Dickens wanted to shock people, by using a small naïve boy as the main character, the audience following Oliver’s life could begin to see how poorly children were treated. Dickens is clever to use a book to put his own ideas into peoples’ heads. The general public then (and maybe now) didn’t want someone to tell them the answer they wanted to think they had thought of it. It would have taken much longer or maybe never for people to realise what was going on if a politician had said it or it was a newspaper article about real life.
The most famous scene in the book is when Oliver asks for more, Dickens is showing us how children would do anything for food, ‘Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger and reckless with misery,’ these are emotive words and you can almost feel Oliver’s pain, although in the end maybe it was lucky he was reckless. When Oliver is to be sold the introduction to Gamfield is cunning of Dickens. He describes Gamfield hitting and cursing his donkey leaving you to guess at how we would treat Oliver. He is lucky enough to escape Gamfield and go to The Sowerberrys’, where he is still ill-treated. Even though he is treated with slightly more compassion from Mr Sowerberry, Dickens wants you to see that to Gamfield and Sowerberry Oliver is cheap labour, he clearly shows the reader what it was like for a child being employed. They were being paid to take him off the parishes’ hands. Whilst Oliver works for the Sowerberrys as a mute he bears witness to probably one of many families, which have suffered from the poverties of Victorian England. Dickens uses this opportunity to shock the reader with his descriptions of the room where a family have been living (though barely alive). As Oliver and Mr Sowerberry enter the room one of the first things that Oliver notices is the corpse in the middle of the room. The children are wearing nothing but rags. Dickens describes the whole event graphically describing the grave to be so full that there is barely any room for the coffin thus showing the high death rate amongst the poor. The opening remarks for chapter 6 are highly ironic as he tells us how mourners at the funeral of an elderly wealthy relative are able to overcome their grief, when in fact they actually stand to inherit a lot of money. It is quite a contrast, how there is a lot of grief for the loss of a loved one of a poor family to a relative of a rich family. Dickens used this to give people of wealthier upbringings a better understanding of the rapidly growing gap between the rich and poor.
When Oliver leaves the Sowerberrys’ heading for London, he goes to the Workhouse, where he sees his old friend Dick-who was also brought up at Mrs Mann’s house-who is weeding the garden, even though he was very ill. This scene has great pathos in it especially when Dick, who is himself dying, blesses Oliver. It is one of the more captivating moments in the book, where Oliver and Dick share an embrace, Dickens’ description of this moment is so heart warming it brings you close to tears, you want the two of the end up having the happily ever after that they deserve. Dickens wanted us to see that so called criminals that were dying from the neglect of the parish and the authorities were not criminals but innocent children.
When Oliver reaches London he falls into the hands of Fagin who is likened to the devil by Dickens who upon Oliver’s first meeting is described to be wearing a red cloak and holding a fork in front of a fire, he then continues with a more frightening description, ‘whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair.’ Dickens cleverly does this as Fagin like the devil tempts people into a life of sin and crime. Even the colours black and red suggest that it was not a nice place, that it was evil and dangerous. Something that Nancy, in the book struggles to break free from like many of the paupers in those situations. Like Oliver, Nancy has a sense of right and wrong, after playing a part of the re-capturing of Oliver she realises what she has done is wrong but it is her loyalties to Sikes and his gang that keep her from taking action sooner. Although she does save Oliver, Dickens keeps the story realistic, when she is discovered to have alerted Mr Brownlow and Rose, Sikes clubs her to death. The one person that ever truly cared for him, who he constantly abused he eventually killed. Dickens based him on typical hardened criminals in Victorian England.
Children in Victorian England were intensely used by adult gang members, as pick pockets, prostitutes and even in organised robberies. Once involved in crime there was no escape unless you were very lucky as Oliver was. Oliver is taught to pickpocket and winds up in trouble when he is thought to have stolen from a wealthy man when in fact it wasn’t him. Mr Brownlow shows compassion and takes him into his home even though he has been wronged, this is an ideal that Dickens holds dear and tried to vent it through his writing even if he does make it comical when he ridicules the rich by comparing Oliver’s terrible illness and suffering to Mr Brownlow’s worrying for his health when he uses a slightly damp cloth. As the future begins to look bright for Oliver you discover that Fagin is not far and he wants Oliver back as he could be a danger to them, this is an example of the never-ending crime cycle in Victorian England. Oliver is captured and forced to help Sikes in a robbery where he is shot and then left presumed dead. Dickens uses this as an example of how harsh Victorian England could be Sikes and his gang had fled when it had gone wrong leaving anything that would slow them down. Dickens wanted the reader to see the difference between highly organised crime and crime that has evolved from bare desperation. Dickens points out that these thieves are not living comfortably. He describes the ceiling and the walls to be ‘perfectly black with age and dirt’, they need to steal to get food for them to live, for them it was either that or the workhouse where they could be slowly starved to death.
In conclusion I have discovered that Charles Dickens has very cleverly written a brilliant story that exposes many of the horrors that people were accustomed to in that day in age. There are lessons to be learnt such as the fact that good can triumph over evil. Dickens once said that ‘I wished to show in little Oliver, the principle of good surviving through every adverse circumstance, and triumphing at last.’ Charles Dickens was interested in bringing about change, and he used Oliver’s experience to help that. From Oliver’s birth to the Workhouse to his times in London, Dickens exposes cruel treatment to children with his witty comments; shocking descriptions, matter of fact tones, and his ironic remarks. He makes light of a terrible situation making it comical but the facts are still there and they do still have effect. Although it ends on quite a positive note with Oliver being rescued and returned to his family and those who exploited him all receive severe punishment. Dickens was careful not to lure the reader into a fantasy as it turns out they were too late to save his friend Dick and Nancy who was brutally murdered. He finishes the book on a strong message, that out of evil can come good but it isn’t completely perfect, he makes sure it is no fairytale ending. Overall Charles Dickens uses the story of ‘Oliver Twist’ to expose the awful treatment of Victorian children in a way that no other author could thus helping to bring about the changes that he and so many others campaigned for.
