Was Oliver Cromwell A Hero Or A Villain?

Was Oliver Cromwell A Hero Or A Villain? Oliver Cromwell, a hero or a villain? Well, in this essay I will be giving my views on the question. In a way Oliver Cromwell was a hero because under his command there were no wars. However, his appalling behaviour in Ireland was very villain like. He massacred a lot of Irish people and in most eyes this is despicable. In Ireland, Cromwell proved himself as a villain. On his order he nailed a baby to a church door. This was heartless and ruthless, all the signs of a villain. What man in his right mind would do such a thing? Cromwell did and it brought out his bad side. He starved the Irish. When Cromwell was in Ireland he broke a lot of rules of the war, he was accused of being a 'war criminal'. The rule 'do not kill people, even soldiers, except in battle' was just one of the rules he broke. He robbed the Irish of their food and money. This then resulted in the starvation of the Irish. On Oliver's command he massacred men, women and even children. He drowned them at Wexford. In total he massacred 3,500 Irish people. In the process he also broke the other rule of 'never kill women and children'! 'Take only enough food for your army', this was another rule Oliver Cromwell did indeed break. He burnt and destroyed crops and houses, took a lot of their food and transported 12,000 Irish to the West Indies. As a result of

  • Word count: 653
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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THROUGH AN EXPLORATION OF THE WAYS THAT DICKENS PRESENTS OLIVER TWIST, DISCUSS WHAT DICKENS HAS TO SAY ABOUT HIS CONTEMPORY SOCIETY

Through an exploration of the ways in Dickens presents Oliver Twist, discuss what Dickens has to say about his contempory society. The beginning of the book starts with the lonely and dark birth of a little boy. The scene takes place in the gloomy, damp room of the Parish workhouse. A young woman gives birth to a baby boy of no name or identity. Straight away in the first paragraph Dickens starts to indicate how troublesome the boy's birth was and what his future held. 'For a long time after he was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt weather the child would survive to bear any name at all;' This highlights what Dickens thought about the world that the young child had entered into, a world of sorrow and trouble not of happiness. Once we continue further into the novel we experience through the eyes of the young boy named Oliver Twist what society was like in the 1830's and why Dickens thought so low of it. Oliver Twist is the central character in the book; he invokes sympathy from the readers continually throughout the novel. Oliver is generally a passive character throughout the novel apart from a few incidents when he acts, but severely suffers the consequences. Dickens sets the scene with a young boy, vulnerable and defenceless and makes him the poorest of the poor to really satirise that way

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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By the end of this novel, Fagin is no longer a two dimensional racial stereotype but a character for whom the audience has considerable sympathy. Discuss.

By the end of this novel, Fagin is no longer a two dimensional racial stereotype but a character for whom the audience has considerable sympathy. Discuss. "Oliver Twist" was the second novel of Charles Dickens. It was initially published in monthly instalments that began in February of 1837 and ended in April of 1939. The book has been criticised for anti-Semitism since Fagin is frequently referred to as "the Jew". At the time many Jews, who had fled to England from persecution abroad, were so discriminated against by the law that they became travelling salesmen and stallholders. In these trades it was very easy to drift into receiving and selling stolen goods. The Jewish thief's characterizations do seem to owe much to ethnic stereotypes. The first time Oliver meets Fagin is when The Artful Dodger takes him away from the bitter cold of London to his den. From the very first time we hear about Fagin, Dickens gives the reader reasons to believe he is an evil, "villainous-looking" man. For example, at the start of chapter 8 we see Fagin "standing over them, with a toasting fork in his hand". This gives the images of a devil holding a fork in his hand. In addition to this, Dickens gives Fagin the term of "merry old gentlemen" which is also a term for the devil. From this we get the impression Fagin is an ugly man. "His repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red

  • Word count: 2263
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Andover Workhouse Sources Questions

