Through character, tone, and point of view, Charles Dickens creates Oliver Twist as a vehicle for social concerns for the poor in 1980s English Society.

by layla365 (student)

Edriena Velaj

Per.4

11/27/11 Oliver Twist By: Charles Dickens

The Novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens shows the life of Oliver Twist the main character, who was born into a life of poverty and misfortune in a workhouse. Both parents dead, and forced to move from place to place, he overcomes many obstacles. Through character, tone, and point of view, Charles Dickens creates Oliver Twist as a vehicle for social concerns for the poor in 1980’s English Society.

In “Oliver twist”, Oliver Twist the main character and protagonist is cursed with an impoverished life style as an orphan in a workhouse. Dickens states “So they established the rule that all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not they) of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it.”(Dickens 6). This shows how people live in the workhouse, where Oliver had been sent to. Also, it states that the only way poor people could get public assistance is if they lived at an official workhouse and followed all of their rules. Nancy a young prostitute and a former pickpocket of Fagin’s (Fagin takes in homeless children and teaches them how to pickpocket). Chesterton states “Nancy is not really impressive as a living woman; but (as the phrase goes) she makes a lovely corpse” (Cheston 1).This quote show that no one really cared for Nancy not even her lover Bill Sikes, the people in the Victorian era only saw Nancy as a prostitute. Even though Nancy was a prostitute she had very high morals, especially when she tries to help Oliver even though Sikes was going to kill her. Bill Sikes is a professional burglar and Nancy’s pimp and lover. Dickens says “Bill Sikes is not exactly a real man, but for all that he is a real murderer” (Dickens 127). This shows that Bill Sikes was not a human he had no morals and did not care about Nancy’s death and this how a murderer lives. The poor live without education and no rules, Sikes was raised by Fagin and taught him how to steel and be cruel to others. This of course led to Sikes committing horrifying and evil acts. Noah a charity boy and Mr. Sowerberry’s apprentice is a bully and is mean to Oliver. Nohah exclaims “Let him alone!' said Noah. 'Why everybody lets him alone enough, for the matter of that. Neither his father nor his mother will ever interfere with him. All his relations let him have his own way pretty well. Eh, Charlotte? He! he! he!”(Dickens 18). This quote shows how other people during the 1980’s thought about the poor, Noah is saying; why leave Oliver alone he has been left alone all his life and making fun of Oliver to try and get on his nerves. Oliver’s mother says “Let me see the child, and die.” when Oliver was born and when she was about to pass away .Dickens says “At times he [Sikes] turned with desperate determination, resolved to beat this phantom off, though it should look him dead; but the hair rose on his head and his blood stood still, for it had turned with him and was behind him then.”(Dickens 225). After murdering Nancy Sikes tries to get out of London but his conscience would not leave him alone, a guilty conscience is worse than a punishment for Sikes. Throughout the novel Sikes was seen as a guilty villain and now that he feels guilt and sorrow he seems more realistically human.

This is a preview of the whole essay

The tones through the novel show sorrow, violence, and sadness. For example Eugene Goodheart states” For the very first pages of Oliver Twist are stern even when they are funny.”(Cheston 1). This shows that Dickens was trying to make the tone as serious and intolerable. “A modern realist describes the dreary workhouse would have made all the children utterly crushed, not daring to speak at all, not expecting anything , not hoping anything, past all possibility of affording even an ironical contrast or a protest of despair.” (Cheston 1). Cheston says that if a writer had described exactly to children how they have been treated and lived in the workhouse, they would be so sad and terrified they would be too frightened to even speak about it. Cheston says “ …something which shocked with the mere simplicity of death, quivers when we read of those repeated blows or see Sikes cursing the tell-tale cur who will follow his bloody footprints.”(1). This quote shows the tone as terror and violent as Sikes kills Nancy blow after blow. It also shows Sikes being vulgar in language and acts. Dickens states “Painfully real, reaches its hideous height in that fine scene of death of Sikes, the besigned, house boy screaming within…”(Dickens 335). This quote shows the death of Sikes and how scared Oliver is, he went through so much and could only leave the boy traumatized and scared for what will happen next. Oliver lives a life of loneliness and despair through the whole novel he goes through deaths Nancy and Bill Sikes. Dickens says “By what, or by whom, nobody knows, for the clerk and jailor coughed very loud, just at the right moment; and the former dropped a heavy book upon the floor, thus preventing the word from being heard--accidently, of course.”(Dickens 334). This shows even when people are put in jail poor or rich they still criticize others and respect no one. People of the Victorian era are narcissistic and conceded. Dickens states “…into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all.”(Dickens 1). This shows that Dickens is trying to say that the world was full of sorrow and trouble that this little boy (Oliver) would not make it; because he came to this world with hope and love. The world is unlikely to return that hope and love. The Society does not care about the poor and to show this they made a new poor law. Dickens says “Reformers enacted not only a new reform bill but also a new poor law.”(Dickens 246). This new poor law says that all poor people should be put in a workhouse instead of the streets. Many people like women where not put in work houses but the streets to take the role of a prostitute for example like Nancy. Nancy states “Pity us, lady—pity us for having only one feeling of the woman left and for having that turned, by a heavy judgment, from a comfort and a pride into a new means of violence and suffering.”(Dickens 352). Nancy shows that women where oppressed of their feelings and were not acknowledged about how they were doing or felt emotionally. Charles states “read about the sickening thuds that beat out the life of Nancy, or that mysterious villain whose face was blasted with disease.”(Dickens 135) This show horror and talks about Nancy’s death and Sikes’ guilty conscience.

Throughout the story life in England in the 1980’s has been seen differently through the perspective of different people and groups. Cheston states “The whole tragedy of that incident is the fact that he does expect the universe to be kind to him, that he does believe that he is living in a just world.”(Cheston 1). Cheston explains that Oliver lives his life expecting others to be nice to him and that the world is fare. Oliver has hope in everyone and everything. Vieth states “Dickens enters the social and political war, and the first stroke he deals is not only significant but even startling”. (Vieth 10). Dickens has this perspective that the world is not fare and everything is corrupt, he uses this in the novel to show that the world is really corrupt and bad. When writing the novel during the time the English society was not all that great they had work houses and unjust laws, it did not treat people as equals. Dickens states “The old-world belief in patrons, and among other things to clear away the old visionary kindliness on the subject of vagrant.”(Dickens 34). The world believed that poor people should be put somewhere were others can’t see them to almost make them vanish from the face of the earth without killing them. This made the society force the poor into workhouses. Dickens states “NO one could have imagined at the time that this bitterness ran in an unbroken river under all the surges of that superb gaiety and exuberance.” (2). The sadness and sorrow of the society was never thought to last as long as it did but the society kept pushing the poor down every time they tried to do something with there lives. “…Dickens had been from the beginning bitter and inquisitive about the problem of our civilization.”(Goodheart 21). Dickens has always known what the society was he knew that people were not fair and tried to portray this in the novel. He put in detailed sentences and imagery throughout the story to portray a ruthless world stuck in the shadows. For example when Charles says “For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble…, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear a name.”(Dickens 1). The world was not safe not even for newborns the doctors and nurses where not as experienced as they are today and the quality of hospitals was not as sanitary.

Throughout the novel Oliver Twist there have been many examples of character, Tone, and point of views that show Oliver Twist being used as a vehicle for social concerns for the poor in 1980’s English Society by Charles Dickens.