his book to appeal to as wide an audience as
possible, and he didn't want to offend his readers.  On the other
hand, Dickens makes use of some street slang, especially the slang of
thieves, which adds a distinct flavor to the story.  For example,
look at the way the Artful Dodger talks.

The language in Oliver Twist isn't hard to understand, and neither is
the imagery and symbolism.  Evil people are described as dangerous
animals or as typical stage villains.  The weather is usually cold
and rainy when bad things happen.  This simplicity has helped to make
Oliver Twist a very satisfying book to read.

OLIVER TWIST: FORM AND STRUCTURE

When you read Oliver Twist, you can read as quickly or as slowly as
you want.  If you are caught up in the action and can't wait to see
what happens, you can read more.  And when you finish the novel, you
can go back and reread the parts you liked best.  But when Oliver
Twist was first published it appeared in monthly installments, each
two or three chapters long, from February 1837 to March 1839.

Dickens knew that each installment in Bentley's Miscellany had to be
exciting enough to leave the readers eager for the next one.  He
deliberately ended each section with unresolved situations or
unanswered questions.  One example is at the end of Chapter VIII,
where Oliver falls into a deep sleep in Fagin's house.  To find out
what happened to the boy, readers had to buy the next month's
magazine.  To understand Dickens' technique, compare it to writing a
television soap opera.  Each segment is exciting in itself, at the
same time it continues what happened the time before and makes you
eager to find out what happens next.

Oliver Twist, like most other novels, has a beginning, middle, and
ending.  The first eleven chapters cover Oliver's story from his
birth to his rescue by Brownlow.  The longer center section, Chapters
XII through XXXIX, is complicated by the introduction of many new
characters and events.  Oliver is kidnapped, robberies are planned,
and romances develop.  Monks and Fagin plot to destroy Oliver.  In
the final chapters, from XL to LIII, all of the unanswered questions
about Oliver's background are answered and he is finally rescued once
and for all.  The good characters are rewarded with the promise of
future happiness, and the evil ones are punished.

While Oliver doesn't appear in every chapter, the different elements
of the novel are unified by his story.  For example, Dickens
describes Nancy's life and death very powerfully, but Nancy's primary
importance in Oliver Twist is that she protects Oliver from Fagin and
Monks.  The same thing is true of Bumble.  Dickens satirizes him and
the whole system of treating the poor, but Bumble exists in the novel
because of his relationship to Oliver.

In the very last chapter, Dickens lets you know that everything has
worked out for the best, and that Oliver, the Maylies, and Mr.
Brownlow can look forward to a happy life together.

        SERIALIZATION OF OLIVER TWIST IN BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY

  CHAPTER            ISSUE DATE          CHAPTER           ISSUE DATE

   1,  2                2/1837           28, 29, 30           4/1838
   3,  4                3/1837           31, 32               5/1838
   5,  6                4/1837           33, 34               6/1838
   7,  8                5/1837           35, 36, 37           7/1838
   9, 10, 11            7/1837           38, 39 (part)        8/1838
  12, 13                8/1837           39 (part), 40, 41   10/1838
  14, 15                9/1837           42, 43              11/1838
  16, 17               11/1837           44, 45, 46          12/1838
  18, 19               12/1837           47, 48, 1/2 49       1/1839
  20, 21, 22            1/1838           1/2 49, 50, 1/2 51   2/1839
  23, 24, 25            2/1838           1/2 51               3/1839
  26, 27                3/1838           52, 53               4/1839

Oliver Twist in its entirety was published in book form in November 1838.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER I

Oliver Twist's story begins with his birth in a public workhouse in
an unnamed English town.  His unmarried young mother lives only long
enough to kiss him lovingly on the forehead, dying before she can
even give him a name or tell the workhouse her name.  As an
illegitimate workhouse orphan, Oliver seems doomed to a life of
misery.

When the baby cries at his birth, the narrator ominously says that if
the child had known what the future held, he would have cried louder.

NOTE:  Workhouses were common institutions in nineteenth century
England.  They provided shelter for the unemployed poor.  But to many
people, including Dickens, they seemed places of punishment rather
than charity.  Pay attention to what Dickens has to say about this
workhouse and the people who run it.  The points he makes helped
change terrible conditions by bringing them to public attention.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER II

From the workhouse, Oliver is sent to the parish "baby farm." With
little to eat, he becomes a small, pale child.  He celebrates his
ninth birthday locked in the coal cellar with two other boys.  He is
being punished for wanting more to eat.  The parish decides the boy
should earn his keep by picking oakum (a fiber used in caulking).
Oliver is called back to the workhouse by Mr.  Bumble, the parish
beadle, whose job it is to oversee institutions run by the parish.
Happy as he is to get away from the farm, Oliver feels lonely leaving
the only home and friends he's ever had.

What impression does Mr.  Bumble make on you?  Some readers find his
conversations and behavior amusing because he seems like such a
buffoon.  Others find the humor overshadowed by his cruel treatment
of Oliver.  As you read on, look for evidence to support your own
reaction to him.

NOTE:  One of Dickens' distinctive features as a novelist is the way
he names his characters.  Good humor or bitter satire are suggested
by calling an incompetent meddler Bumble or a suspicious old man
Grimwit.  Twist, the name Oliver gets because Bumble names foundlings
alphabetically, suggests the intricate web of his story and the
twistings and turnings that await him before his story is unraveled.

Dickens attacks the workhouse through mockery and satire.  The
elaborate, formal language at the beginning of this chapter, which
hides the simple fact that a baby needs food to live, is a good
example of that approach.  Dickens focuses on the inadequate diet of
the youngsters in the parish's care to suggest a whole range of
mistreatment, not only in this chapter but in the ones that follow.
What impression do the fat parish authorities make in contrast?

The Board of Directors grills Oliver to be sure he knows how grateful
he should be for all the generosity he's received.  Oliver shows that
he's learned an important lesson at the farm by never complaining
about his treatment.  He's willing to play along in order to avoid
punishment.  Based on his experience, how else would you expect
Oliver to act?  Does he seem passive here, or a shrewd survivor?

The Board of Directors seem absolutely indifferent to the child's
suffering.  Dickens exaggerates the situation he's satirizing, saying
that the workhouse residents were fed only thin gruel with an onion
twice a week and a half a roll on Sunday.  But the anger Dickens
feels about England's treatment of the poor is clear.  This attack
sets up one of the most famous scenes in the novel, Oliver's dramatic
request for a second helping:  "Please, sir, I want some more."
Instead of being given more food, however, Oliver is thrown into
solitary confinement.  A notice is posted on the workhouse door
offering L5 to anyone who will take Oliver Twist as an apprentice.

NOTE:  Although Oliver Twist brought conditions in workhouses to
wider public attention, reform was already underway by the mid-1830s.
A new Poor Law had been passed in 1834 to improve conditions for
orphans and paupers.  But some of its provisions--the forced
separation of families in workhouses, for instance--seemed very
harsh.  Further reform was needed.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER III

After his bold request for more food, helpless Oliver is repeatedly
beaten as a warning to others.  To most readers, this seems an
incredible punishment for being hungry.  Dickens is exaggerating to
make you sympathetic to this abused boy.  Some readers feel he is
exaggerating too much, thus reducing the power of his words.

Oliver's future darkens when Mr.  Gamfield, a chimney sweep, applies
to take the boy as an apprentice.  Here, Dickens is attacking two
things at once:  the apprentice system and the horrible plight of
chimney sweeps, who often were undernourished children valuable only
because they could squeeze into narrow chimneys to clean them.

NOTE:  THE APPRENTICE SYSTEM This was a particular target for Dickens
because of his own experience as an apprentice in a blacking factory.
Apprenticeship was supposed to provide training for young men in a
specific craft or trade.  At the same time, it provided busy
craftsmen with helpers in return for room, board, and training.
Masters often abused their young apprentices, forcing them into
miserable living and working conditions.

What kind of master is Gamfield likely to be?  The first clue is
found in the way he beats his donkey for no reason.  Watch for other
characters who abuse animals:  it usually serves as a hint about
their nature.  Notice that a member of the workhouse board, seeing
Gamfield beat the donkey, decides that Gamfield is the perfect master
for Oliver.  Between these two powers, what hope does Oliver have?

What saves Oliver from the dangerous job and brutal master?  The
half-blind magistrate who is about to sign Oliver's apprenticeship
papers by accident happens to look at the little boy's terrified face
and is moved to pity.  Dickens is suggesting that Oliver's face is
his most important asset; watch for it to save him again.

For the first time, something has worked in Oliver's favor.  He is
saved from Gamfield, but his problems are far from over.  The sign
advertising a boy "To Let" is posted again.  Don't miss the irony in
that choice of words.  Dickens is emphasizing the board's inhumane
attitude, which reduces Oliver to a piece of merchandise.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER IV

Bumble sets out to find a way to ship Oliver off to sea, but he's
saved the trouble by the local undertaker, Sowerberry, who's willing
to take the boy on as a mourner.  Mourners were hired to follow
funeral processions to add to the solemn air of the occasion.  This
custom might seem odd to you, but Victorians took their funerals very
seriously.

Sowerberry, like many of the characters in Oliver Twist, is a
caricature.  He represents a typical undertaker, sour and glum.  Most
readers think Dickens uses him, as he uses Bumble, not only to
criticize bad individuals in the social system but also to show how
people ignored the horrible conditions around them.

You might think Oliver is weak because he so willingly takes this
assignment and tearfully promises to be a good boy.  But Dickens
explains his behavior by saying the boy has been so abused for so
long that he has been reduced almost to "brutal stupidity and
sullenness." While some readers think that Dickens sometimes lets
emotional scenes run too long or uses exaggeration excessively, most
of them are touched by Oliver's misery in this scene.  Yet other
readers feel that, if this were a more true-to-life novel, Oliver
would become a hopeless delinquent by the time he was nine.  Do you
agree with that point of view?

Oliver yearns for kindness, but he doesn't get much from Mrs.
Sowerberry.  She resents any food she has to feed the boy, and the
only place she is willing to let him sleep is with the coffins.  Of
course, his prospects have never been very bright, and you could say
that he's as well off as he could hope to be.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER V

As Oliver settles in among the coffins at Sowerberry's he begins to
think death would bring the peace and calm he's never known.  With
morning comes more unhappiness.  Oliver meets his new adversary, Noah
Claypole, the bullying charity-boy employed by the Sowerberrys.
Their dimwitted servant girl, Charlotte, is in love with him.

NOTE:  The charity boy, unlike the workhouse orphan, was supported by
his drunken father's tiny pension rather than by public funds.  To
Noah this distinction means that he is superior to Oliver, and he
loses no time in demanding the privileges he feels due him.  Dickens'
biting satirical remarks on Claypole's self-importance are among the
author's bitterest comments on human nature.

Dickens briefly describes Oliver's first outing as a mourner.  The
real point of the brief account, though, is to give another glimpse
of the miserable conditions under which so many English people lived
and died.  Even the rats are hungry in the slum where a nameless
young woman has starved to death.  Yet Bumble and Sowerberry are
indignant that her grieving family has the nerve to be proud rather
than grateful to the parish.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER VI

Sowerberry's business is good.  There are many funerals in the months
after Oliver is formally apprenticed, and he learns quickly.  Noah
Claypole grows jealous of Oliver's success.

