One of the people to respond to Mr Bumble’s plea was a man named Mr Gamfield. Gamfield is a chimney sweep by trade and wishes to take ‘This here boy, sir, wot the Parish wants to ’prentis’. The common origins of Gamfield are here shown by the manner of speech that he employs – the apostrophe denotes the letters dropped to make apprentice into “’prentis”. This replacement of letters with the apostrophe is a technique to accentuate the different styles of speaking and to further highlight the difference in classes: the common, everyday Gamfield with the educated refinement of the gentlemen of the Board. The mandatory agreements are made and with promises of a good diet and sufficient care, Oliver is sent to sign the official indentures. He is so frightened, he begs the magistrate not to apprentice him to the sweep. Taking pity, the magistrate overrules Mr Bumble and sends Oliver back to the workhouse with the instruction to ‘treat him kindly’. The fate of a chimney boy was even worse than that of a workhouse orphan. Sweeps such as Gamfield would have fed Oliver scarcely more than he was already allowed; their needs were for small, skinny specimens for if they got too large then they would be rendered unable to climb in the chimney-systems. Despite the assurance of good treatment, we know that Gamfield is a man with no compassion. He is witnessed to beat and mistreat his donkey for no apparent reason; flogging the poor animal without shame in public. His treatment of Oliver and the other chimney boys would have been little better so Oliver is spared a most disagreeable experience.
Unable to decide what to do with the little ‘rebel’, the decision is made to send him off to sea. Oliver would be passed into the clutches of some captain who would assure the behaviour of such a child and would doubtless be appreciative of a lonely orphan cabin boy to beat at his disposal. Before the formalities are completed, however, the local undertaker Mr Sowerby appears at the gate asking after Oliver. Almost instantly, Oliver is summoned and sent with this man for his first taste of life outside the workhouse.
The arrival of Oliver in the Sowerby household is not something that is welcomed. The Undertaker’s wife, Mrs Sowerby, and the local charity boy Noah Claypole both dislike Oliver and object to his being there. Noah, despite being a charity boy and a rather unsightly child, delights in bullying Oliver and is very happy at the prospect of being with someone less fortunate than himself. He is, a very common boy, unlike Oliver, and recognises this and sees it as another reason to dislike Oliver. Mrs Sowerby too treats Oliver unkindly; although she feeds him his food is little more that scraps for the dog. She sympathises with Noah and favours him openly. Instead of defending Oliver, Noah uses his misfortune as a means by which he makes himself feel better.
Whilst serving with Mr Sowerby, Oliver and the undertaker are called to the home of a woman who has just died. As the fictitious characters walk through the streets, Dickens uses the opportunity to portray – in harrowing detail – the conditions that people resided in. Dickens himself used to wander the alleyways and back streets of London whilst he worked in a bottle factory and was profoundly affected by what he saw. The dismal, dank and dreary streets and disrepaired buildings – not even suitable for human habitation – were being propped up with boards and used by entire families.
Upon entering the house, Oliver is horrified: the conditions inside are no more preferable to those in the street. The room is cold and dark – the corpse lay in the middle of the room with only a blanket to obscure it from the views of the children. The old couple too seems to find it acceptable to just leave it – indeed they try and stop the undertaker from arranging the funeral at all – and have little regard for the children and the trauma that the episode will be causing them.
Oliver’s spell at the Sowerbys ends when, provoked by Noah Claypole, he attacks him. Noah makes unsavoury remarks about Oliver’s mother – ‘ Work’us, yer mother was a regular right-down bad ‘un’ - so Oliver hits Noah and struggles when Charlotte and Mrs Sowerby hit and try to restrain him. Consequently, Noah flees to Mr Bumble, screaming murder. Oliver is shut in a cupboard but decides to leave and simply walks out of the household. This fighting and drama is in stark contrast to the last chapter; the peace and solemnity of the funeral and the respect compared with the raw, aggressive, highly-charged emotions which prompt Oliver to attack Noah.
A great deal of symbolism is also used by Dickens, and one of the most striking methods is the usage of light and dark. All the unhappy times in Oliver's life are associated with small, dark, enclosed spaces: the cellar at Mrs Mann’s, the isolation at the Workhouse, the sleeping space under the counter at Sowerbys and the cupboard which he finally manages to escape from. Accordingly, all of the happier times, later on in the story, are portrayed as lighter. The time at Mr Brownlow’s and his stay with the Mayleys are two such periods.
Techniques, such as use of contrast were often employed by Dickens to ensure the continual attention of the readers: the first publication of all Dickens’ novels were serialised in magazines so cliff-hangers and contrasting chapters were commonplace. This method of publication was both inexpensive and allowed a wider audience to access his work. Dickens’ novels were often politically motivated and his entire life was spent trying to improve the treatment and conditions of the poor by raising the awareness of the upper social classes. He constantly includes his own ironic insight and thoughts as a commentary to the stories. The title of the first chapter alone is supportive to this: ‘Treats of the place where Oliver Twist was born and the Circumstances attending his Birth’. There are of course, no treats whatsoever to be found in the workhouse and the ‘Circumstances’ that were attentive to his birth did little more than deliver him and then leave him to his own device; that of surviving. Quotes such as these emphasise Dickens’ dark humour and his views on the pathetic benefits of the workhouse scheme. His work eventually made the difference that he so wished to achieve and eventually acts were passed in Parliament to ensure the wellbeing and helping of the poor, although not until many years after Dickens’ initial publications.
