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. Generally the upper and middle classes thought very little of the working class citizens in Victorian times. The English middle-class society saw those who could not support themselves as immoral and evil, Oliver is not immoral and evil he is the opposite, the immoral and evil are quite clearly the board, Mrs Mann and Mr Bumble. Dickens displays this in chapter 2; the attitudes of the upper class are illustrated in the form of the board and ‘the beadle’. Oliver is treated like an animal by Mr Bumble. ‘Mr. Bumble gave him a tap on the head, with his cane, to wake him up: and another on the back to make him lively:’ Mr Bumble wakes Oliver up like a person would try and wake up a dog, he believes Oliver is not a real person but a dirty animal that should not be spoken or touched by his master and obey his master, the narrator gives his view of what the board think of the orphanage, ‘The board made periodical pilgrimages to the farm’ . The narrator is implying that the board and upper classes refer to the orphanage as a ‘farm’ and the children are animals who don’t deserve to live. The board are described as ‘eight or ten fat gentleman’ who sit around a table, Dickens produces humour by making ‘a particularly fat gentleman’ in a higher position than the rest, Dickens ranks the gentleman in how overweight they are, so the most obese would have the highest authority.
Mrs Mann and Mr Bumble are the two people, who are supposed to take care of
Oliver Twist, but instead Mrs Mann physically abuses Oliver and the other children in her care and Mr Bumble treats him like a worthless waste of life. Mrs Mann and Mr
Bumble role play when they are around each other, Mrs Mann acts as a good Christian woman as she uses religious language like ‘bless-em’ but she is not a good Christian and Mr Bumble exaggerates his authority by using the method of repetition, he uses complicated language in his sentence like ‘here upon parochial business with the parochial orphans? Are you aweer, Mrs. Mann, that you are, as I may say, a parochial delegate, and a stipendiary?’ The word parochial is repeated three times to confuse Mrs. Mann, he is trying to put Mrs. Mann down by calling her a ‘stipendiary’ he act in that way because he is insecure, and to secure Mr Bumble bullies people who are of a lower rank than him, the word aweer is pronounced in a posh accent to make him seem sophisticated. ‘The beadle drew himself up with great pride, and said, ‘’I inwented it.’ Mr Bumble considers himself important and thinks he is intelligent for coming up with the system for naming unknown children as the passage indicates. Dickens portrays the two in a comical manner. Mrs Mann is shown as this masculine woman who is the contrast of a motherly role, but closer to a neglectful fatherly role. The name Mrs Mann is ironic as because she acts masculine and has the word ‘Mann’ in her name. Mrs Mann is greedy and she is taking money that should be spent on the children’s food., ‘she appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to her own use’ .She uses hypocrisy in her actions, ‘she put her apron to her eye’, and this is to make a tear come out, for her to look good in front of authority as high as Mr Bumble, to make him think she does not abuse the orphans. She uses the method of flattery towards Mr Bumble by saying ‘Why, you’re quite a literary character, sir!’ even though she is being sarcastic. Mr Bumble is depicted as a ‘fat’ and ‘over indulged man’ he is not a good Christian because of his over indulgence, it is also ironic because he starves the children and punished Oliver when he ‘asked for more’. Dickens symbolizes Mr Bumble as the pretentious, self-important beadle, an church official for the workhouse where Oliver is born. Though Mr. Bumble preaches Christian morality, he behaves without compassion toward the paupers under his care. Dickens remorselessly mocks his greed, self-righteousness, , and hypocrisy, of which his name is an obvious symbol. Dickens intends Mr Bumble and Mrs Mann to be hypocritical, ironic and comical figures so they represent the worst of the middle and upper classes.
The board members behaviour serves to show the hypocrisy of those who manage the system, this is depicted during the board meetings, it is seen while the board are talking about the poor, and the board tell Oliver he ‘will be learning ’a‘ useful trade picking oakum’. The board also don’t teach the poor common education, so they can make fun of the ‘paupers’, ‘the gentleman in the white waistcoat’ says ‘’The boy is a fool—I thought he was’’ They want the poor to know they are better than them, the board, upper and middle classes judge everyone by their wealth, their opinion is the richer a person is the better they are, they think the poor are bad Christians when they completely differ, while the wealthy are the ones who commit the sins as they lie and over indulge, the rich think they are in charge even though they so not have a job they think they can decide on the future of someone’s life. Oliver is the symbol of the poor, he asks ‘what’s that sir?’ when asked if he knows he is an orphan. The protagonist does not even know what a board is but he is lucky because ‘he fortunately bowed to the table’. A prime example of the poor being uneducated. The authority and the Victorian middle and upper classes act like excellent Christians when they are faced with high members of the social chain, but in reality they over indulge, Mr Bumble is a good example because the narrator describes him as a ‘fat over indulged man’, this is contrasted to the poor as Oliver is portrayed as a ‘pale thin child, somewhat diminutive in stature.’. This can be read as a social character, it shows the differences between the appearance of the upper/middle class and the poor. Dickens intends this to add emphasis, this is hypocrisy shown by the board of ‘fat gentlemen.’, because the board is at fault for Oliver’s health as they do not conduct checks to make sure he is fed properly at the workhouse or at the orphanage.