Searching for a way to torment the boy, Noah sneeringly asks about
Oliver's mother.  For the first time, Oliver's anger is aroused.  He
cherishes the tiny scraps of information he has about her, and he
won't allow Noah to belittle them.  Attacking the larger boy in a fit
of fury, Oliver knocks him to the ground.  But Noah has allies while
Oliver has none.  Charlotte, Mrs.  Sowerberry, and Noah beat the
child until they are exhausted.  Mrs.  Sowerberry hypocritically
claims that only good fortune kept Oliver from murdering them all.
Even worse, she sends for Oliver's old enemy, Mr.  Bumble, and locks
the child in the cellar.

Noah made slurs on Oliver's mother only to taunt Oliver.  Even today,
people insult each other with comments about "your mother." But this
style of insult takes on particular significance in Oliver Twist.
You remember that Dickens begins the book with a brief but
sympathetic description of the young mother.  She is a mysterious
figure, but watch for the hints Dickens continues to give you about
Oliver's parentage--especially about his mother.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER VII

Noah runs eagerly to find Bumble and to repeat the story of Oliver's
attack on him.  He groans and moans in such agony that he attracts
the attention of the parish board's gentleman in the white waistcoat.
When Bumble reports the lie that Oliver has tried to murder the
Sowerberry family, the gentleman repeats once more his belief that
Oliver was born to be hanged.  Noah adds another lie--that Sowerberry
wanted Oliver whipped.

Noah Claypole's phony tears and faked terror demonstrate the parish
boy's worst side.  He and Bumble are delighted at the thought of the
punishment that awaits Oliver--a specific clue to their characters.
Some readers believe, however, that Dickens overdoes this satirical
humor.  What do you think?  Do you find it too heavyhanded?  Or would
you say the kinds of abuses deserve to be exposed by harsh ridicule?

Still locked in the cellar, Oliver isn't terrified of the beadle this
time and even talks back.  When Sowerberry returns Oliver insists
that nobody can insult his mother.  This boldness only earns him two
beatings, one from Sowerberry and the other from Bumble.  Bumble
explains Oliver's behavior by saying that Mrs.  Sowerberry has given
him too much to eat and he's developed too much spirit!  The
workhouse philosophy is to keep children hungry and thus passive, and
Bumble insists it is a good philosophy.  Is Dickens carrying his
biting satire on hunger too far to be believable?

One thing is certain.  When his mother's reputation is at stake,
Oliver will not back down.  It is only when he's banished to his
gloomy coffin bed that he breaks into bitter tears.  But the
independence he's shown in defending his mother gives him new energy.
He won't stay and be abused anymore.  He decides to run away.

On his way out of town Oliver passes the workhouse farm where he'd
spent nine miserable years.  There he meets an old friend, a pitiful
dying child named Dick, who kisses him goodbye and wishes God's
blessing on him.  Oliver is deeply touched, for these good wishes are
the first he's ever had.  Some readers feel that Little Dick's desire
to die is too maudlin, and some even resent the scene's "tear-jerker"
tone.  On the other hand, it's hard to think of a sadder person than
a child who knows he's dying from neglect and will be glad when he
doesn't have to suffer any more.

NOTE:  This chapter contains an example of an inconsistency in Oliver
Twist that some readers find troublesome.  At the end of the chapter
Dick is weeding a garden.  At the beginning of the next, it is
winter, and only a few hours have passed.  Such errors probably
resulted from Dickens' writing the novel in serial chunks.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER VIII

Oliver's life enters a new phase as he makes his way to London.
Escape is on his mind, but so is the opportunity to make a new life.
The walk (with only an extra shirt, two pair of stockings, a crust of
bread, and a penny to his name) nearly does him in.  Most of the
people he meets are as mean as the ones he's left behind, but a kind
old lady and a generous man working on the highway provide him with
enough food and shelter to make his way to the little town of Barnet,
at the northern edge of London.

NOTE:  Dickens knew London intimately and used it as the setting for
much of his fiction.  His geographical descriptions of the city and
the routes his characters follow through it are accurate to the most
minute detail.  Most of the neighborhoods he mentions still exist,
although they've been altered over the years.  You can find Barnet,
Kensington, and Islington, for example, on a modern map, along with
many of the street names Dickens used.  St.  John's Road, for
example, is still a route into central London from the north.

The first person Oliver meets in London is often called one of
Dickens' most brilliant creations.  He is Jack Dawkins, better known
as The Artful Dodger.  His flamboyant clothing is described at great
length.  So are his short, bow-legged body and his dirty, snub-nosed
face.  His speech is so full of slang, he almost seems to be speaking
another language.

What's important to Oliver is that he's found a friend who feeds him
and offers him lodging with a "'spectable old gentleman." Oliver
suspects that the Dodger is a bad risk, but he doesn't reject the
offer of shelter.  He hasn't much choice.

London's filthy streets, awful smells, and drunken residents worry
Oliver as he and the Dodger make their way under night's cover to the
slum known as Saffron Hill.  Before he can decide to run away again,
Oliver finds himself made right at home by another of Dickens'
brilliant creations, the old Jew, Fagin.  His villainous, repulsive
face and his mat of red hair scare Oliver, but he offers food and a
bed to Oliver.  Warm, fed, and lulled by hot gin-and-water, Oliver
falls into a deep sleep.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER IX

Oliver wakes to find himself alone in the room with Fagin.  Still
drowsy, Oliver is quiet for a long time.  Fagin, thinking himself
unobserved, examines his secret horde of treasure.  He muses on how
capital punishment is a good thing because it keeps him safe from
confederates who might tell on him.

For many readers Fagin is a supreme villain.  They say that Dickens
draws him as repulsive both physically and morally.  For instance,
when Fagin discovers that Oliver has been watching him, his first
instinct is to grab a knife and kill the child.  But his iron
self-control is more powerful than his rage, so he calms himself and
leaves the child alone.  He easily persuades the innocent boy that
the stolen treasures are all Fagin's own legal property.  Looking at
Fagin from a different perspective, however, you may feel that he
provides a bit of kindness and security for the child.  Some readers,
on this evidence, refuse to believe that Fagin is all bad.  As you
read on, gather evidence for your own opinion.

Dickens took the name Fagin from a young man who had befriended him
during his unhappy apprenticeship.  Readers who have no sympathy for
the fictional Fagin argue that Dickens must have felt that the
real-life Fagin was tainted by his association with the cruel
apprentice system.  Otherwise, they say, Dickens would not have used
a friend's name for such a man.  Other readers say that naming the
old man after a friend shows that Dickens didn't think the character
completely evil.

NOTE:  FAGIN'S JEWISHNESS You might wonder about Dickens' repeatedly
calling Fagin a Jew.  To modern ears it sounds anti-Semitic, and it
is.  In the nineteenth century the English were suspicious of all
foreigners, and Jews were generally considered outsiders.  Simply
labeling Fagin a Jew would have moved many of Dickens' Victorian
readers to judge him with suspicion.  The notorious seller of stolen
goods in London, Isaac (Ikey) Solomon, also a Jew, is considered
Dickens' model for Fagin.  One cliche that was associated with Jewish
villains, including Ikey Solomon, was their excessive interest in
money.  Fagin is neatly tailored to fit that model.

Oliver's innocence is shown when he doesn't understand either the
kind of work the boys have been busy doing or the "game" of
pocket-picking that Fagin has them play after breakfast.  Fagin urges
Oliver to model himself on The Artful Dodger.

Some readers are disturbed by Oliver's willingness to do what he's
told.  They think he is just too good to be true.  Others argue,
however, that Oliver is to be pitied, rather than criticized, for
being innocent.  This is the first of several episodes in which his
innocence confronts the evil of the world.  Keep track of them.  They
will help you make a final judgment about Oliver's character.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER X

After intense practice, Fagin sends Oliver, his new recruit, to work.
His more experienced boys, Charlie Bates and the Dodger, make Oliver
nervous by picking on little boys and helping themselves to fruits
and vegetables.  Suddenly, the purpose of the game is clear.  The
Dodger and Charlie are picking the pocket of a distinguished
gentleman who is looking at the books for sale or loan at a sidewalk
bookstall.

Desperate to get away, Oliver runs off, only to be followed by shouts
of "Stop, thief!" and a thundering crowd eager for blood.  The two
real culprits even join the pursuit!  The chase ends when Oliver is
knocked to the ground, but the gentleman who has been robbed, Mr.
Brownlow, pities Oliver and goes with him to the police station.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XI

Oliver is taken to jail and locked in a dismal, smelly cell.
Brownlow, troubled by Oliver's situation, has the strange feeling
that he's seen the child somewhere before but he doesn't know where.
He doesn't want to press charges, but he has no choice.

In the Metropolitan Police Office, the magistrate Fang (another name
that pinpoints a character) is about to hear the case against Oliver.
What happens here may seem outrageous to you, and Dickens intended it
that way.

NOTE:  The first English police force was established in 1829, just
eight years before this part of Oliver Twist was written.  Before
that, the law had been very loosely administered.  Many injustices
still existed in 1837 and Dickens wanted them exposed.  An actual
magistrate, Laing, was the model for Fang; he was removed from office
about six months after this episode appeared in print.

Fang is so rude and incompetent that Brownlow loses all respect for
him.  Even as he tells the story of the attempted robbery, Brownlow
makes up his mind to protect the child.  When Oliver is brought
before the magistrate, he is so terrified he can't even say his name,
and so sick that he faints.  Despite this, Fang sentences the boy to
three months at hard labor.  Just in the nick of time the bookseller
appears and testifies that he saw the other boys commit the crime.
The case is thrown out of court.  Without hesitation, Brownlow takes
Oliver home with him.

After Oliver's brief and terrifying experience with crime, Dickens is
ready to introduce a new phase in the boy's life.  The opening of
Oliver Twist introduced several mysteries.  This chapter provides the
first clues to solving them, but it also adds more mystery.  For
instance, why does Brownlow think he's seen Oliver's face before?

In what seems a lucky accident, Oliver's first adventure in the world
of crime hooks him up with the one man in all London who will be able
to solve the mysteries that surround him.  Is this just a fortunate
accident that might happen in anyone's life?  Can you think of an
example of a fortunate coincidence from your own experience?

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XII

Oliver has another new home.  Again, the first thing he does is
sleep.  Some readers have suggested Dickens is using sleep as a
device to make transitions between Oliver's experiences, almost the
way a moviemaker uses a dissolve to fade from one scene to another.

Oliver is unconscious for several days and awakens to a new and very
different life.  One of the most striking changes is that he, at
last, finds a warm-hearted mother figure in Brownlow's housekeeper,
Mrs.  Bedwin.  She wishes that Oliver's own mother could see how
sweet he is.  Oliver, meanwhile, is fascinated by a portrait of a
lady hanging in his room.  The child imagines that the figure in the
portrait wants to speak to him.  When Brownlow comes in to say hello,
he is struck by the resemblance between the woman in that portrait
and the child.  As he exclaims at this, Oliver faints.

