Dickens’ character, Fagin is described as a stereotypical criminal of this time. He is a wicked criminal dresses in a greasy flannel gown with his throat bare. For a master criminal it is ironic that he gets children to do his work for him. Children guard his hideout and a password is required to get in. Fagin’s safety and the success of his business depend on how well children of about ten or twelve do their jobs. Despite having a hideout with a password and a large gang working for him, he is very vulnerable considering the line of work he is in. A master criminal he is not, maybe he is just a poor Jew, dependant on poor children. Although Fagin is not an upper-class citizen, he is neither poor. The success of his business does pay off ‘ he sat down; and took from it a magnificent gold watch, sparkling with jewels’. As a result Fagin is able to live life pretty much as he wants to. Although Fagin is a higher class than the children, including Oliver, he doesn’t abuse his power for the sakes of it. The workhouse master Mr Bumble imposed rules to emotionally harm the children ‘ Oliver was a victim of systematic…. Treachery and deception’. As well, Mr Bumble would use unfair and harsh violence towards the children for no particular reason other than to outline his authority. Fagin manages to gain the same amount of respect from the children without violating them. This could be because Fagin is poorer than a lot of people so he feels he has no power to abuse or he just doesn’t want to abuse it. Because of the business Fagin is involved with he needs to have people he can trust, it would be better for the poor to stick together. So rather than mistreat the children he turns his business of theft into a family with fun and games ‘when the breakfast was cleared away…. two boys played at a very curious and uncommon game’. This game involved taking a handkerchief from Fagin’s pocket. It was a fun and effective way for the children to practice stealing. This shows that Fagin and the children looked upon this crime in a lighthearted way and had no conscience after stealing from rich upper-class people. So in the same way the upper class disrespected the poor, you could say the poor disrespected the upper class, but had no real means of exploiting them. Dickens’ ideas show the poor community had reasons to hate the upper classes, as they were so cruelly mistreated.
After days of practising with handkerchiefs Oliver was finally allowed to go on the streets and steal for real. Not all goes to plan though and Oliver is caught in the act. After his accomplishes the dodger and bates flee back to the hideout Fagin quickly becomes aware of the seriousness of this issue. During these events Dickens takes the opportunity to introduce Bill Sikes.
Sikes is a ‘stoutly built fellow of about five-and-thirty’. He wears a black velveteen coat covered in dirt and wears half laced boots with grey socks showing. Already we get the idea Sikes is again from the poorer community from the description of his clothes. Also Sikes is shown as a heavy drinker ‘ he smeared the beer from his face’ and ‘ after swallowing two or three glasses of spirits’. Fagin and Sikes engage in conversation about Oliver’s capture. Fagin is worried that Oliver will tell the authorities about him. This shows that even Fagin is scared of some upper classes. Sikes who isn’t the friendliest is pleased that Oliver as been captured but is later put in his place when Fagin explains that he won’t be the only one to get in trouble if Oliver were to talk. Both criminals who are well respected in their ‘underworld’ are fearful of the authorities, as they know they would be hung for what they have done. This again shows how the poorer community are dominated by the upper classes. Sikes has no respect for Fagin; you can tell this by the way he speaks to him. You can see Fagin is afraid of him but Fagin does like to have the last word. If Sikes does not get his own way he will turn to violence as we see with the arguments over Oliver, ‘… looking sternly at him, and ostentatiously passing a pistol into a more convenient pocket. We also know Sikes is violent because of the way he mistreats his dog. He ‘belts’ the dog and shows no sympathy for it. In this relationship Sikes is upper class with the dog being much lower in hierarchy than him. Sikes will abuse what power he has rather like Mr Bumble from the workhouse. Although Sikes has power with physical presence ‘stocky and muscular’ and has power over the criminal underworld including Fagin, he is still under the control and at the discretion of the upper class. Dickens is saying that despite being one of the most powerful out of the poorer community, people like Sikes still had no leverage over the upper classes, in particular people in authority.
To symbolise the superiority of upper classes and how they treated the poor, Mr Fang, a notorious police magistrate, is extremely harsh on Oliver. He fails to consider Oliver’s age and the fact he was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. Instead Mr Fang presents an unreasonable sentence for Oliver's ‘crime’. "…committed for three months-hard labour…" This shows he is a cold-hearted, absent-minded man who Dickens uses to generalise magistrates in Victorian society. This shows Dickens’ dislike for the people in authority at this time. Another example of somebody in authority looking down upon the poorer classes is Mr Bumble, the beadle at the workhouse. He constantly bullies and looks down on Oliver. "…one hundred and forty sixpences! - and all for a naughty orphan which nobody can't love." Although Mr Bumble overpowers Oliver, he is not all that he seems. He acts superior and intelligent, but he frequently misuses words. (Malapropism). He often uses the word "parochial", but not correctly. Dickens uses this technique to show the reader that the rich only feel they are special and of a higher standard than the poor, but in Dickens’ opinion they are in no way any different than the lower class, so there fore should not be treated any differently.
Dickens’ novel condemns the world of the Poor Laws by describing in great detail the life of an orphan, gang of thieves, and other horrors of this type of civilization. Basically Charles Dickens wanted to get the point across that there is no difference between upper and lower class citizens. To do this he makes Mr Bumble sound like a fool, and to create sympathy for the poor he describes the harsh treatment of a magistrate. Charles Dickens felt that people from both classes should have been treated the same, because they weren’t he wrote this novel as a protest and to show how the under classes were the same as anybody else, but were just brutally discriminated against.