Charles Dickens uses irony and sarcasm throughout chapter two, he uses it for humour and to keep the reader interested, he gives the characters names which reflect the lives they lead and the type of person they are, an example of the names are ‘Mrs Mann’ and ‘Mr Bumble’. Irony is shown when Mrs Mann says to Mr Bumble ‘why, it’s what I’m obliged to keep a little of in the house, to put into the blessed infants’. This is ironic because she is keeping it for herself, she brought it with the money the children were meant to use for food. Irony is present when Mr Bumble says ‘you are a humane woman, Mrs Mann.’ It is ironic because she is the complete opposite. Sarcasm is seen when the narrator describes Mrs Mann as a ‘benevolent protectress.’ Mrs Mann is Oliver’s main tormentor, the word benevolent’ means generous which Mrs Mann is not. Dickens uses many other techniques of irony and sarcasm to make the reader feel sorry for Oliver and d, Dickens intends his sarcasm and irony techniques to humour the reader as well as keep the reader engaged in the novel.
Chapter two is enjoyable because of Dickens’s style of writing. In addition to his use of sarcasm and irony he uses emotive language, humour and Dickens’s uses another omniscient narrator, he also ends every chapter in a cliff hanger to keep the reader interested. Dickens voice is apparent when he voices his anger as his opinion on Oliver’s education. ‘because nobody had taught him.’ Dickens’s uses the word ‘nobody’ as a name for the authorities who are responsible of educating Oliver, they have not taught an orphan with absolutely no relatives or friends to read and write Dickens uses humour when he describes Mr Bumble and Mrs. Mann as they are the main authorities responsible for educating the orphans and trying to help them get the best start in life when they leave the orphanage. The author uses emotive language e.g. ‘shrunken, wasted forms’, which is a powerful use of words because it indicates to the reader how cruel the staff at the orphanage and the non-working work house staff are, word wasted indicates their physical condition and their lives are squandered. The children are starved in the orphanage as one boy ‘Might happen to eat the boy who slept next to him’. That indicates the inhumanity of the orphanage staff as a child is ready to turn to cannibalism because of his extreme hunger, Dickens’s also aims for this to ct as humour as the thought of eating another human was never hear of in Victorian times and presented something new, of a dark humour genre. Dickens uses humour to entertain and puts what the humour means in brackets for the reader to understand the irony, this is to make sure the novel does not get too serious. Together these things combine to make Dickens a great satirist.
In conclusion, the author has gained the reader’s attention to the social difficulty and the poor laws of the time by using Oliver Twist’s life as a prime example; this is managed successfully by Charles Dickens as he uses an omniscient narrator to describe the difficult situations the protagonist is involved in. The narrator depicts this using descriptive methods to make us side with Oliver, the author uses an unbiased narrator to make the novel level on both of the social classes. Dickens portrays the stipulations the ‘paupers’ have to survive with, in a deep manner, to get the reader on the side of the poor in an unbiased way. The author introduces stereotypical middle and upper class characters, who over indulge and are rich contrasted to the poor in the form of Oliver’s cares and the board. To make to novel less serious, Dickens uses humour techniques, like hypocrisy, sarcasm and irony when the situation becomes too acute, the techniques are mostly used with the comical characters such as the board. The author tries to make the audience understand and develop ideas of how horrendously the poor are treated, he wants the audience to form ideas of how to help the poor and improve themselves. We are also introduced to the unique style of Dickens characterised by using the narrator to voice is own opinions in some parts of ‘Oliver Twist.’ In my view Dickens’s is a good satirist with, he employs unique techniques of describing the upper/middle classes and voicing his own opinions through the narrator gaining the readers attention. Finally, chapter two is also significant because it begins Oliver’s story, one which will see him meet many different classes of people and gain an insight to how they live and how his life is different from the orphanage and the workhouse. Oliver will understand how hypocritical many of the rich are, and begin the journey of finding his true family.