Just as the mystery of the relationship between the painting and the
child seems about to be solved, Dickens totally shifts the scene,
returning with Fagin's boys to their thieves' den.  Dickens
deliberately chooses to prolong the mystery, so that other episodes
can follow.  Up to this point it has been a straightforward tale of a
boy's life, but from now on Dickens includes many scenes without
Oliver.  The novel describes many people that Oliver doesn't know,
and these characters make the novel richer and more powerful.
Dickens uses them to expand his social criticisms, and they are also
the objects of his biting humor or of his pity.  With them, Dickens
can point out things that are wrong in Victorian society.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XIII

Bill Sikes, Fagin's partner in crime, arrives at the apartment.  He's
just in time to be drenched with the pot of beer Fagin has hurled at
Charley Bates.  The greeting does nothing to improve Sikes' temper,
and his response is to kick his dog across the room.  Remember
Gamfield and his donkey?  Dickens is once again using a man's abuse
of animals to give a clue about his character.

The relationship between Sikes and Fagin is uneasy.  Their careers
are linked, but each knows too much about the other.  Fagin acts
afraid of the louder, more aggressive Sikes.  Yet he makes it clear
that Sikes is in danger because of what Fagin knows about him.

Fagin and Sikes discuss Oliver.  They agree they must get him back
before he gives the authorities any information about the gang.  They
send Nancy to find out what happened to Oliver at the magistrate's
office.  She discovers what you already know, that Oliver has been
taken home by the gentleman the Dodger tried to rob.  The gang has no
option.  Oliver must be kidnapped and the gang's headquarters moved.

Many readers think Nancy is fascinating even in this brief
introduction.  They point to her independence and her bright spirit
as she clowns about finding her "sweet little brother." Very briefly
you get the sense of the raucous good humor that the gang shares.  As
you'll see, of all the characters in the novel, Nancy changes the
most.  Why does Dickens treat her differently from the other members
of the gang?  What is your evidence?

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XIV

Back at Brownlow's, Oliver thrives.  The eerie painting has been
removed from his bedroom and is not mentioned again.  New clothes
replace his rags.  At last the child is invited to visit his
benefactor in his study.

Terrified that he will be sent away, Oliver begs Brownlow to let him
stay.  His old dread of loneliness still haunts him.  Brownlow tells
the boy he is welcome as long as he is worthy of trust.  The older
man explains that he's been disappointed in people in the past, but
he senses that Oliver will not disappoint him.  What does this seem
to foreshadow?

Just as Oliver is about to tell the story of his life, they are
interrupted by Mr.  Grimwig, an old friend of Brownlow's, whose
attitude toward people is nicely summed up by his name:  He trusts no
one.

NOTE:  Dickens gives Grimwig a characteristic expression ("I'll eat
my head") to help you remember who he is.  Compare this to Fagin's
"My dear" and Bumble's "porochial".  In a novel with so many
characters, this kind of "signature" helps you to remember who they
are from one episode to the next.

Brownlow has some books which must be returned to the bookseller's.
Oliver begs to be trusted with the errand and he sets out with
Brownlow's blessing--and a warning to come straight home.  Grimwig,
not surprisingly, claims there's no chance the child will return.  Do
you think he's right?  Are your reasons the same as his?

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XV

Bill Sikes is in characteristic form as we meet him again in The
Three Cripples, a seedy tavern.  He starts this chapter by kicking
his dog.  But this time the beast objects and sinks his teeth into
Sikes' boot.  In a fury, the man raises his arm to strike the dog but
is interrupted by Fagin's entrance.  Sikes' black mood increases the
tensions between the men, but you get a new insight into their
dealings:  Fagin controls the money and Sikes controls an effective
information network.  All that Sikes' blustering accomplishes is to
make the secretive Fagin hate him.

During this confrontation Nancy, who is still on Oliver's trail, is
in another room of the tavern.  You learn that Sikes is attracted to
her, and they leave together.  Meanwhile Oliver is on his way to the
bookseller's.  Suddenly he is horrified to find himself firmly in
Nancy's grasp.  Their chance meeting is one of the theatrical details
that make Oliver Twist so exciting to read.

Oliver's struggles and cries are in vain.  A crowd gathers, but the
people are willing to believe that the boy is delinquent and that his
"sister" is right to take him home.  In the clutches of Nancy and
Sikes, Oliver is hustled away.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XVI

Crucial differences between Nancy and Sikes appear as they take
Oliver back to Fagin.  Sikes encourages his dog to growl at the boy
and sneers at Nancy's sympathy for the prisoners who are to be hanged
in the morning.

NOTE:  The thought of death, especially death by hanging, haunts many
members of Fagin's gang.  Nancy imagines how the condemned men in the
jail must feel on their last night, knowing what awaits them.
Capital punishment was used frequently in England, and applied to
many crimes including theft as well as murder.  After 1839, only 8
crimes were still punishable by execution.  But law-breakers knew
that death by hanging was a very possible end to their careers.
Here, Nancy's feelings foreshadow the many deaths to come.

Oliver, for all his own misery, senses a bond with Nancy when he
feels her trembling as they walk toward Fagin's.  You can see, too,
that his reaction to Fagin is entirely different this time.  Perhaps
one reason is that he has Brownlow to compare to Fagin.  The child
begs to be allowed to leave, or at least to clear his honor by having
the books and money returned to Brownlow.  But the gang just laughs.
Fagin in particular seems delighted that the boy will be thought a
thief.  Why do you think this pleases him?  Watch for more of this
attitude.

Oliver suddenly breaks away from them, and Nancy shuts the door after
him, insisting that Sikes hold back the dog.  In a moment of great
tension, Nancy screams that Bill will have to kill her first before
he harms the boy.  (This is more foreshadowing.) After Oliver is
dragged back, she grabs the club Fagin is using to hit Oliver.
Roused to fury by their treatment of the boy, she threatens to betray
them to the police.  Fagin, Sikes, and Nancy shout harsh truths at
each other, and finally Sikes wrestles the girl until she passes out.

What accounts for this radical change in Nancy?  Dickens never
explains what makes her regret having brought Oliver back or what
drives her into frenzy.  Some readers have suggested it is her
maternal instinct.  Others think there is a spark of human goodness
which slum life hasn't yet put out.  Others point out that she's
worked for Fagin for twelve years; maybe she realizes what's in store
for the boy and wants to protect him from it.  Can you think of any
other reasons?  At any rate, her protests are ignored.  Oliver stays
with the gang.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XVII

The narrator interrupts the progress of the story to defend the
dramatic value of digressions.  This sets the stage for going back to
see what is happening in Oliver's birthplace.  It also changes the
tone from melodrama back to satire, as you see Mr.  Bumble going
about his parish business.  He meets Oliver's friend Little Dick, who
appears to be dying.  Seeing this pathetic figure, how do you feel
about Oliver's fate?

Bumble goes to London on parish business.  He happens to read a
newspaper advertisement offering a reward for information about
Oliver Twist.  Eager for the money, Bumble goes to Brownlow and
smears the child's character.  He's so persuasive that even Mrs.
Bedwin's spirited defense cannot keep Brownlow from angrily writing
the boy off as a little villain.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XVIII

Fagin devotes his energies to hooking Oliver into a life of crime.
He threatens and pleads by turns.  He puts the boy in solitary
confinement until Oliver is grateful even to go out with the Dodger
and Charley.  When he judges the time ripe, Fagin creates such a
congenial atmosphere the lonesome child is drawn, against his will,
into the gang's society.

The most important element in this chapter is Dickens' skillful
development of Fagin's character.  You may even admire the
psychological skill and single-minded determination of the old master
criminal.  But why do you think Nancy compares him to the devil?

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XIX

Fagin's plan for ruining Oliver takes a giant step forward.  He and
Sikes are plotting a robbery, but have a hard time cooperating.
Although Sikes won't confide any more details than he must, he does
say he needs the assistance of a small boy.  Oliver will be perfect,
Fagin insists.  Sikes needs a little persuading, but Nancy joins
Fagin's side and urges the thief to use the boy.  The one thing that
Sikes and Fagin agree on is that Nancy is absolutely trustworthy.  Do
you think they are judging her correctly?

Do you wonder about Nancy's apparent change of heart?  She doesn't
protest Oliver's being used in the robbery.  At this point, you learn
that she is living with Sikes.  Do you think that her love for him
overrides her concern for Oliver?  That's what Fagin thinks.

Dickens is very discreet about sexual matters.  The text never
mentions, for instance, that Nancy is a prostitute although Dickens
identifies her that way in a preface to the novel.  You don't get any
physical details of her romance with Sikes, but that doesn't mean it
isn't physical.

There's one more surprise too.  When Fagin goes to tell Oliver he's
to take part in a robbery, the boy is asleep.  His innocent face
touches the old man's heart.  Is there really some humanity in Fagin?
On the other hand, if Fagin were not touched by the child's
innocence, what would that say about him?

NOTE:  So far, no reason has been given for Fagin's determination to
make a criminal out of Oliver.  When Sikes asks him directly why he's
so involved with one particular boy, Fagin is flustered, stammering
an excuse, changing the subject.  You'll discover later that there is
a reason, which Dickens has not mentioned yet.  Perhaps he is saving
it for suspense, or perhaps he didn't plan out the whole story before
he wrote it.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XX

Fagin seems to have trouble telling Oliver he is to go with Sikes,
although he does nothing to change the plan.  He's frustrated that
Oliver isn't more interested, for it shows the boy's thoughts still
aren't criminal.  Yet before Fagin leaves for the evening he warns
the child to beware of Sikes.  His apparent compassion for Oliver
makes Fagin a more complex character.  What's more, Fagin seems very
perceptive about Sikes and his capacity for violence.  Why do you
think he keeps on working with Sikes if he is so aware of his evil
qualities?

Left alone to worry about the future, Oliver prays that he will not
become a criminal and that he will be rescued from danger.  Just as
he finishes, Nancy enters his room.  Dickens deliberately places
these incidents together to emphasize Nancy's role as Oliver's
defender.  Oliver's innocent face affects Nancy deeply, but she
explains to him that--in this instance--there is nothing she can do
to protect him.

She warns Oliver that Sikes will kill him if he betrays the gang and
shows him the bruises she's gotten for arguing with Sikes about
Oliver's safety.  But she makes no effort to interfere.  She seems to
sense how far she can go in defying Sikes.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXI

Sikes and Oliver set out in the grey, cold, rainy morning.

NOTE:  Dickens, like many novelists, uses weather as a clue to
meaning.  He chooses to make rain and fog suggest bad times, while
sunshine represents happiness or justice.  This connection between
weather and feelings is powerful in Oliver Twist because it echoes
many people's feelings.  Notice that on nearly every evil occasion in
the novel it is dark or rainy, or both.  No sun shines on the actions
of Fagin and his gang, or on Oliver when he is with them.  In
contrast, in other places later in the story Dickens will use
sunshine as a mark of goodness.  Then Oliver grows strong and healthy
and is happy.  In literary terms, Dickens is using weather as a
metaphor.

