Essay/Term paper: Oliver twist: summary

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist: Summary


I Content - Characterizations

Oliver Twist - A loving, innocent orphan child; the son of Edwin Leeford and
Agnes Fleming. He is generally quiet and shy rather than aggressive. Oliver's
affectionate nature, along with his weakness and innocence, earn him the pity
and love of the good people he meets. Dicken's choice of Oliver's name is very
revealing, because the boy's story is full of "twists" and turns. Dickens uses
his skills at creating character to make Oliver particularly appealing.

Mr. Bumble - The parish beadle; a rat man and a choleric with a great idea of
his oratorical powers and his importance. He has a decided propensity for
bullying. He derived no inconsiderable pressure from the exercise of petty
cruelty and consequently was a coward. Halfway through the book, Bumble changes.
When he marries Mrs. Corney, he loses authority. She makes all the decisions.

The Artful Dodger - A talented pickpocket, recruiter, cheat and wit. Jack
Dawkins, known as the artful dodger, is a charming rogue. Fagin's most esteemed
pupil. A dirty snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy (short for his age).
Dickens makes Dodger look more appealing by describing his outrageous clothes
and uninhibited manners.

Fagin - A master criminal, whose specialty is fenang (selling stolen property).
He employs a gang of thieves and is always looking for new recruits. He is a
man of considerable intelligence, though corrupted by his self-interest. His
conscience bothers him after he is condemned to hang. He does have a wry sense
of humor and an uncanny ability to understand people. He's a very old
shrivelled Jew, whose villainous looking repulsive face was obscured by a
quantity of matted red hair.

Mr. Brownlow - A generous man, concerned for other people. A very respectable
looking person with a heart large enough for any six ordinary old gentleman of
humane disposition.

Bill Sikes - A bully, a robber and a murderer. He is an ally of Fagin. Fagin
plans the crimes and Sikes carries them out. Sike's evil is so frightening
because it is so physical. He is compares to a beast. A stoutly built fellow
with legs that always look like they are in an unfinished and incomplete state
without a set of fetters to garnish them.

Monks - Also known as Edward Leeford (son of Edwin Leeford and his legal
wife).Oliver's half brother. He wants to destroy Olivers chance of inheriting
their fathers estate. Monks is a stock villain, lurking in shadows and uttering
curses with a sneer. He lacks family love and moral upbringing. He is a tall,
dark blackguard, subject to fits of cowardice and epilepsy.

Nancy - She is the hapless product of the slums, the pupil of Fagin, and the
abused mistress of Sikes. Although she is a prostitute and an accomplice of
crooks, she has the instincts of a good person. She is part of a few of the
most memorable scenes (when she visits Fagin's Den, when she waits for Bill to
come home or when she meets with Rose Maylie and Brownlow to help save Oliver).
She is untidy and free in manner, but there was something of the woman's
original nature left in her still.

Rose Maylie - On the surface, Rose is very different from Nancy. Both were
orphans, but Rose grew up secure and protected. She is compassionate to Oliver,
but unlike Nancy, rose is innocent of the evils of the world. Dickens makes
clear that she is a pure flower. Agnes Flemings younger sister, thus Oliver's
aunt. Accepted as Mrs. Maylie's niece: later becomes her daughter-in-law.

Sally Thingummy - A pauper, nurses Oliver's mother. She steals the locket and
ring that holds the key to the oprhans identity.
Agnes Flemming - Oliver's mother; daughter of a retired naval officer.
She left home in shame and died when her illegitimate son was born.
Mr. Sowerberry - An undertaker; He accepts Oliver as an apprentice
mourner. He is forced by his wife's cruelty to abuse the boy until Oliver runs
away.
Noah Claypolea - Charity boy. He torments Oliver. He is employed by
Fagin, under the alias of Bolter, and spies on Nancy. He ends up as a police
informer.
Charley Bates - He belongs to Fagin's gang. He is so disgusted by
Sike's evil ways that he gives up crime and becomes a farmer.

Bet - Her full name is Betsy. She is required to identify Nancy's corpse.
Fang - A police magistrate and represents the worst abuses of judicial
power. A lean long-backed, stiff-necked, middle-sized man, with no great
quantity of hair.

Mrs. Bedwin - She is Brownlow's housekeeper. She cares for Oliver and provides
his first real mothering, when Brownlow rescues him from Fang.

