Research Topic
What is on Charles Dickens’s mind?
Key Questions:
- What issues stand out in Charles Dickens’s writing?
- Why does Charles Dickens highlight these issues?
Research Notes:
Oliver Twist (Novel)
Author: Charles Dickens
Written time: 1837
ISSUES:
Contrast and conflicts between poor and rich people
- Oliver Twist, a poor, nameless orphan boy. He is forced to suffer the indignities of starvation, brutal treatment, and is damned to life in a workhouse.
- “For more!” said Mr. Limbkins. ”Do I understand that Oliver asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?” “That boy will be hung,” said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. “I know that boy will be hung.”
- They established the rule that all poor people should have the alternative of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or are quick one out of it.
- “Bleak, dark, and piercing cold, it was a night for the well-housed and fed to draw round the bright fire and thank God they were at home; and for the homeless, starving wretch to lay him down and die. Many hunger-worn outcasts close their eyes in our bare streets, at such times, who, let their crimes have been what they may, can hardly open them in a more bitter world.”