The robbers head west through the streets of London.  In Kensington
they get a ride that takes them out of the city, and then resume
their long walk.  Finally, at dinner time, they stop for a meal in
Hampton.  They obtain a ride to Shepperton and then walk until Oliver
is exhausted.  Late at night, just as Oliver is convinced that Sikes
has brought him a great distance only to murder him, they find
themselves outside a deserted, dilapidated house.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXII

Oliver is confused and silent while Sikes meets up with the other
gang members at the house and they prepare for the crime.  Armed and
ready, the gang sets out through the still-falling rain.  Suddenly,
as Oliver is hoisted over a wall surrounding a private house, he
realizes they are there to commit burglary.  He begs to be allowed to
run away, but Sikes' answer is to point a gun at his head.  The
others, Toby Crackit and Barney, stop Sikes, although it isn't clear
whether they want to save Oliver or just get on with the robbery.

The boy is dropped into the house through an opened window, chased by
Sikes' threats.  Determined to expose the crime no matter what the
risk, Oliver starts forward only to be frozen by Sikes' command to
come back.  In the frenzy that follows, Oliver is shot, dragged back
through the window, and carried swiftly away.  As the clanging bells
and shouting men fade into the distance, Oliver lapses into
unconsciousness.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXIII

The scene shifts to the workhouse where Oliver was born, and to Mr.
Bumble's courtship of the workhouse matron, Mrs.  Corney.  The clumsy
love scene between these two unromantic figures provides comic relief
to a story that has become rather grim.

Dickens can be a master of comic dialogue, and the tone here never
falters.  Just as Bumble is about to propose, Mrs.  Corney is
summoned to the bedside of a dying woman who has a secret to tell.
This gives Mr.  Bumble an opportunity to calculate the value of her
household property before he commits himself to marriage.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXIV

The death watch at Old Sally's bedside is an unsettling episode.  In
spite of his sentimental comments about the peaceful faces of the
dead, Dickens makes a harsh statement about human nature here,
showing that greed and deception are as true of the poor as they are
of their keepers.  Can you explain how, when self-interest is
involved, Old Sally and Mrs.  Corney are very much alike?

At last some of the details surrounding Oliver's birth begin to
emerge as Sally explains what happened the night Oliver was born.
Oliver's mother had saved some gold to buy her baby "friends" if the
infant survived, but Old Sally kept the gold, leaving Oliver poor and
friendless.  Where is the gold now?  How much did the other old women
lurking outside the door overhear?  There are still many mysteries to
clear up.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXV

The scene shifts back to Fagin and his jolly gang of thieves.
Waiting for the return of the robbers, they tease Tom Chitling
unmercifully about his romantic attachment to Bet, a young friend of
Nancy's.  Just as things get out of hand, the doorbell rings.  Toby
Crackit (a good name for a burglar!) returns alone from the robbery
attempt.

Fagin is beside himself, but Crackit won't talk until he's eaten.
Toby's first comment drives Fagin into a frenzy, for he asks, quite
seriously, "How's Bill?" Nobody knows.  All Fagin has learned from
the newspapers is that the job has failed.  When he hears that Oliver
was left lying in the ditch and Crackit doesn't know if the child is
dead or alive, Fagin bursts from the room with a yell.

Don't you think it strange that Fagin is so concerned about the boy?
So far Dickens has complicated the story of Oliver Twist without
providing many answers.  His main goal so far has been to arouse the
reader's curiosity about the lonely orphan.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXVI

Fagin makes his way to The Three Cripples.  The landlord's man,
Barney, hasn't returned from the robbery attempt, but Fagin seems
much more interested in the whereabouts of a mysterious new character
identified as Monks.

Leaving a message for Monks to call on him the next day, Fagin talks
casually with the landlord.  You now learn for certain about
something hinted at before--Fagin is an informer who sells
information about his associates to the police.  Does this knowledge
lessen your opinion of Fagin or did you expect such activity of him?

Still disturbed about the missing child, Fagin makes his way to
Sikes' apartment to confront Nancy.  Trying to obtain information she
might have, Fagin pretends to be concerned for Oliver.  Though she's
been drinking, she makes it clear that she wants the boy safely away
from the gang.  At the same time, she doesn't want anything bad to
happen to Sikes.  Fagin threatens Sikes' safety if anything happens
to Oliver.  For a moment, his iron self-control slips and he rages
about losing a boy who is worth hundreds of pounds to him.  Just as
quickly he catches himself and forces himself to resume his usual
smooth manner.  He tries to discover if Nancy suspects anything.
This deviousness is an important facet of Fagin's complex character.

Nancy is not stupid, and her behavior immediately changes, too.  She
insists that Sikes is on Fagin's side and stops defending Oliver.
This time, though, her change of heart seems faked.  She's a good
enough actress to convince Fagin that she's too drunk to remember
anything, and so he heads home.

NOTE:  Drunkenness was a major problem for both men and women in
London's slums during Dickens' lifetime.  Cheap gin was a common
drink.  It was readily available and powerful enough to provide a
quick high.  Keep track, in particular, of Nancy's use of alcohol.
When she stops drinking, later on, she has a specific reason.

The mysterious Monks is waiting for Fagin when he gets home.  They
head for a deserted room and whisper together.  At first you can't
hear what they say.  Monks then raises his voice angrily, insisting
that Fagin made a mistake in sending Oliver on the robbery, rather
than corrupting him gradually as he did with other boys.  Fagin
declares that approach wouldn't have worked because Oliver doesn't
have a criminal nature.

From the conversation, you can figure out that Monks had spotted
Oliver the day Brownlow was robbed.  Monks had already been searching
for this boy, so he convinced Fagin to get the boy back.  You
probably have begun to suspect that there is something very dangerous
about Monks, but there's no way to tell, yet, what it is.

The conversation between the men ends when Monks is startled by the
shadow he sees on the wall.  Dickens is preparing you for the plot
complications to follow.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXVII

In an abrupt change of mood and scene, the story switches back to
Bumble's courtship of Mrs.  Corney.  Nor is theirs the only romance
in Oliver's hometown.  The beadle bumbles in on Noah and Charlotte
embracing in the Sowerberrys' parlor, and he's shocked at seeing the
"lower orders" daring to kiss.

Some readers think this chapter's humor is heavyhanded.  On the other
hand, both romances are so odd that it's clear Dickens is making fun
of the characters and their love lives.  This makes perfect sense
when you remember that he has poked fun at Bumble and Noah from the
beginning.  It is sometimes difficult, however, to see how these
events fit into the story as a whole, but Dickens is using them to
show the difference between real love and false love.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXVIII

Five chapters have passed since Oliver was shot.  Finally the story
goes back to Sikes running from the scene of the crime, carrying the
wounded child.  On the verge of being caught, he lays down Oliver and
speeds away after Crackit.  The child's unconscious body lies
undiscovered, however, because the servants of the house are
terrified of really catching up with the thieves.

NOTE:  PLOT DEVELOPMENT Dickens was interested in making his plot
dramatic.  To do that, he didn't follow a strict chronological
development, but built up the suspense by using digressions.  Notice
that Crackit, who is running away here, ate dinner at Fagin's in
Chapter XXV.  Sometimes you can't tell how much time is passing
during the novel.  This may have resulted from Dickens' method of
writing one installment at a time.  The only exception is at the
dramatic conclusion, which he wrote all at once.  Then, within one
week, all the mysteries are solved, the guilty are punished and the
innocent rewarded.  Whether sticking to chronological order or not,
Dickens always keeps you eager to find out what happens next.

As day comes, Oliver awakes.  He's stiff with cold, drenched with
rain, and racked with pain.  Staggering toward the house, he faints
on the doorstep.  But the servants are so involved in reliving their
chase of the robbers that they barely hear his knock.  This scene
increases the suspense and develops the comic characters of Giles and
his sidekicks.  Some readers who get frustrated with Dickens feel
that delays show his limitations as a writer.  Others insist the
Dickens' ability to create suspense and keep readers involved in a
story are some of the reasons his work is still so popular.  If you
read such Dickens' novels as Great Expectations, especially Pip's
encounters with Magwitch, A Tale of Two Cities, or Bleak House you
will find other examples of exciting stories using a similar
technique.

As soon as they see Oliver, the men recognize him as one of the
thieves.  But the young mistress of the house insists the boy be put
to bed.  Delicately, she doesn't look at him just yet.  This allows
the story to take another complicating turn.

NOTE:  Oliver is again in transition between Fagin's world and a new
one.  Once more, he sleeps deeply as he moves from one life to
another.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXIX

With Oliver comfortably in bed, and the doctor sent for, you meet the
women of the house.  Mrs.  Maylie is stately and mature.  The girl,
Rose, a lovely seventeen-year old, is described glowingly.

NOTE:  WOMEN CHARACTERS Dickens is often criticized today for the way
he writes about women characters, especially the good women.  Most
modern readers find them too sweet and too dependent on other people
to be believable.  For example, they think that Rose Maylie, the
heroine of Oliver Twist, is not as interesting as she could be
because she does not seem to be realistic.  In order to understand
why Dickens wrote about Rose as he did, you have to understand that,
in the mid-19th century, women were admired for being obedient to
their husbands and parents, for being modest and discreet, and for
not asserting themselves or their own ideas.  That is exactly how
Rose behaves.

As the women finish breakfast, the plump and talkative Dr.  Losberne
arrives to look after the patient.  He is absolutely insistent that
the women see the young thief.  Dickens humorously shows Giles trying
to postpone such an interview in order to bask a little longer in his
false heroic glory.  Unlike the attacks on Bumble or Noah, Dickens is
only gently poking fun here.  Dickens uses humor for different
purposes.  Sometimes the laughter is used to mock and ridicule.
Sometimes it is just to make you laugh.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXX

Dr.  Losberne enjoys leading the women upstairs to see Oliver and he
plays the scene for all it's worth.  Dickens, however, seems to be
carried away with the sad situation, indulging in sentimental
observations about poor Oliver's unhappy life.

The women insist that any child who looks the way Oliver does can't
be evil.  Rose begs that they protect Oliver as she has been
protected by Mrs.  Maylie.  This is the first clue that there is a
mystery in Rose's background as well as Oliver's.

The doctor insists that they will quiz the boy and, if his story
seems plausible, they'll keep him out of the clutches of the law.
You may be bothered by Losberne's decision to flout justice by lying
to the authorities.  Or you may think about the representatives of
the court system you've seen in the novel, and approve of Losberne's
decision.

NOTE:  Losberne strikes most readers as an endearing character
despite his tendency to dramatize everything.  One of the marks of
Dickens' brilliance as a writer was his ability to create distinctive
minor characters like Losberne.

Later that day, Oliver finally tells them his life story.  Persuaded
of Oliver's innocence, the doctor turns his energy to knocking down
Giles' claim that the thief he shot was the child upstairs.  But just
as Giles is ready to change his story, the Bow Street Runners arrive.
This split-second timing, melodramatic but effective, is another
example of Dickens' genius in extending suspense.

NOTE:  The Bow Street Runners were a semiofficial group of police
investigators who had been organized in mid-18th century.  Their
primary role was finding and arresting robbers.  The bulk of their
pay came from the recovery of the loot.  The system was open to
abuses, and by 1839 the Runners were replaced by professional police.
Later in his life Dickens was a fan of the police, but that attitude
is not evident in Oliver Twist.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXXI

Blathers and Duff, the incompetent Runners, are fine products of
Dickens' playful satiric wit.  They search the scene of the crime,
but all they find out is that the robbers weren't "yokels." They
spend a lot of time interviewing Giles and his men, but they are
confused by the butler's story.  Finally, they are drawn by Losberne
into a long description of their past adventures, which totally
distracts them from the case at hand.