Source C is from a novel and is about events in a workhouse. How useful is this source for investigating events in the Andover Workhouse at that time? Explain your answer using source C and knowledge from your studies. Source C is useful because it states that gruel (and it states that the food was inefficient) was served and we know that this was served in the Andover Workhouse because they wanted the Andover workhouse to be as inhospitable as possible and gruel was served because it wasn't very nutritious. Also Source C states that the child was desperate with hunger, which I know from other sources that in the Andover workhouse the inmates were starving because the master Mr. McDougal stole their food for himself and his family. There is almost proof of this in Source C as it states that the master was a fat healthy man and from this we can infer that this could have been due to him stealing the inmates food. Source also states that the child was reckless with misery, which the inmates of the Andover workhouse were because families were split up, single mothers were shamed by having to wear a yellow stripe on their uniform, women were indecently assaulted by the master Mr. McDougal and they were so hungry that they were eating rotting flesh and bone marrow from the bones that they were crushing. Source C describes the child in the novel being hit round the head with a

  • Word count: 1095
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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How Does Charles Dickens Expose Victorian Society's Awful Treatment of Children of the Poor in the Novel Oliver Twist?

How Does Charles Dickens Expose Victorian Society's Awful Treatment of Children of the Poor in the Novel Oliver Twist? Oliver Twist, perhaps Charles Dickens' most famous book, was written by the Portsmouth-born author in 1838, a time of turbulent change in Britain, with industrialisation creating both new heights of wealth and new depths of poverty. While the upper classes lavished in their newfound riches, the poor languished in squalor. Oliver, Dickens' unfortunate hero, is born into a world of workhouses, child labour and children being forced into a life of crime by severe poverty. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 demonstrates some of the callous attitude towards the poor; it was stipulated that conditions in workhouses should be made so awful that even those facing starvation might think twice about going there. Similar conditions in France, however, had led to the French Revolution at the turn of the century, and the upper classes feared a similar uprising in Britain. So they further oppressed the poor, and ended any dissenting with force. Charles Dickens wrote this book to bring the plight of the poor to the public attention. The first chapter of Oliver Twist describes his birth at the workhouse, almost immediately after which he is orphaned by the death of his mother and the absence of his father. As Oliver struggles to take his first breath, Dickens describes

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Oliver Twist -outline of the plot.

Oliver Twist door Charles Dickens Oliver Twist was born in a workhouse. There was nobody to assist his mother except for a drunken old woman. His mother died in childbirth and it remained in doubt if he he would survive. At the age of 10 months he was transferred to a farm where Mrs. Mann was in charge. She received money from the parish authorities for every child she kept. Of course she held the benefits for herself. Unfortunately this meant that the children received almost nothing to eat. When Oliver became 9 years old he was obviously underfed. That was when a beadle from the workhouse came to bring an allowance for Mrs. Mann. This man, called Mr. Bumble, told the lady that he had chosen Oliver's name because the father had never been known. Mr. Bumble decides to take Oliver back to the workhouse, a house for paupers and orphans, where the children are starved . This means that many of the children die, the result is enormously benefits the undertaker Mr. Sowerberry. Years go by until Oliver gets the courage to ask a little bit more to eat. The little boy is found ungrateful. He is punished and afterwards he is sold to Mr. Gansfield, a chimney sweeper. But Oliver is lucky because a magistrate decides that he will be educated by Mr. Sowerberry (the undertaker). Of course Oliver has to prove his abilities and succeeds. Things go well until a few days later a fight

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Explore the ways in which human suffering is portrayed in Charles Dickens' 'Oliver Twist' and James Watson's 'Talking in Whispers'. How do the writers create sympathy for the characters of Andres Larreta and Oliver Twist?

Explore the ways in which human suffering is portrayed in Charles Dickens' 'Oliver Twist' and James Watson's 'Talking in Whispers'. How do the writers create sympathy for the characters of Andres Larreta and Oliver Twist? Can they be considered heroes in the light of their suffering? I am going to explore the ways in which human suffering is portrayed in Charles Dickens' 'Oliver Twist' and James Watson's 'Talking in Whispers'. I am also going to explore the ways in which sympathy is created for the characters Oliver Twist and Andres Larreta. With consideration of Oliver Twist's and Andres Larreta's suffering I am going to see if they can be considered as heroes. I am going to do all of this by analysing areas of the novels, 'Oliver Twist' and 'Talking in Whispers'. Oliver Twist and Andres Larreta both experience a great deal of suffering. They experience physical, emotional and mental suffering. The societies in which they are a part of also suffer. The suffering of society in both novels 'Oliver Twist' and 'Talking in Whispers' are caused by the authorities. However, the society in 'Talking in Whispers' seems to be much bigger than the society that comes across in 'Oliver Twist'. I think this is because 'Oliver Twist' is mainly about the life of Oliver Twist and how he reunites with some of his relatives, whereas 'Talking in Whispers' mainly focuses on Andres Larreta's

