As the story starts to develop, you get the idea that Nancy has another more caring side to her. This side is shown on page 142 where Nancy says to Bill Sikes, that he’ll have to go through Nancy before he can attack Oliver with the dog, Bullseye. This shows that she cares for Oliver and that she doesn’t want Oliver to get hurt in any way. Also an alternative way to tell that Nancy has a better side to her, is when she says to Bill Sikes that he can smash her head against the wall, but she won’t let him touch Oliver. At this point in the novel, Nancy feels a great bond with Oliver, in which she cares for him and doesn’t want him to get hurt.
Dickens in this novel builds up sympathy for Nancy in many ways. This is shown when Nancy is beaten up because she wants to protect Oliver. Also at this point of the novel, readers forget that first their impression of Nancy was that she is a prostitute, and they forget that because she changes throughout the development of the story. Nancy in the story never has bad intensions, she always tries to set things right, but she is just ignored because she is a low life.
Nancy feels sorry for Oliver because she recognizes his innocence and she does not want him to get involved in crimes like she did. When she looks at Oliver, Nancy is reminded of her becoming a criminal at such a young age, and so she feels sorry for Oliver, she wants to help Oliver so he does not waste his life like Nancy did.
Nancy also helps develop the story. The story could have ended when Oliver meets Mr.Brownlow, but the story progresses because Nancy kidnaps Oliver. At this point of the story Nancy is almost at the end of her life, so Dickens builds up sympathy for her. A huge build up to her death creates her death. He also builds up sympathy by killing of Nancy in a horrible way.
Nancy in many ways is the most realistic character in Oliver Twist because of her complex personality, and because she has more than one side to her character.
Nancy is the most complex case because although she is a prostitute, a member of Fagin’s gang and Sike’s mistress, she also has virtuous sentiments, which prompts her to defend Oliver. But her good qualities also underpin her loyalty to Sikes and that loyalty is the direct cause of her tragic fate at his hands. It’s amazing that Oliver’s goodness survives in such an environment, where it is virtually inevitable that goodness such as Nancy’s is destroyed.
Throughout the story, Dickens uses the word “Jew” when referring to Fagin. This tells you the anti – Semitic attitude of the British that doesn’t change until after world war two. The play Merchant of Venice was written 250 years before Oliver Twist and even after 250 years the Semitic attitude hasn’t changed.
In this book the other characters are too good or too bad to be true. E.g. Mr.Brownlow and Rose Maylie are too kind to a boy who just tried to rob them, and Fagin and Sikes are too bad to even be realistic. Fagin wishes to poison Sikes even though he is his comrade and Sikes is just always cruel and talks in a harsh manner toward his girlfriend Nancy, whom he beats up and in the end murders as if he is a psychopath.
Fagin in the end gets his own way, by provoking Sikes to kill Nancy. Just before Nancy is killed she is happy to see him because Dickens writes “It is you, Bill” said the girl with the expression of pleasure when he returns. This proves that she has two sides to her character because she spoke to Rose Maylie, she does not betray her friends. Nancy always tries to find the best way, and that also meant making sure she doesn’t betray her friends.
This makes Nancy probably the most realistic character out of them all, mainly because of her two sided personality and because she develops the story and how she cares for Oliver.
Because Nancy’s character is not too bad and not too good, it makes the story more realistic and believable. She is one of the characters who like Oliver and the only one with a true personality and in a way the only character who expresses her feelings.
SUFYAN MUSSOOD