Losberne at last lets them see Oliver, claiming the boy was not
wounded with Giles' gun.  He doesn't tell the Runners that the gun
they are inspecting isn't the one that was fired.  Nor does Losberne
let on that he removed the bullets from the gun.  The Runners are
convinced that Giles isn't very smart and isn't a very good shot
either--exactly what Losberne wants them to think.

Losberne emerges in this chapter as a valuable friend of the women
and of Oliver.  Unlike Rose, he is shrewd enough to know that Oliver
is doomed if arrested, and he manages to convince the gullible
detectives that Oliver isn't their boy.  Luckily, the next morning
two men and a boy are arrested nearby, and so the investigation comes
to a halt.

Saved from arrest, Oliver mends and thrives, exactly as he had when
Brownlow rescued him in Chapter XII.  Are two lucky rescues too much
to be believed?  Or is Dickens saying that a person sometimes does
get a second chance at happiness?

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXXII

The parallel with his earlier rescue is very clear to Oliver.  As
before, his gratitude knows no bounds.  His delight at being rescued
is a poignant comment on the dreadful experiences he's had.  His only
request is to try to get back in touch with Brownlow.  What does this
tell you about Oliver?

When Oliver is well enough to travel Dr.  Losberne takes him to
London to be reunited with Brownlow.  But the trip is plagued by bad
luck.  In Chertsey, Oliver recognizes the house where the thieves had
met before the robbery.  Unwisely, Losberne goes to speak to the
humpbacked man who lives there.  Worse, he asks for Sikes by name and
allows the man to catch a glimpse of Oliver.  This encounter will no
doubt lead to danger for the child.

Losberne admits that he has acted rashly because he was too eager to
find evidence to back up Oliver's tale.  Before he can dwell too much
on that mistake, however, a new disappointment looms.  Brownlow has
apparently left for the West Indies.  Rather than risk a further
upset, Losberne refuses to go on to visit the bookseller.  Oliver
seems dismayed that he may never be able to clear himself in
Brownlow's eyes.

The Maylies, sharing Oliver's dismay, close up their house and move
to the country for the summer, taking the boy with them.  The picture
the narrator paints of the country and of Oliver's life there seems
overly sentimental and too perfect to many readers.  This happy
situation seems to them unbelievable after what Oliver has been
through.  Other readers claim that the contrast is acceptable because
Oliver Twist is almost a fantasy or a fairy-tale rather than a
realistic novel.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXXIII

Evil finds a way to enter even this perfect life.  Rose falls
desperately ill and Oliver, urgently consoling Mrs.  Maylie and
himself, insists that heaven would not let someone so beautiful and
good die young.

Mrs.  Maylie is too wise to believe him, but she struggles to keep
calm.  Once again Oliver is entrusted with an errand just as Brownlow
entrusted him to run the errand to the bookseller.  Oliver is asked
to deliver an urgent letter to Dr.  Losberne.  Notice that Oliver
Twist has many significant parallels in action and images like this
one.  At an inn on his way home, Oliver again meets a threat, when he
runs into an unnamed man who greets him with the terrifying shout:
"Death!" Cursing, the man moves aggressively toward Oliver only to
fall on the ground writhing and foaming in a fit.

Oliver rushes home to new trouble, as Rose grows worse.  The
beautiful summer day seems to be at odds with the little boy's
misery.  Seeking solace, Oliver stumbles into the local cemetery
where a child's funeral is in progress.  After that omen, he can't
believe that Rose's youth and beauty will protect her from death.
Suddenly, however, the crisis passes.  The sunshine was a clue that
things would be all right, but Oliver hadn't believed it.  Dickens
reassures the reader that miracles do happen.  Rose will live.

NOTE:  Rose Maylie's near-fatal illness recalls, in every way except
its happy conclusion, the unexpected illness and death of Dickens'
beloved sister-in-law Mary Hogarth in May, 1837.  When Mary's funeral
was over, Dickens was so emotionally upset that he could barely work.
He even missed an installment of Oliver Twist.  His feeling of love
for Mary and great loss at her death is echoed in this novel, and
also in The Old Curiosity Shop, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit, and
many other of Dickens' books.

Because he is so overjoyed at Rose's recovery, Oliver hasn't had the
time to worry about his encounter with the strange man.  But you may.
The suspense grows more complicated.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXXIV

Oliver is so happy Rose is better that he can barely control his
glee.  So is another unknown gentleman who arrives with Giles in tow,
desperate for news of the girl.  He is Mrs.  Maylie's son Henry
(called Harry).

Henry claims he loves Rose, but that doesn't seem to impress his
mother.  In fact, she tries to discourage her son's affection and you
get the impression that she doesn't think he's sincere enough.  But
you do learn what the cloud hanging over Rose is:  there is some
shame about her birth--probably she was illegitimate.

NOTE:  It is important to realize how powerful the consequences of
sexual immorality were for Victorian women.  Bumble's disapproving
attitude was cause for satire early in the novel, but now when
rational Mrs.  Maylie talks about morality, you see how important it
was to Victorians.  Pay careful attention to what Rose knows and to
what you learn about her actual family.

As time goes by and Rose recovers, the dreamlike summer seems to
protect them all from danger.  Oliver studies as diligently as he had
begun to do at Brownlow's.  Even in this paradise, however, the devil
is a threat.  Oliver wakes from a nightmare about Fagin to find the
old man's evil face peering in the window.  And with him is the
nameless, violent stranger from the inn!

When Oliver recognizes them they disappear.  As soon as he recovers
from his terror, Oliver screams for help.  Dickens has been careful
to point out the clues (like the man in Chertsey in Chapter XXXII)
which would have led Fagin to the boy, so this visit seems entirely
plausible.  We know how determined the old thief is to get Oliver
back.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXXV

The next day, the Maylie household can find no evidence of Fagin's
visit.  Once again, Oliver's experience can't be proved.  Why do you
think Dickens included this scene?

Soon Oliver's scare is forgotten.  The romance between Harry and Rose
takes center stage.  At last Harry proposes, but you discover that
true love isn't always easy--or happy either.

You've already had a hint of the blot on Rose's reputation, which she
believes will hurt Harry's career.  Sobbing, Rose insists he deserves
a more suitable wife than she could be.  But she also admits that she
loves him and would marry him if he were not destined for fame and
fortune.

Are you convinced that Rose really believes what she says, and that
Harry believes it too?  Notice that Dickens seems to accept that
Rose's apparent illegitimacy could destroy her husband's career.
Dickens doesn't even seem to be protesting that situation, as he does
the effects of the Poor Laws or the criminal justice system.  A
Victorian's view of Rose's situation would probably have been quite
different than a modern reader's view.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXXVI

This brief chapter provides a bit of information and more suspense.
Harry is running for Parliament with the help of his powerful uncle.
When he takes off in a great hurry after Rose refuses him, she
concludes, unhappily, that he's not upset about her refusal.  But you
learn that he's made Oliver promise to write and let him know
everything that happens to Rose.  Can you figure out what Harry is
going to do?

NOTE:  Parliament is Great Britain's legislative assembly and
governing body.  It is divided into two branches, the House of
Commons and the House of Lords.  Representatives are chosen for the
House of Commons in elections that must be held at least once every
five years.  The political party that wins the largest number of
seats usually chooses the prime minister, the head of Great Britain's
government.  Today, the House of Lords has little influence, but in
the 1830s it had considerable importance.  Members of the House of
Lords are not elected, but are members because of titles they hold.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXXVII

Bumble's unhappy marriage is a complete contrast to Harry and Rose's
blighted romantic dreams.  Gloomy and depressed, Bumble misses the
beadle's hat he gave up when he married Mrs.  Corney and became
master of the workhouse.  We now see him as a hen-pecked wreck of a
man who yearns for his lost freedom.

NOTE:  Many readers think that if you compare this scene shift to the
one at the beginning of Chapter XVII, you can see how much smoother
and confident Dickens has grown as a novelist.  There Dickens seems
to think the digression is strained and awkward, because he felt he
had to apologize and explain what he was doing.  Here the shift seems
to provide natural comic relief to Rose's unhappy love story.

In a pub, Bumble meets an odd stranger who has been looking for him.
You aren't told his name, but you may guess from his haunted look and
dark scowl that it is Monks.

The visitor is willing to pay for information about the woman who
nursed Oliver Twist's mother.  Ever greedy, Bumble says he knows
someone who can provide the information and he agrees to meet the man
again.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXXVIII

An ominous storm brews the next night as the Bumbles go to meet Monks
in a crumbling building at the river's edge.  Doesn't the scene
remind you of meetings between Fagin and his gang?

Tough Mrs.  Bumble insists that Monks pay L25 for her information,
even before he's heard it.  He produces the money and she tells him
that Old Sally had stolen the gold from Oliver's mother's corpse and
pawned it.  After Sally died, Mrs.  Bumble took Sally's pawn ticket
and redeemed a gold locket.  She shows it to Monks.  Inside are two
strands of hair and a wedding ring engraved "Agnes." The date
engraved inside is within a year before Oliver's birth.

NOTE:  Some careful readers have pointed out an inconsistency here.
In Chapter I, as Oliver's mother dies, Dickens gives no hint of this
theft and Sally is not mentioned by name.  In Chapter XXIV, Sally
tells Mrs.  Bumble that she had stolen gold that the dying girl could
have used to buy food and shelter.  It is hard to tell if Dickens
added these details to make his story more exciting, or if he had
forgotten what he wrote months before.

Monks admits that the ring and locket were what he hoped to find.  He
opens a trap door in the floor beneath their feet and throws the
packet into the rushing water below, destroying evidence of Oliver's
identity.  Shocked into silence, the Bumbles make their way out into
the night.

You probably can't figure out the significance of this episode to
Oliver's future.  You know other things about Monks' involvement, but
Dickens doesn't want you to grasp the whole picture yet.  Notice
Dickens' use of suspense as he spins out the interview between Monks
and the Bumbles.  If this were a movie, you'd be on the edge of your
seat.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XXXIX

In a miserable rented room, Bill Sikes has fallen on hard times.
While he's been sick, Nancy has stuck with him and nursed him.  Yet
now that he finally feels strong enough to get up, he hits her and
then curses her for whining.  Only when she faints does he become
concerned.  Why does Nancy put up with his abuse?

NOTE:  Your attention is focused on Nancy in the next few chapters.
Trace the conflict she feels between loyalty to Sikes and love for
Oliver.  Think about how she has changed since the unsuccessful
robbery attempt.

Fagin arrives with food and drink, but Sikes wants money.  He insists
that Nancy go home with Fagin to get it.  While Nancy is at Fagin's,
Monks is also there.  She reacts violently to the sound of his voice,
tearing off her bonnet and shawl.  She pretends not to take much
notice of him, but she stares at him intently when he isn't looking.

As soon as Fagin and Monks leave the room she sneaks along behind
them and eavesdrops on their conversation.  Now you know whose
"shadow" Monks saw in Chapter XXVI.