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Read chapters 8-11 of Oliver Twist describing Oliver's arrival in Londonand his early adventures with Fagin and his gang. How does Dickens make Oliver's adventures memorable for his readers?

GSCE ENGLISH Oliver Twist: Pre 1914 prose study Read chapters 8-11 of Oliver Twist describing Oliver's arrival in London and his early adventures with Fagin and his gang. How does Dickens make Oliver's adventures memorable for his readers? In this essay I am going to study the story of 'Oliver Twist' and write about how Charles Dickens makes Oliver's adventures with Fagin and his gang memorable for his readers. Dickens uses language to manipulate his reader's feelings. Dickens loved the theatre and knew he could get an audience very involved by producing strong, exaggerated feelings. He uses a lot of emotive language in his story e.g. The story of 'Oliver Twist' was written by Charles John Huffam Dickens. Charles Dickens was born on Friday 7th February 1812 at Portsmouth. He was middle lower class. His father was jailed for debt and with no one to maintain him; he was sent to work in a blacking factory. The labour force included urchins and rough working class boys; here he was forced to accept the reality of poverty. The story of 'Oliver Twist' is about a young boy and the story teaches the reader about the 19th century, it teaches the reader about the divisions of upper and lower classes. It teaches about how children are treated in those days and the conditions of the workhouses they are sent to work in from such young ages. It teaches you about life on the streets on

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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'Why is Nancy such an important character in the novel Oliver Twist?'

Balawal Rehman English / English Literature coursework 15/2/05 'Why is Nancy such an important character in the novel Oliver Twist?' There are many reasons Nancy's character is such an important one in the novel. One of these reasons is that when you first see her you are told that she wears a lot of make up and that she has a great deal of hair and she is 'not very tidy about her shoes and stockings'. At that time this was not a respectable way to dress for a young, respectable woman, so it gives you the idea that she is a prostitute .At this moment you think that she is just a low- life woman trying to make a living. Even though most people would recognise Nancy for what she is, Oliver does not and thinks of her as a nice lady. This tells you that Oliver is meant to be innocent and does not have a clue on what is going on around him. Slowly as the story starts to develop, you get the idea that Nancy has another, more caring, side to her. You find out about this side on page 142 where she says to Bill Sikes that he'll have to go through her if he wants to attack Oliver with his dog, Bullseye. At this point she also says to Bill that she doesn't care if he splits her head against the wall but she still won't get out of his way. This tells you that she is caring and does not want Oliver to suffer. Nancy feels sorry for Oliver because she

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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How does Dickens portray his attitude to charity in the opening chapters of Oliver Twist?

How does Dickens portray his attitude to charity in the opening chapters of Oliver Twist? Oliver Twist was written, by Charles Dickens in 1837, because of his views towards the divide between the rich and poor. He felt that the poor, especially the poor in workhouses were treated appallingly because of the Poor Law Amendment Act. Oliver Twist covers; uncaring and inadequate medical attention workhouses, the bastard clauses made care of infants, the fact that the food served was inadequate and monotonous and the abuse of power in major officials. Many people believed that people were poor because they were lazy, or for other reasons that were entirely their own fault. "God helps those who help themselves" was a popular maxim of the time. People resented paying taxes that were to be spent on those they considered were to idle to help themselves. They believed out-of-door relief encouraged people to be lazy or to pretend to be sick. It was said that they were too comfortable and therefore in order to ensure that only the really destitute applied for poor relief and it was to be made as unpleasant as possible. So out-of-door relief was abolished and all poor relief had to be sought in workhouses where the conditions were terrible. As well as deterring all but the most desperate, it also stigmatised the poor. It was effectively punishing people for being poor. It is also a

  • Word count: 1210
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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