However, as the book was written a long time ago, the word “lair” could have been a common work used to describe a place where someone lives.
Something that seems quite unusual about Fagin is his choice of home. We know Fagin must be quite well off financially because of his successful “pick pocking” business where he trains up people like Dodger to work for him as a “pick pocket”. It must have been his own choice to live as if he is poor – we can tell he lives like this because it says his only light is from a candle and also from the quote “He sat crouching over a torn coverlet”. This seems like an odd choice to make and demonstrates the weird complexity of Fagin’s mind.
We see this clearly in paragraph four where Dickens tells us what Fagin is thinking. We see a range of emotions going through his mind such as “a fierce and deadly rage”. This shows us Fagin is full of anger. In contrast to this, we also see Fagin’s insecurity demonstrated by the quote: “The fear of detection, and ruin, and death”. This is quite a big contrast as at first Fagin seems very sure of himself, however his anger could just be a cover-up. We later on sense Fagin is insecure as he locks up the bundle Bill Sikes gives him – again showing his fear of being caught.
Fagin’s insecurities are not seen by the other people. Even Bill Sikes who seems so fearless is described as looking at Fagin with “a look of real affright”. We also see he thinks Fagin is mad when he says, “he’s gone mad”.
Although he is described as being mad, Fagin is a manipulative character. He talks Bill Sikes into murdering Nancy – Sikes doesn’t even realise he is being manipulated until he has done the deed. Fagin tempts Sikes – building up his anger, making him talk about what he would do to people – building up his rage.
A different technique Dickens uses to describe Fagin is by describing the candles in the scene. Referring to them as “wasted” could easily be describing Fagin. Later on the candle is described as having “a long-burnt wick drooping almost double”. This too could be describing Fagin, perhaps describing his posture to us, suggesting that Fagin is becoming a hunchback as he grows older and wasting away.
Although Bill Sikes seems afraid of Fagin, they share similar qualities. Both characters are vicious and angry – Bill Sikes probably more so. When prompted by Fagin he describes the malicious ways he would kill someone. For example saying he’d “grind his skull under the iron heel of my boot”. Wearing Iron shoes would now seem like the kind of shoes a violent man would wear because the iron is “hard”. But this demonstrates to us have times have changed since the book was written – these would probably be the only kind of shoes available at this time.
In my opinion, the relationship between Fagin and Sikes seems similar to that of two brothers or a father and son. Fagin will probably have known Sikes for a very long time, and during the years will have taught him vertially everything he knows. In this instance, Fagin would take the role of an older brother, Sikes is still afraid of him even though he is the younger, stronger character and does almost everything that he says.
Perhaps to try and reassure himself in this scene, Sikes passes his “pistol” across to another pocket so Fagin has a glimpse of it. This is almost as though he is making an unspoken threat towards Fagin saying – if you do try anything with me, I can still kill you.
Other than this subtle threat, Sikes is usually much more obvious with what he says. Compared to Fagin’s clever use of language, Sikes is dense. Dickens spells works that Sikes says incorrectly such as the word “wot”. This was probably done deliberately because is immediately makes us recognise Sikes’ lack of intelligence. Fagin’s speech is much more complex – coming out with sentences such as “was to peach… to blow upon us all… describing every mark that they know us by…”
The reason Sikes isn’t the most intelligent of characters is probably due to his upbringing, and not just because he is a common thief. We get the impression he was brought up by Fagin – similar to the way Fagin still does bring up the boys that work for him. We get this impression because Sikes is very skilled in housebreaking but also because Sikes and Fagin appear to have a very close relationship.
This is not exactly obvious to the reader as there relationship is not a loving one – but they way Fagin is one of the only people to call Sikes “Bill” which shows they must be comfortable together and have known each other a long time for Fagin to feel he is able to do this. This also reflects the way Fagin is similar to a dad towards Bill – calling him by his Christian name. This in itself is fairly ironic as Sikes is in no way a typical Christian – “thou shall not steal” has probably never even entered his vocabulary.
Fagin keeps his anger hidden much better than Sikes does – in this instance he uses his manipulative skills to get his revenge. Sikes does not seem like he would be capable of doing something like this – however, Fagin will have been doing it for a very long time to get his won way.
When Sikes gets angry he tends to use words, which would have been, swear words in the days when the book was written such as “Damme!” These all refer to religious things – for example this means “send me to hell”. When Dickens wrote the book there would have been much speculation if they had been written in the proper way so swear words would mainly have been written in ways similar to “D****” like a modern swear word still might be today in various contexts.
