After that unfortunate event, Oliver for eight to ten months was the victim of a systematic course of treachery and deception. He was brought up by hand. Just as the story is telling us how cruel Oliver was getting treated, Charles Dickens introduces a new character called Mrs. Mann, the lady looking after Oliver, after all those months of getting brought up by hand. She didn’t really treat him very nicely. “The elderly female was a woman of wisdom and experience; she knew what was good for children; and she had a very accurate perception of what was good for her. So, she appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to her own use, and consigned the rising parochial generation to even a shorter allowance than was originally provided for them”. This clearly means she doesn’t treat Oliver and the rest of the children who she looks after properly, she spends all the children’s allowance on herself. She gives them the smallest possible portion of the weakest possible food. “For at the very moment when a child had contrived to exist upon the smallest possible portion of the weakest possible food, it did perversely happen in eight and a half cases out of ten, either that it sickened from want and cold, or fell into the fire from neglect, or got half-smothered by accident; in any one of which cases, the miserable little being was usually summoned into another world, and there gathered to the fathers it had never known in this”. This means that a lot of children she looked after died by the neglect of Mrs. Mann.
When Oliver is nine he is taken from the home of Mrs. Mann and goes to live in a workhouse. People ended up in the workhouse for a variety of reasons. Usually, it was because they were too poor, old or ill to support themselves. Mr Limbkins runs the workhouse. In the workhouse you get a really small amount of food to eat. “The evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:
"Please, sir, I want some more."
The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.
"What!" said the master at length, in a faint voice.
"Please, sir," replied Oliver, "I want some more."
The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arms; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.
The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said,
"Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!"
There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance.
"More! ¯" said Mr. Limbkins. "Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?"
"He did, sir," replied Bumble.
When Oliver finished his food and asked for more, he was in big trouble. No one ever asked for more food in the workhouse. No one had the guts to ask for more, until Oliver did. Everyone was shocked at what Oliver had just done. The workhouse is controlled by a board of governors; one of them in particularly reacted really horrible to what Oliver had just done. He said "That boy will be hung," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. "I know that boy will be hung.” He means that if Oliver had the guts to ask for more food, he will definitely have the guts to do something bad outside the workhouse meaning in the streets.
After asking for more food Oliver is sent to work to be an apprentice, the first person to answer the advertisement is Mr Gamfield. “If the parish would like him to learn a right pleasant trade, in a good 'spectable chimbley-sweepin' bisness," said Mr. Gamfield, "I wants a 'prentis, and I am ready to take him.”. "It's a nasty trade," said Mr. Limbkins, when Gamfield had again stated his wish.
"Young boys have been smothered in chimneys before now," said another gentleman.
"That's acause they damped the straw afore they lit it in the chimbley to make 'em come down agin," said Gamfield; "that's all smoke, and no blaze; vereas smoke ain't o' no use at all in making a boy come down, for it only sinds him to sleep, and that's wot he likes. Boys is wery obstinit, and wery lazy, gen'lmen, and there's nothink like a good hot blaze to make 'em come down vith a run. It's humane too, gen'lmen, acause, even if they've stuck in the chimbley, roasting their feet makes 'em struggle to hextricate theirselves."
This clearly shows you how bad young chimney sweeps are treated. What pain they have to go through. “At length the whispering ceased; and the members of the board, having resumed their seats and their solemnity, Mr. Limbkins said:
"We have considered your proposition, and we don't approve of it."
"Not at all," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.
"Decidedly not," added the other members.
As Mr. Gamfield did happen to labour under the slight imputation of having bruised three or four boys to death already, it occurred to him that the board had, perhaps, in some unaccountable freak, taken it into their heads that this extraneous circumstance ought to influence their proceedings. It was very unlike their general mode of doing business, if they had; but still, as he had no particular wish to revive the rumour, he twisted his cap in his hands, and walked slowly from the table.”
Oliver doesn’t get apprenticed to the chimney sweep, because the board decided that it would be unsafe to let Oliver be a chimney sweeper. Instead they got Oliver an apprenticeship with Mr Sowerberry.
As the story progresses Oliver finishes the apprenticeship and arrives in London. Charles Dickens introduces a new character called Fagin. Fagin is described as a very bad and greedy person, he is a criminal. He first gives poor children food and shelter, and then teaches them to handle bags etc. He done the same to Oliver, when Oliver arrived in London, he gave Oliver food and shelter and taught him how to steal. The money the young juveniles steal they give it to Fagin. As the story continues Fagin dies and Oliver’s situation changed. Mr. Brownlow adopted Oliver and they lived peacefully. Oliver finally got a person who would love him and take care of him. That was the story of Oliver Twist and his sad memories of how poor children lived and how they were treated in the 19th century.