Once more, Dickens makes you wait in suspense to find out what Monks
and Fagin discuss.  All you know is that the conversation upsets
Nancy so much that she runs wildly through the streets until at last
she heads home in despair.

Nancy manages to hide her feelings from Sikes.  Ironically, just now
Bill says to her he's positive she'd never betray him.  But she
betrays him a little, right now.  She laces his liquor with laudanum
(a common 19th-century drug) to be sure he'll sleep.  Then, kissing
him, she goes out on a secret errand.  Who is it that she rushes
through the night to see?  Rose Maylie!

But the mission nearly fails.  The staff at Rose's hotel wants to
protect ladylike Rose from meeting a disreputable street girl.
Again, Victorian morality is strict against sexual offenders.  Nancy
responds differently than Rose would to the insults.  First she
shouts, then she begs, until she gets her message to Rose and is
asked in.  How can you explain her determination to succeed on this
errand?

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XL

The narrator briefly interrupts the flow of the story to comment on
Nancy's shame and her pitiful pride.  Why does he draw attention to
her low status?

NOTE:  Dickens' insights into human behavior are an important part of
his great reputation as a writer.  One of the major themes of Oliver
Twist is the lifelong consequences of how the young are treated.
Nancy and Rose are the clearest examples of the difference a
childhood can make.  This interview provides a chance to see them
together, to observe the differences between them, and to feel sorry
for Nancy's misfortune.  Since Dickens time, many psychiatrists,
psychologists, and sociologists have studied the effect childhood has
on people's behavior.  Sigmund Freud's work, for instance, shows how
very perceptive Dickens was about the relationship of early
experiences and how people behave as adults.

The story Nancy has to tell Rose is shocking.  She has twice
overheard the man who calls himself Monks talking with Fagin about
Oliver.  She has discovered Monks knows the boy's parentage and has
destroyed the evidence that proves it.  Now Monks will get the
inheritance that Oliver should have had.

Nancy describes Fagin's failed plan to make the boy a thief and warns
of Monks' urgent wish to destroy him.  Rose is surprised to hear that
Oliver is Monks' brother.  But she has a greater shock in store.

With her warning given, Nancy is anxious to head home.  Rose urges
her to stay, promising to protect her, but Nancy firmly refuses.
Rose means to be kind, but many readers feel that she is
condescending.  How do you respond to the way Nancy is treated here?

NOTE:  WOMEN CRIMINALS For many people in Victorian England,
including Dickens' readers, it seemed hard to believe that a woman
could be a criminal or a prostitute willingly.  They often explained
women's crimes or immoral behavior by saying that the women had been
misled by evil men.  One response to women who broke the law was to
punish them severely, so that other women would avoid crime.  Another
response was to reform them by teaching them to be domestic servants.
This attitude reflects the idea that if women were dependent on good
people, they would be good too.  Dickens was more liberal than most
of his countrymen in his approach to helping these women.  He knew
that few of them would want to--or be able to--make such a total
transformation.  Of course, many women like Nancy lived their entire
lives in a criminal environment.

Nancy openly says she needs to return to her lover, though she is
careful not to mention Sikes' name.  Nancy doesn't seem to realize
that if Fagin is caught, Sikes is bound to be.  She still seems
innocent, despite all the evil she's seen.  What does this tell you
about her?  And how do you react when she says that she would go back
even if she knew Sikes was going to kill her?

Recognizing that Nancy won't change her mind, Rose asks what she
should do now with this information.  Nancy urges Rose to find a man
to help her.  (Nineteenth-century women were not expected to act for
themselves.) The women agree to set up a way to meet again and share
information.

As she leaves, Nancy tries to explain once more that the only thing
left in her ruined life is her devotion to her man.  To many readers,
the morbid sentimentality of the parting is almost too much to bear.
They want Nancy to have a chance at happiness.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XLI

The next day Oliver spots Mr.  Brownlow in the street.  Rose seizes
on Brownlow's reappearance, seeing him as the perfect confidante.
After a warm reunion with Oliver, Brownlow listens to Rose's story.
He immediately assumes control of the situation.

How is it that the Maylies happened to be in London just now?  How
did Nancy know where to find Rose?  And what miracle makes Oliver
spot Mr.  Brownlow in the street the very next day?  Without those
coincidences the plot would have stalled, so Dickens makes them
happen.

Taking Dr.  Losberne and Mrs.  Maylie into their confidence, Rose and
Brownlow decide to solve the mystery of Oliver's parentage and get
him his inheritance.

Brownlow doesn't contact the police because he wants information, not
criminal prosecutions.  Furthermore, he is willing to shield Nancy,
hoping she will agree to help them find Monks.  Do you think he's
justified in this decision?  Why?

Oliver's protectors agree to include Mr.  Grimwig and Henry Maylie in
their investigation.  But Brownlow adds another twist:  he suspects
that his unexplained visit to the West Indies bears on the case.  He
begs them not to question him, though, until he's ready to say how.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XLII

Dickens breaks the suspense created in the last chapter as he
comically describes Charlotte and Noah Claypole making their way to
London.  They've robbed the Sowerberrys and are setting out to make a
new life for themselves.  Noah is careful, though, to let Charlotte
carry the stolen property.  Then he can't be blamed if they are
caught.

By a lucky accident, the first place they stop when they get to the
city is Fagin's haunt, the Three Cripples.  Given the number of
taverns in London, you might feel this is hard to believe.  On the
other hand, Dickens has located this pub on the route Noah probably
would have taken.  And, in the final analysis, you could argue it
probably isn't as important how Noah ends up with Fagin as it is that
he does.

Barney, who works at the Cripples and is a member of Fagin's gang,
pegs the pair as potentially useful to Fagin.  When the old man comes
in, Barney sets him up to eavesdrop on Noah's conversation.  Soon,
Fagin joins the couple at their dinner table and recruits them into
his service.  Dickens seems to enjoy describing the master crook,
conning these unsympathetic clods.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XLIII

Fagin introduces Noah to the life of crime.  Candidly, Fagin explains
his philosophy of life.  The most important idea in the world, he
insists, is that everyone must look out for himself.  Noah is an
eager pupil.  Most readers agree that Dickens brilliantly depicts
Fagin here as a total degenerate.  Others argue, though, that Fagin
is a portrait of a typical businessman, even if he happens to be
working in crime rather than in a legitimate business.  What is your
opinion of him here?

Charley Bates arrives to tell Fagin the story of the Artful Dodger's
arrest and his performance in court.  Fagin and Charley humorously
imagine the Dodger's cocky response to his treatment.  Noah--who now
calls himself Morris Bolter--is sent to the court to watch the
Dodger's trial, which is just as lively and spirited as his friends
imagined.  The Dodger swaggeringly defies the court and attacks the
character of its officers.  Some readers suggest that what the Dodger
is doing is carrying on with Oliver's request for "some more." Do
these two scenes seem related to you?  In what ways?

NOTE:  In the courtroom scene, the Dodger makes a mockery of justice.
This description, like the one of Fang's hearing in Chapter XI,
conveys Dickens' criticisms of the criminal justice system.  Keep
these details in mind when you consider why Brownlow sidesteps the
police and courts.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XLIV

Nancy behaves now like a different person.  She admits to herself
that Fagin and Sikes have trusted her and that her conversation with
Rose is a betrayal of them.  To soothe her emotions, she tells
herself she's done nothing to harm Sikes.  Is she fooling herself or
does she really believe he won't be caught?  Do you think she has
betrayed him?  What arguments would you use to support your opinion?

On Sunday Nancy tries to keep her rendezvous with Rose but she
arouses the suspicion of Sikes and Fagin when she tries to slip out
of the apartment.  They lock the door, and not even her screams
persuade them to let her go.  Sikes is furious, but he tries to
believe she's acting strange because she's sick.  Fagin thinks
perhaps she is fed up with Bill.  He's determined to find out what's
going on.  If Nancy has a new lover, Fagin thinks he might be
recruited to his gang.  But even more important, he hopes Nancy could
be persuaded to poison Sikes to protect herself and her new lover
from the bully's rage.  How wonderful it would be to get rid of the
man he hates, secure a new ally, and increase his influence over
Nancy all in one fell swoop!

Ever practical, Fagin decides to get the evidence he needs to
blackmail Nancy by having her followed for a while.  What does his
new scheme add to your perception of Fagin?

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XLV

Noah Claypole is doing well as a mugger, but Fagin has new plans for
him.  When Noah discovers it means spying on a colleague, he's
delighted.  On the next Sunday night when Nancy sets out again, Noah
is trailing her.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XLVI

The dark London night is a fitting setting for Fagin's evil plan, but
it also helps to hide Nancy as she goes to meet Rose.  Nancy is
restless, but fortunately she doesn't have to wait long for Rose and
Mr.  Brownlow to show up on London Bridge.  The devious Noah Claypole
hides within earshot.  Though she has no way of knowing he's spying
nearby, Nancy is haunted by visions of death.  What does this
foreshadowing tell you?

NOTE:  ATTITUDES TOWARD CRIMINALS During the nineteenth century there
was a significant shift in the public attitudes toward criminals.
The old idea was that people chose to commit crime.  That was later
modified to acknowledge the influence of environment on human
behavior.  In Oliver Twist, Dickens shows examples of both theories.
Fagin and Sikes are evil by choice, while Nancy is unable to escape
from the influence of the slums.

Nancy explains how she'd given her lover laudanum, a drug made from
opium, so that she could get away the first time, and why she'd
missed their appointment the week before.  Brownlow insists he will
not reveal to the police anything Nancy tells him, as long as Monks
tells him what he wants to know about Oliver.  Whatever happens, he
promises to get Nancy's consent before exposing Fagin.  This is
another instance in which Brownlow is willing to work outside the
law.

Nancy describes Monks to them.  As he hears the description, Brownlow
joins in, describing a distinctive burn mark on Monk's neck.
Brownlow seems upset; Nancy is amazed.  One more piece of the puzzle
is about to be uncovered, but it's still not enough to give you the
total picture.

Once more Brownlow and Rose beg Nancy to accept their help, but she
insists she cannot.  She must go home.  She views this decision with
dread, but she doesn't flinch from what the future holds for her.
When she tells Rose she will probably drown herself, she is simply
describing the fate of many hopeless women of her time.

How do you react to this scene?  Dickens clearly wants you to care
about Nancy and to worry about her fate.  What details has he used to
evoke that response in you?

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XLVII

Dickens begins this chapter by talking about Fagin in nonhuman terms
that suggest he is frightening or dangerous.  Words like "lair,"
"phantom," and "fangs" describe the old man's house and his physical
appearance.  This isn't the first use of animal imagery to suggest
Fagin is scary or dangerous in Oliver Twist.  Fagin has been
described before as a reptile and a predator.  Many writers have used
animal imagery to express a sense of evil.  Is Dickens suggesting
that Fagin is about to act like an animal?  Or is his need for
revenge a strictly human evil?

After Noah delivers his report, Fagin is furious with Nancy.  When
Sikes enters, carrying the loot from his night's work, Fagin unnerves
him by staring fixedly, speechless and twitching with emotion.  The
old man tells Sikes his story, masterfully rousing Sikes to a pitch
of rage at the hint that the gang has been betrayed.  Deliberately
increasing the tension, Fagin wakes Claypole to make him tell Sikes
about Nancy.

