As Oliver’s life unraveled in the workhouse, Oliver assumed that he had rested into his place in society and that it was his path for life. But this life presented him with a lot of miss-treatment and hardship, which he received along with his other friends in the workhouse from the overseer, Mrs. Mann. She had very little respect towards the orphans and rewarded them with little luxuries such as food and water each day. The lack of care brought along a lot of illness, but Mrs. Mann’s treatment of calming it down was very un-orthodox where she gave them alcohol alongside beatings, shouting and long days of work. Oliver kept on top of them, unlike other orphans in the workhouse and let his emotions run their course by crying at times to help keep his anger away from the ones who would treat it with little respect. But once desperation fell upon him Oliver made the mistake of mistreating the rules of the parish one afternoon, asking for more food. Oliver needed the food, but instead was locked up into a cage for days until the authorities could figure out a reasonable punishment for Oliver (once they had got over the daily matter of eating and gossiping, which was how Dickens portrayed them to be). He exposed the authorities to be very arrogant about their position in society. The board reached a conclusion to sell Oliver off for a maximum of five pounds to any willing worker who fitted their ‘category’ of who could handle Oliver. So he accompanied Mr. Sowerberry and his colleagues in the experience of undertaking. He was still mistreated to the point of wanting to run away being beaten, mocked and allowed little amounts of food. Dickens showed even more so in this chapter of Oliver’s life that the conditions the middle class laid upon the orphan’s was still the same misfortune no matter how kind they seamed at first, like Mr. Sowerburry. Mr. Sowerbury gained respect by the board at the parish, therefore being able to buy Oliver in the first place, but as he is opened up by Charles in what he did and thought Mr. Sowerbury was shown to still think less of Oliver because he was an orphan and not treat him normally.
The events that Oliver had been forced into pushed him away and he escaped from the workshop where Mr. Sowerberry worked. He planned to go to London and find a true, well-paid job that he’d heard about from his friends back at the parish. Along the way he met a kind young man who seamed to have the answer to his problems named the artful dodger not knowing what he wanted Oliver for at the time. This life he had stumbled across led him to receive much more hard to handle situations and started to show Dickens’ first half of planning Oliver’s good and bad events starting with the worst. The artful dodger covers his true identity with ‘mask’ of kindness and care towards Oliver making him feel welcome and at home, but along with his teacher, Fagin, they lead Oliver into a circle of crime and deceit.
Oliver’s first expedition into the market to work was with the Dodger and Charlie, who had a very sulky and slow way of going about it. He was unsure about what they did, but found out soon enough when they’d planted the things they had stolen on Oliver and darted out of view. Only to return when he was accused by the gentleman at the bookstall of stealing and help chase Oliver along with the rest of the crowd whom thought him to be the thief. He was taken to the nearby prison escorted with the victim of the crime called Mr. Brownlow. Oliver was immediately sentenced to some considerable amount of time in prison for his crime by another of Dickens’ fat authorities who sat giving sentences to undeserved orphans and children all day whilst eating and drinking all day. At the time Oliver felt like his life was over, as he was already worryingly ill but at the moment he was executed to this punishment the owner of the bookstall, who had retired leaving another soul in charge of the stall, darted in explaining the story to its fullest confessing Oliver to be innocent.
The character of Mr. Brownlow in Dickens’ novel was his response to the cruel disheartening bias towards orphans and the poor, he was what Dickens planned to be himself, and how he planned everyone else to be too and started his bend in events towards the good side of life for Oliver. Brownlow gave off a kindhearted warmth toward Oliver and treated him as if he were his own son taking him in to be cared for. The good treatment Oliver was receiving took him by some surprise as he had never thought it could be possible to find this sort of comfort and did all he could to please Mr. Brownlow to repay that favor. But before long he found the perfect opportunity to please him by taking some novels back to a stall for Mr. Brownlow just before dark. He had thought that his troubles of Sykes and Fagin were far behind now, but the criminal underworld left him trapped in the circle of pick pocketing so whilst he stepped outside to repay his dept to Mr. Brownlow Sykes was waiting along with Nancy in the courtyard where Oliver was staying. At first glance of him dragged him into sidewalks and dark corridors convincing others that Oliver’s struggles where because of his illness. Again Dickens is arranging his circumstances in the book by showing good and evil aren’t far off and that Oliver is torn between the two at times, unable to escape from the bad.
Again the events that Oliver is passed are not as good as he would’ve liked. His recent re-uniting with Sykes and his friend Toby Crackit left him with the threat of death or a record of crime forever. They forced Oliver to assist in a robbery that only Oliver could carry out the first deed to or kill him on site if he refused. But the house they chose to thieve from took it into their own hands after hearing the entry of Oliver were he forced his way through a small window and injured him in a series of frantic shootings trying to get the robbers out of their property. But as Dickens was arranging the events for Oliver another good chapter in Oliver’s life was soon to come around when the house that he had actually burgled was his relative and her friend who nurtured him back to health hearing his tragic life in crime.
Oliver’s circumstances found him again returning to middle-class life and finding out the parts of his he’d missed such as his relatives, and how he came to be an orphan. The point that Dickens’ wanted to show was the real ‘criminals’ who treated the orphan's with little care got their proper sentence in life as Mr. and Mrs. Bumble were forced into a life in the workhouse that they had given all the paupers the hard time in to get them back for their mistakes. The fact was that if society hadn’t frowned upon incidents with pregnancy and marriage then paupers and orphans wouldn’t exist as much as they did.