Mr. Grimwig - He is Brownlow's friend. He has a tender heart under his gruff
exterior and joins the effort to secure Oliver's inheritance after initially
doubting the boy.

Toby Crackit - A house breaker who works with Sikes.

Mrs. Corney (later Mrs. Bumble) - She runs the workhouse where Oliver was born.
A greedy person, she retrieves Agnes Flemings treasures from Old Sally and sells
them to Monks.

Dr. Losberne - The Maylies's physician. He is part of the group that insures
Olivers future. He has grown fat, more from good humor than from good living.

Henry (Harry) Maylie - He loves Rose and wants to marry her, but she refuses
because she believes she is illegitimate and therefore might hurt his chances to
win elections. To win Rose, Henry gives ups a political career and becomes a
clergyman.

II Content - Setting


The major action of Oliver Twist moves back and forth between two
worlds: The filthy slums of London and the clean, comfortable house of Brownlow
and the Maylies. The first world is real and frightening. While the other is
idealized, almost dreamlike, in its safety and beauty. The world of
London is a world of crime. Things happen there at night, in dark alleys and in
abandoned, dark buildings. You can find examples of this (in the book) in
Chapter XV, when Oliver is kidnapped and then again in Chapter XXVI, when Fagin
meets Monks. Such darkness suggests that evil dominates this world. Dickens
often uses weather conditions to aid in setting a scene.
In Oliver Twist, bad things happen in bad weather. In contrast
to Fagin's London, the sunlit days and fragrant flowers of the Maylies cottage
or the handsome library at Brownlow's teem with goodness and health.

III Critical Observations - Style

Dickens uses lots of symbolism in this book. One use is the allusion to
obesity, which in an inverse way, symbolizes hunger by calling
attention to its absence. It is interesting to observe the large number of
characters who are corpulent. Those who may be considered prosperous enough to
be reasonably well fed pose a symbolic contrast to poverty and undernourishment.
For example, the parish board is made up of "eight or ten fat gentleman";
the workhouse master is a "fat, healthy man"; Bumble is a "portly person";
Giles is fat and Brittles "by no means of a slim figure"; Mr. Losberne is
"a fat gentleman"; and one of the Bow street runners is "a portly man".
Other uses are how evil people are described as dangerous animals or
as typical stage villains. The weather is usually cold and rainy when
bad things happen.

IV Critical Observations - Audience and Diction

Most of the language may seem stilted and artificial because there are
long, winding sentences full of colons, semicolons, and parentheses.
Dicken's language can also be very sentimental. For example; the love
scenes between Rose and Henry or the description of Oliver at the
beginning of Chapter XXX. though Dickens was trying to describe the world
realistically, the language doesn't always show how people in the slums
talked. Not even Sikes uses four-letter words. Explicit sexual scenes
are left out too. Dickens wanted Oliver Twist to appeal to as wide an
audience as possible, and he didn't want to offend his readers. On the
otherhand, Dickens uses some street slang, especially the slang of
thieves, which adds a distinct flavor to the story. For example; look
at the way the Artful Dodger talks and the way Oliver Twist talks.
Oliver isn't hard to understand.

V Content

What is the author's attitude in presenting males, females and or
minorities?

Charles Dickens presents the women in the story as varieties of things.
For example: whores, barmaids, thieves and housekeepers. There is
such a diversity, but most are compassionate at some point. The men were
also very diverse. Fagin and all his gang of thieves has little regard
to anyone or anything. Fagin's red hair links him to descriptions of Judas,
the betrayer of Jews. To Victorian readers, the fact that he is a Jew would
have indicated that he was greedy, alienated and unsympathetic to modern
readers, it may just mean that he's been a victim of prejudice.

VI Content - Interesting Incidents

There are two bold things that change Olivers life and thus change the
book. The first is: At the workhouse, when he asks for more food.
The second is: when he's an apprentice, he beats up Noah Claypole and runs
away. After those incidents, most of the things that happen to him are out
of his control. In the first incident, Dickens focuses on the inadequate
diet of the youngsters in the parish's care to suggest a whole range of
mistreatment. Not only in this chapter, but ion the ones that follow. If
Oliver didn't run away, than he would never have met Faginor any of his gang.