Fagin draws out every detail of Nancy's conversation from Noah.  But
he doesn't mention her desire to protect everyone but Monks or the
fact that she chose to return to Sikes rather than be rescued.  Sikes
rushes from the room in a frenzy of rage.  Fagin stops the robber
briefly on the stairs to ask a loaded question:  "You won't
be--too--violent, Bill?" Sikes and he exchange meaningful looks, and
Fagin modifies his comment:  "I mean not too violent for safety."

With a terrifying singleness of purpose and a savage passion Sikes
heads home.  Remember the violent crimes he's committed before, and
remember how many times Fagin has informed on other accomplices who
weren't useful any more.  Is Nancy's case any different for Sikes?
for Fagin?  Dickens asks you to consider whether violence against
people who love and trust you is worse than random violence.

Nancy is pleased when Sikes returns.  This makes his bloody murder of
her even more chilling.  Nancy begs for her life.  She clutches
desperately at him, trying to make him understand that she chose to
stay with him.  Brownlow will rescue them both, she promises, and
they can find new lives.  But her pleas are useless.  Sikes is beyond
reason.

Sikes knows he'll be discovered if he fires his gun, so instead he
smashes her face with it.  Dying, the girl tries to pray.  She holds
up the white handkerchief Rose has given her.  But Sikes strikes her
down with his club.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XLVIII

The narrator insists that of all the dreadful things ever done in
London, Nancy's murder was the worst, the foulest, and the most
cruel.  Should you take that comment at face value, or do you think
Dickens is using overstatement to emphasize Nancy's tragic death?

Narrators are not simply representatives of the novelists who create
them.  You, the reader, should be able to mark the difference between
the narrator's ideas and the author's.  At the same time, when an
author feels strongly about something you can often detect the
author's voice in the narrator's comments.  That interlocking of
narrator and author occurs frequently in Oliver Twist and in other
Dickens novels.

The description of the morning after Nancy's murder is graphic and
dreadful.  The apartment is a total mess.  Even the dog's feet are
bloody.  The darkness that shrouded London's underworld until now is
suddenly replaced by brilliant sunlight.  Many readers think the
reason Dickens uses sunlight here is to suggest that such dreadful
evil will be uncovered and exposed.  Sikes tries to draw the curtain
to block out the light from the grisly scene in the room.  But he
can't do it, any more than he will be able to prevent what happens to
him.

Sikes can't control his own emotions.  Inside the room he is careful
never to turn his back on the corpse with its haunting eyes.  Though
he leaves home to wander through the streets of London, he
unwillingly returns to the same place.  When night comes, he makes
his way to a pub in Hatfield, only to meet a traveling salesman
wanting to demonstrate a miracle drug by removing a blood stain from
Sikes' hat!  Sikes runs wildly away from the pub, but when he passes
the post office and he overhears the mailcoach guards gossiping about
the murder, he can't help but listen, torturing himself.

Sikes is convinced Nancy's corpse is following him.  Running,
dodging, turning, he tries to escape from it, but to no avail.  Her
eyes follow him everywhere.

The narrator's voice interrupts with Dickens' message that a murderer
cannot escape judgment.  If no one punishes him, he punishes himself.
Do you agree with Dickens' viewpoint?

Two strange incidents reveal the twists of Sikes' character in this
chapter.  His nightmare journey to escape from Nancy's haunting eyes
is interrupted by a major fire at a local firm.  He joins fearlessly
in the struggle to extinguish the fire.  Miraculously, nothing seems
to harm him, and he briefly blocks out the memory of his crime.  But
when morning comes, the news of the murder is on everyone's tongue
and he sets out once more--this time back to London.  Then, suddenly
convinced that his dog will give away his presence in London, Sikes
decides to drown it in a nearby pond.  The dog manages to run away,
however, and Sikes travels on alone.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER XLIX

Brownlow wastes no time rounding up Monks and bringing him back to
his house to question him.  He tells Monks he has two options--either
cooperate or be turned over to the police.  This frightens Monks, and
he agrees to talk with him.  One thing is immediately clear.  Monks
knows who Brownlow is, just as before Brownlow seemed to know who he
was.  You learn now that Brownlow was Monks' dead father's oldest
friend.  Identifying Monks by his real name--Edward Leeford--Brownlow
tells him that he knows about his brother Oliver.  Monks tries to
deny everything, but Brownlow tells what he knows:  that his friend
Leeford had been forced into the early and miserably unhappy marriage
which produced Monks.  Later, after the marriage fell apart, he had
fallen in love with a young woman who loved him in return and whom he
hoped to marry.  Brownlow had learned all this many years before from
the elder Leeford.  But soon after the unhappy man died suddenly,
leaving no will.  His estate passed entirely to his legal wife and
legitimate child.

Leeford, however, had left a portrait of his fiancee in Brownlow's
care, and Brownlow gathered that the girl was pregnant.  After his
friend's death Brownlow went looking for her, but she had
disappeared.

Monks is relieved to hear that the fiancee could not be traced.  That
means there is no evidence about his brother's identity.  But
Brownlow floors him again by saying "a stronger hand than chance" had
delivered Oliver Twist into his keeping.  Monks nearly falls off his
chair!  He knows all about how Oliver found a patron and how the boy
was kidnapped and returned to Fagin.  Nobody, however, had told him
the patron was Brownlow!

NOTE:  EFFECTIVE COINCIDENCES This is a coincidence that most readers
feel works because it is exactly the kind of thing that really does
happen in life.  Pay attention to the details that unravel Oliver's
true identity in this chapter and in Chapter LI.  Are they
believable?  Decide for yourself, as the plot winds to an end,
whether it takes too many coincidences to bring about the happy
ending.

Brownlow did not at first know that the ragamuffin he rescued was his
friend's illegitimate son.  But Oliver's strange attraction to the
woman's portrait in Brownlow's guest room, and the striking
resemblance between the boy and the painting, triggered a suspicion
in Brownlow's mind.  After the boy was kidnapped, Brownlow made
inquiries and discovered who Oliver really was.

Next, Brownlow tells what he learned from Nancy, that Leeford had
left a will which his wife destroyed, and that Monks had recognized
Oliver in the street because he was struck by the child's resemblance
to his father.

Brownlow continues to present his evidence against Monks.  He knows
that Monks destroyed the proofs of the boy's identity.  He reminds
Monks that Nancy died because she tried to protect Oliver.  Monks
finally relents and says he will confess all.  But Brownlow wants
more.  He wants Oliver's inheritance restored.

At that crucial moment, Dr.  Losberne interrupts the interview to
announce that Sikes' dog has been spotted and the murderer is about
to be arrested.  Don't miss this little twist of fate.  Ironically,
Sikes' intuition was right--his dog did give him away.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER L

The horrible environment of the London slums has been Fagin's home
all along, but the apartment on Jacobs Island where his gang is
hiding almost defies the imagination.  Dickens goes to great lengths
to recreate the squalor that he, as a newspaper reporter, knew
existed, but which most of his readers had never seen.

NOTE:  Many readers of Oliver Twist suggest Dickens is attacking the
whole society for allowing such conditions to exist.  They argue that
while characters like the Maylies and Brownlow are generous as
individuals, they are part of a culture which, to its shame, lets the
Bumbles run its workhouses and the Fangs judge its criminals.  Such a
society ignores the existence of slums but is disgusted at its
products.

The thieves gathered in this retreat reveal that Fagin has been
arrested and that Claypole has turned state's evidence.  Noah, who
was encouraged by Fagin to spy on Nancy, is now willing to spill
everything he knows about Fagin, too.  When late at night, Sikes--a
ghost of his former self--raps at the door, his former friends don't
want to let him in.  Charley Bates can't control his hatred.  Calling
him a monster, he jumps at Sikes.  Sikes is ready to break the boy's
neck but he's stopped by Crackit and the sound of a mob outside.

NOTE:  This angry mob seeking to take justice into its own hands
isn't the only such mob in Oliver Twist.  Remember the mob that
caught Oliver when he was accused of being a thief?  Dickens had seen
lots of violent mobs in London, including those at public executions.
He found them very disturbing.  So, even here, when its quarry is the
murderer Sikes, Dickens makes the mob so terrifying and bloodthirsty
that it is not much better than the villain being pursued.

Determined to escape, Sikes grabs a rope to let himself down into the
smelly, stagnant ditch behind the building.  Tying one end to the
chimney, he makes a noose to fasten around his body and lower himself
over the wall.  Then, just at the instant that he slips the loop over
his head, he looks around in horror and shrieks "The eyes again!"

Sikes plunges through space, the noose tightening around his neck
until, with a tremendous jolt, the rope runs its length.  Sikes is
executed.  The lifeless hand of the killer still clutches a knife.

Readers agree that this is an effective, thrilling scene, but many
think the final detail is pathetic or ridiculous:  howling dismally,
Sikes' dog hurls itself at his master's shoulders, only to miss and
bash its brains out in the ditch.  In spite of his master's abuse,
has the dog remained loyal to the end?  If it has, then you can agree
that it wants to share Sikes' fate.  But you might also think that
the dog's death is included to break the tension created by Sikes'
hanging.  If so, you might wonder if Dickens wants you to feel sorry
for the dog or to think it is foolish for following such a cruel
master to its death.

How do you feel about Sikes' violent death?  Is it fitting punishment
for Nancy's murder or is it just more senseless violence?  Think
about how you feel about the execution of murderers today.  Does any
crime justify a death sentence?

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER LI

Two days later (time is counted very carefully in these last
chapters), Oliver finds himself, in the company of all those dear to
him, on the road back to his birthplace.  He's eager to find his old
friend Dick and share his good fortune.  But an air of unresolved
mystery still hangs over the journey.

When they reach their destination, some answers are waiting.  Oliver
finally meets his half-brother, whom he recognizes as the stranger
who threatened him one day at the inn.  Although Monks can barely
contain his hatred for his little brother, he finally tells his whole
sordid tale.

When Mr.  Leeford died, Monks' mother destroyed a letter he had left
for Agnes, Oliver's mother, begging Agnes' forgiveness for not
telling her why they couldn't get married right away.  Monks' mother
also destroyed the will naming Oliver as his father's heir.

In that will, their father stipulated that his illegitimate son would
inherit everything, but only if he grew to adulthood without
committing any crime.

NOTE:  Many readers believe the plot is weakened by making Oliver's
inheritance ride on such a strained condition, but Dickens uses this
detail to introduce a serious idea.  Leeford insists that goodness
could not be measured by conventional morality, and that his "child
of sin" should not automatically be branded an outcast.  This refutes
Victorian ideas of propriety, but it also suggests the elitist idea
that true nobility is inherited, and has nothing to do with
middle-class morals.

Robbing her rival's child of money wasn't enough for Monks' mother,
though.  She spread rumors about Agnes' family, driving the girl's
father to despair and early death.  She also begged her son to hunt
down his brother and destroy him.

This chapter ties up all the loose ends.  Mr.  Grimwig exposes the
Bumbles' involvement in Monks' scheme.  Defending himself, the
blustering former beadle delivers his finest line:  "The law is a
ass!" he exclaims, when told that the law assumes that husbands
control their wives' actions.  But his greed has finally cost him the
public's trust and the Bumbles lose their job.

