(Source:http://www.uh.edu/engines/dickens.jpg) (Source: http://www.ich.ucl.ac.uk/150/archivepics/1852_l.jpg)
Oliver Twist was written in 1839 by Charles Dickens and was published in monthly issues in magazines and newspapers. The first time Oliver Twist was made into a book was in 1850 this was when Charles Dickens was thirty — eight years old. This book was based on his history and about the poor who lived in London. Some characters in the book are from his history such as Fagin who was his old childhood friend or Mr. Bumble who was Dickens Headmaster.
The Book
Oliver Twist is an orphan who was born in a workhouse. After an unhappy apprenticeship, Oliver runs away to London where he falls in with thieves, headed by Fagin a villainous ‘Jew ‘. Mr Brownlow rescues him but the gang kidnaps him back. Oliver discovers the identity of his parents. The gang that Fagin runs are exposed.
(Source:http://www.cottontimes.co.uk/cottonpix/workhouse1.jpg,)
This would be similar to the workhouse Oliver would have spent 10 years of his life in
Chapter VIII
We learn a lot about the way people lived then from the way Dickens described it. In chapter eight Oliver runs away from the workhouse and from Mr Sowerberry and heads off to London.
As Oliver walked away from the workhouse he was hiding behind the hedges because the fear of him being ‘pursued had overtaken’. He saw a milestone and thought that going to London would be great because Bumble had no chance of finding him there. He had in his bundle a crust of bread, a coarse shirt, two pairs of stockings and a penny.
Oliver was very small and helpless with a bundle over his shoulder not tasting anything but crusts of bread. After buying a small loaf of bread in the first village he came to, he could hardly crawl the next day. At the bottom of a hill Oliver waited for a stage-coach to arrive, when one finally did the people inside the stage-coach they made him chase after the stagecoach for one penny. However, he did not do well enough and the half pence went back in their pockets this shows that people were not very kind to homeless people. In other towns there were signs up, warning that ‘all persons who begged in this district, that they would be sent to jail’. This scared Oliver he was glad to get clean away from those sorts of towns. But a nice turnpike and a ‘benevolent old lady’ took pity on him her grandson was shipwrecked in some distant country, she gave him what little she could, this stuck in Oliver’s heart and helped him overcome what everyone else was doing. This shows that not all people are mean and unfair to the poor.
In a market town he met a young ‘gentleman’ about a year older than himself, but he was ‘snub-nosed’ and flat-browned common faced boy. He looked a lot older than he actually was with his coat and top hat, he worked for a living, and had grown up too fast. Many children grew up too fast in the 19th century. They had to get money somehow in order to survive. There was no time for childhood as we know it. Very few children went to school and very few poor children could afford toys or treats.
London around the 19th century was very dirty and smelly people would throw their sewage into the streets but when they did this they shouted ‘gardez l’eau’, which meant ‘mind the water’. They often called in ‘slops’. London was full of children on the streets whose parents were not there. ‘Drabs’ and Drunks roamed the streets. The pubs were full of Irish and Low class people they had no pride in their appearance and they were always drunk and you could not rely on them being sensible and well behaved. There a\re loads of dodgy characters hanging around outside doorways most probably going off to do a robbery.
Inside Fagin’s den it’s murky and dark. The fireplace is very important in most scenes it is used when, Oliver enters Fagin is standing next to it cooking sausages. The children mainly drink beer because water was polluted in the 19th century, and all they eat is bread and sausages a good cheap meal. They sleep in sacks on the floor. Fagin is an old dangerous fence , he is a villainous odd ‘Jew’. The children in his gang act like adults, they smoke and drink like old men. When Oliver gets there they try to nick stuff of Oliver, this shows that they can not be trusted. You can tell they are poor because they shared their tumblers with each other this shows you how poor they are. I think that Fagin is good because he takes the children on, not for the right thing but he is still very kind, he should give the children more money for what they do. I think the boys would not be better of without him, solely because they might have had to eat nothing or sleep in ditches but with Fagin they slept in empty sacks and only eat sausages and bread but its better than nothing at all but its no way near what most people are used to.
My view on children in the 19th century is that if they are homeless, they should have no problem with beggars. You never know it could be you or someone close to you who could have a strike of misfortune and end up being a homeless person. I think dickens knows about this because when he was a child he had nothing to do so he could go off exploring anyway when Dickens was working in a blacking factory he was not living in five star hotels.
