Oliver believes that Fagin is a miser. we can see this as Fagin is very careful with his money and rarely spends any of it. When Oliver meets the other boys Fagin shows him what they had stolen. However, Oliver is unaware the property is stolen. He believes, the items are hand made.
Fagin tells Oliver that the items are nicely made. But really the boys got the handkerchiefs by stealing them. Fagin is teasing Oliver. A quote that shows this is:
"You'd like to be able to make pocket handkercheifs as easy as Charley Bates, wouldn't you, my dear?"
The relevance of this quote is important. It shows him teasing Oliver as he speaks biasly. Fagin and the others try to train Oliver to stal by making him practise 'games.' Oliver enjoys these 'games.' Oliver amuses them. A quote that shows this is when Charley says:
"He is so jolly green!" This suggests that he believs that Oliver is naive. Fagin's gang are pick pockets. Fagin makes his living by teaching children to steal. In exchange for a roof over their head.
Victorian England, like the periods before it, was intersted in theatre and the arts. Music, drama and opera were widley attended. However, life for the poor was very hard. Charles Dickens, felt strongly about the welfare of poorer classes because he lived in both fortunate and unfortunate conditions, so can easily compare both lives.
When Fagin speaks to Oliver, he is mostly lying to him. Also adding to this is his ability to easily convice Oliver. During this chapter however, Fagin's behaviour towards Oliver changes. An example of this is when the threatens Oliver, then drastictly becomes kind.
To conclude, this chapter is important to the novel because it develops the characters. Shows us the siginficance of Fagin's group. Also how they trick Oliver into believing its all just a game. Fagin and his gangs life are also more developed here. We see how Fagin teaches them to steal. I think Dickens was trying to show us how life for the poor worked back then.