Unlike, Fagin, Sikes sets his mind to doing something and does not get distracted by other thoughts contemplating whether or not he is doing the right thing. Dickens clearly describes Sikes determination to kill Nancy to us – “Without one pause, or moments consideration…looking straight before him with savage resolution”. This again shows us Sikes violent nature and really does appear to us to be savage. Sikes is meant to love Nancy – if he truly did he would at least have some doubts about what he was going to do.
However, when he comes to the actual murder of Nancy, Sikes finds he can’t shoot her with his pistol. Perhaps this is just because he is afraid a shot would mean he was detected but could easily also be because he feels he cant murder her in such a heartless way – if indeed, any way of killing someone is heartless.
But we do see that it takes Sikes “all the force he could summon” to be able to hit Nancy. He also has to really work himself up earlier on by “suppressing his breath” so he is almost having a fit. Although this would suggest to us he has been unable to hurt her before, earlier on Dickens speaks of Nancy being kept at home “forcibly”. So whether or not their relationship is an example of a case of domestic violence is not clear. This could have been a common thing in relationships in the time the book was written – although it probably would not have been talked about in the same way as it is now. Men did not treat women with the same respect as they do now so cases of domestic violence would not be talked about, as the individual cases would not want to be argued about.
At the end of the chapter, we again see signs that Sikes does genuinely care for Nancy. He is “shutting out the sight with his hands” as he cannot bear to look at her after what he has done.
He uses a “heavy club” to strike Nancy down for the final time. This reflects the changing of times since the book was written, although clubs such as clubs used by ancient tribes people are probably not what Dickens’s meant, something such as a large stick would have been referred to as this. Perhaps when Dickens used the word “club” he did want us to think of it as though a caveman was using it – cavemen are also typically referred to as being dense and violent, similar to the way Sikes is.
In parts of this chapter we see a character reversal between Sikes and Nancy. Sometimes Nancy adapts the violent nature of him and he adapts her daintiness. We see Sikes walking “lightly” up the stairs which seems more like how Nancy would act and when she and him are struggling – she wraps her arms round him so “he could not tear them away” This gives us the impression that Nancy is very strong and Bill is the weaker of the two. Although this physically is not true, it could be referring to them mentally because we know that Nancy has had a hard life and is probably a lot tougher on the inside than she looks. We know she has had a hard life by quotes such as “I thieved for you when I was a child… have been in the same trade since” which she says earlier in the book.
However, in this extract, Nancy is made to seem very vulnerable in most parts. The first time she is mentioned, she is referred to, as “the girl” who immediately makes her seem vulnerable, as does the fact she is half naked. Sikes being referred to as “the man” seems to emphasise this because of the contrast. She is not behind a curtain because she is rich as a person that sleeps behind a curtain is likely to be nowadays, she is just modest also showing vulnerability.
Another thing that is noticeable is that candles are being used – this shows that there was no electricity. Either because they were not rich enough as many people weren’t at this time or none was available. The candles are again used to reflect what is going on similar to the beginning of the chapter. Sikes “hastily drew it out from the candlestick” (put out the candle), which could be reflecting how, he puts out Nancy’s life. Again, not only does Dickens set the scene by talking about candles, he also makes it interpretable in other ways. The darkness in this scene helps to set up the tension again as something is about to happen. This is similar to how the scene is set in something such as a modern day film – the setting will be very dark as it helps to set up the necessary atmosphere.
It is ironic to the reader when Nancy gets “pleasure” from seeing Sikes; she still loves him even though he is going to kill her. However she doesn’t know this and the reader does which is another example of retrospective irony. She even wants to run away with Sikes and start a new life with him – “let us both leave this dreadful place, and lead better lives”. But it is understandable why she would want to do this – she is always forced to do things by Sikes and Fagin – even though she does consider the streets to be her home as she says earlier on in the book – “…the old, wet, dirty streets are my home”.
Dickens makes the eventual murder of Nancy sound very violent and powerful. He does this mainly because of the way he talks a lot about blood. He uses the technique of alliteration to emphasise what is going on such as “blinded with the blood”. This makes it seem more dramatic. Although in modern times this may not seem like such a horrific murder, when the book was published there would not be all the types of horror films and things there are now. To a modern reader this would seem nowhere near as bad as a film such as “Hannibal”, on the contrary; it would probably seem rather mild. However, this is another example of how times have changed since the book was written by Dickens – readers back then would probably have thought the death to be very gruesome and horrific.
[09:56:31] sumtimes bad things happen n thers nuttin u can do about
it..... so why worry?!: ok
[09:56:32] No-one ever won a war by dying for their country. They made
the other son of a bitch die for his country: luv ya
[09:56:35] sumtimes bad things happen n thers nuttin u can do about
it..... so why worry?!: leave me
[09:56:42] sumtimes bad things happen n thers nuttin u can do about
it..... so why worry?!: luv u 2 :)