And what of Rose?  Why has Mr.  Brownlow dropped so many hints that
she'll need to be strong?  The last twist of Monks' story reveals
that she is Agnes Fleming's younger sister, and therefore Oliver's
aunt!  Monks' evil mother had spread the rumor that Rose Fleming was
illegitimate in order to further hurt the family.  But Rose had been
spared the misery of an orphan's life by Mrs.  Maylie, who had
witnessed her suffering and rescued her as a small child.

Rose's emotional reunion with Oliver is followed by a happy ending to
her romance.  Henry Maylie, who had helped Brownlow find Monks, once
more begs her to marry him.  She still insists that she is tarnished
by her sister's shame and cannot change her mind.  Henry is ready for
her though:  he's not a politician any more but a clergyman, so there
is no need to worry now about hurting his career.  Discreetly,
Dickens omits the lovers' happy reunion.

But there's one last sad note to this emotional evening.  Oliver
discovers his friend Dick is dead.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER LII

Oliver and his friends deserve the happiness they've found, but what
will become of Fagin?  In this moral tale, the good characters are
rewarded.  What happens to the evil ones?

Fagin is tried and convicted on a Friday and sentenced to hang on the
following Monday.  The crowded courtroom roars its delighted approval
of the sentence, and even his fellow prisoners revile him.  Does this
treatment make you feel sorry for him?  Or do you feel he deserves
what happens to him?

NOTE:  The English trial system dealt efficiently with the accused.
If court was in session, a criminal case came before it immediately.
The longest delay was three months.  Final disposition of a case took
a few days and there was no way to appeal a case to a higher court in
the 19th century.  Reprieves were sometimes granted, but Fagin didn't
get one.

Confined to his cell, Fagin is obsessed with the thought of hanging.
His conscience tortures him, his body is racked with fever, and his
mind wanders.  The narrator suggests that the sight of such misery
would unsettle anyone's sleep.  Yet Brownlow and Oliver come to
visit.  Brownlow tells Oliver that, since he saw Fagin while he was
powerful and successful, he ought to see him now.  Does that argument
persuade you, or do you think there are some things that children
should be kept from seeing?  In any case, the boy is so upset that it
takes him several hours to recover enough strength to walk away.

Oliver has escaped the gallows that hung over his life.  Fagin will
not.  A mob has already begun to gather to watch him die.

OLIVER TWIST: CHAPTER LIII

The mysteries are all solved.  The forces of evil are destroyed.
Monks, because he was born a gentleman, is allowed to escape from
England.  But Dickens is careful to add that Monks' corrupt nature
led him to death in an American prison.  Charley Bates, in contrast,
was so shocked by Sikes' death that he reformed and went to work on a
farm.

Finally, just so there's no question about the happy ending, Dickens
describes in glowing terms the idyllic life Oliver, his family, and
his friends enjoy in the English countryside.  Dickens can't resist a
wonderful final touch--the Bumbles have become paupers confined to
the workhouse where they had abused their power.  There is justice
after all!

OLIVER TWIST: GLOSSARY

BEADLE Minor parish official who policed behavior in the churches and
other local institutions.

BLUNT  Money, especially cash.

BOW STREET RUNNERS Semiprofessional detectives who were the
forerunners of the English police.  Founded in the mid-eighteenth
century by Henry Fielding, they were disbanded in 1839.

COVEY Man, often a young man.  Usually used in slang or informal
street language.

CRIBBAGE Card game for two to four players, in which the score is
kept by inserting small pegs into holes arranged in rows on a small
board.

DAUB Mistress or whore, in the sense that the women's reputation is
marred or smeared.

FENCE Receiver of stolen property who arranges for it to be sold or
sells it himself.

FOGLE-HUNTER  Thief whose specialty is stealing silk handkerchiefs.

HACKNEY COACH Two-wheeled vehicle drawn by one horse, the common taxi
of the 1830s.

HOPTALMY  Word referring to a disease of the eye, perhaps opthalmia.

JACK KETCH  Hangman or executioner.

LAGGING  Term of imprisonment.

LAUDANUM Opium derivative, commonly used as a pain reliever.  It is
addictive after long use.

MUTE Silent mourner in a funeral procession.  The silence was
supposedly caused by grief, but the mute was hired for the job.

NEWGATE CALENDAR Publication containing accounts of prisoners in the
infamous Newgate prison.  It was a frequent source for fiction.

OAKUM Loose hemp or jute fiber, sometimes treated with tar.  Used for
caulking seams in wooden boats.

PEACH  To inform on.

PLATE Term for money, originally referring to a piece of silver such
as flat-ware or serving pieces.

RIDICULES  Slang version of reticules, lady's purses.

SHILLING Unit of English currency.  In Dickens' time, 20 shillings
made a pound, and 12 pence (pennies) made a shilling.

SWAG Property, booty.  When Fagin and Sikes discuss "bringing off the
swag" they mean committing a robbery.

TRANSPORTATION Penalty for convicted felons who were not hanged.  It
meant the prisoner was sent abroad, often to Australia, and usually
for life.

VICTUALS  Pronounced "vittles," food fit for human consumption.

WHIST  Card game played by two teams of two players.


OLIVER TWIST: ON CONTENT

Oliver Twist was a bold departure from the genial tone of Pickwick
Papers.  Instead of safely echoing the humour and hilarity that had
set all England roaring with affectionate laughter, Dickens embarked
on a scathing denunciation of the new Poor Law and moved on to a
lurid and sombre portrayal of London's criminal slums.  The comedy
had a bite he had seldom previously attempted even in painting the
Fleet or describing Dodson or Fogg.  Bumble, the workhouse beadle, is
comic, but the laughter has an acid quality and Bumble is slowly
subjected to a kind of vindictive ferocity.

His fusion of bravery and instinct justified itself.  Masses of
readers hated Bumble and laughed at him with an angry laughter; they
loathed Fagin and shuddered at Sikes.  The pathos and horror of
Dickens were as triumphant as his humor had been.

-Edgar Johnson, Charles Dickens,
His Tragedy and Triumph, 1977

OLIVER TWIST: ON THE PLOT

The plot of Oliver Twist is very complicated and very unsatisfactory.
It is a conventional plot about a wronged woman, an illegitimate
baby, a destroyed will, a death-bed secret, a locket thrown into the
river, a wicked elder brother and the restoration to the hero of name
and property.  That it should depend on a number of extraordinary
coincidences (the only two robberies in which Oliver is called upon
to participate are perpetrated, fortuitously, on his father's best
friend and his mother's sister's guardian!) is the least of its
shortcomings.  Literal probability is not an essential quality of an
adequate plot.  Nor is it a damning criticism that Dickens should
have used his plot for the purposes of serial-publication, i.e., to
provide a climax at the end of each instalment and the necessary
twists and manoeuvres which popular serialization invited.  (It is
not a fault in a dramatist that he should provide a climax to each
act of his play, and the serial instalment.  is, no more or less
artificial a convention than the act of a play.) What we may
legitimately object to in the plot of Oliver Twist is the very
substance of that plot in its relation to the essential pattern of
the novel.

-Arnold Kettle,
An Introduction to the Novel, 1951

OLIVER TWIST: ON STRUCTURE

At the heart of the book is the contrast between two worlds:  and it
is this which gives it some of its strange power.  The criminal
underworld seems dangerous.  By the end a whole mob has to rouse
itself against Sikes with passion and fury.  Fagin is described as
having fangs like a rat, and crawling forth at night like a
'loathsome reptile...  in search of some rich offal for a meal.'
Dickens certainly meant that Sikes and Fagin were menacing and
corrupt, that they were infesting and undermining society, and that
the upper classes were right to have the feeling of insecurity

-K.J. Fielding, Charles Dickens,
A Critical Introduction, 1964

OLIVER TWIST: ON OLIVER

It is important to remember that we do not identify with Oliver in
the ordinary sense of the word.  He is not, strictly speaking, a
hero.  Rather he is the embodiment of goodness; a means of setting
society in perspective.  He acts as emblem rather than character, and
the distancing effect is achieved by an irony that, in the earlier
chapters, hardly ever lets up.

-Philip Hobsbaum, A Reader's Guide
to Charles Dickens, 1973

It is notable that Dickens makes no serious effort to present Oliver
with any psychological realism:  his reactions are not, for the most
part, the reactions of any child of nine or ten years old; he is not
surprised by what would surprise a child and his moral attitudes are
those of an adult.  And yet something of the quality of precocious
suffering, of childish terror, is somehow achieved....  Because he is
all workhouse orphans the lack of a convincing individual psychology
does not matter; it is Oliver's situation rather than himself that
moves us and the situation is presented with all of Dickens's
dramatic symbolic power.

-Arnold Kettle,
An Introduction to the Novel, 1951

OLIVER TWIST: ON NANCY AND ROSE

At the end of the novel we discover that Rose, like Nancy, may be
said to have opened her eyes on the streets, in the sense that she
was left helpless and abandoned in childhood; and we may infer that
she would have been likely to go the way of Nancy if she had not been
provided with a home, first by the "poor cottagers" who took her in,
and then by Mrs.  Maylie.  Rose and Nancy, in other words, are
counterparts--"Two Sister-Women" is the descriptive headline (added
in the 1867 edition) to the chapter which describes their first
meeting--and the fact that Rose is respectable and Nancy a fallen
woman is in no way to be attributed to the operation of the principle
of Good.  Nancy is a victim not of her nature but of social
circumstance--she, indeed, rather than Oliver, carries the victim
theme of the novel; Rose, on the other hand, is saved if not by luck,
then by the grace of God--and home.  Both of the girls, moreover, are
dramatic counterparts of Oliver.  Rose is an Oliver who is saved from
the workhouse; Nancy is an Oliver whose goodness does not save her
from the streets.

-H. M. Daleski, Dickens and
the Art of Analogy, 1970

OLIVER TWIST: ON NANCY AND SIKES

Few would now wish to attack or defend Nancy on moral grounds, her
unreality as a literary creation removing her from the area of
discussion:  it is an index of changing taste and outlook that she
could, at that time, arouse such denunciations, or, indeed, high
praise from many critics who had misgivings about the moral tendency,
or the literary quality, of other aspects of the book.  It is not
Nancy, but Bill Sikes, who still excites our interest, and raises
critical and moral problems....

-Philip Collins, Dickens and Crime, 1968

OLIVER TWIST: ON HUMOR AND BUMBLE

Dickens' refusal to allocate any emotions to his comic figures is
well illustrated by Bumble.  Though Bumble is meant to be a
hypocrite, it is his great innocence which strikes us, for he has no
inside to himself for him to be untrue to.  When we see Bumble
counting Mrs.  Corney's teaspoons, weighing her sugar tongs,
inspecting her milk jug, and ascertaining to a nicety the exact
condition of her furniture, before deciding to propose marriage to
her, we are not filled with disgust but with trepidation foreseeing,
as he cannot, what is in store for him when he wins Mrs.  Corney's
hand.  It is not as if Bumble could ever feel love, or even lust, for
anyone, so why should we blame him for regarding marriage as a
financial venture?

-John Carey, Here Comes Dickens, The
Imagination of a Novelist, 1974

                               THE END