Charles Dickens wrote the novel "Oliver Twist" as a way of expressing his views on how the rich treated the poor, and how he felt about the laws regarding the poor.

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Coursework-Oliver Twist

     Charles Dickens wrote the novel “Oliver Twist” as a way of expressing his views on how the rich treated the poor, and how he felt about the laws regarding the poor. At the time there was a huge gap between the rich and the poor due to industrialisation. This meant that the poor were left to survive in unpleasant, overcrowded conditions, and were treated harshly by the rich. Dickens felt strongly about this situation and wrote “Oliver Twist” with the intention of changing the public’s attitude towards the poor. He uses pathos, wit, sarcasm, exaggeration, and emotional and deceptive writing to get his points and feelings across to the reader. Dickens uses a variety of techniques to expose Victorian Society’s awful treatment of children of the poor.

     From the very beginning of the novel, Dickens starts describing the mistreatment of the poor. He uses the workhouse and authorities to show us just how badly the children are treated. A newborn baby is seen as a “new burden…imposed upon the parish”, an “item of mortality”, or a “statistic”. Dickens shows the reader that Oliver has suffered from birth. “If he could have known…perhaps he would have cried the louder.” He was born into a grim workhouse where he was constantly in a “hungry and destitute situation”. The helpless infants are made to use the “treadmill” as punishment, and Oliver is frequently locked in the “coal-cellar”. Here Dickens uses over exaggerated descriptions to show the treatment of the children, to get the message clear to the public so that they are able to get an idea of the reality.

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     Poor children are victims of the authorities. They have no control over what happens to them. A prime example of this is when Dick is dying. “I heard the doctor tell them I was dying.” Dickens uses pathos to create melodrama when writing this scene to demonstrate that although Dick knows he is dying, there is nothing he can do about it, but wait until he dies. He uses this technique to create emotion in the reader and in effect will help the reader to experience the suffering that these poor children have gone through.

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