Oliver Twist :: essays research papers

Oliver TwistBy Charles DickensOliver Twist provides insight into the sleep with of the unworthy in 1830s England. Beneath the novels raucous caprice and flights of fancy runs an undertone of bitter criticism of the Victorian middle fellowships attitudes toward the poor. Oliver is a near perfect example of the hypocrisy and venality of the legal system, workhouses, and middle class moral values and marriage practices of 1830s England.As a child, Dickens endured the savage conditions of poverty. His family was imprisoned for debt, and Dickens was forced to work in a pulverisation at age twelve. These experiences haunted him for the rest of his life. The misery of his childhood is a recurrent theme in his novels. Oliver Twist expresses the unfortunate situation of the divest child. Oliver suffers the cruelty of hypocritical workhouse officials, prejudiced judges, and hardened criminals. Throughout the novel, his virtuous disposition survives the unbelievable misery of his situa tion.Olivers experiences demonstrate the legal silence and invisibility of the poor. In 1830s England, wealth determined voting rights. Therefore, the poor had no say in the laws that governed their lives, and the Poor Laws strictly regulated the ability to seek relief. Since begging was illegal, workhouses were the scarce sources of relief. The workhouses were made to be deliberately unpleasant in order to warn the poor from seeking their relief. The Victorian middle class assumed that the poor were uncontroleable due to their state of nature and immorality. Since the poor had no voting rights, the province chose to recognize their existence only when they commited crimes, died, or entered the workhouses.Dickens Oliver Twist is one pitying portrayal among dozens of vicious, stereotypical portrayals of the poor. However, Dickens himself exhibits middle class prejudice. He reproduces the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes in Fagin, the "villainous old Jew." The portrayal of N oah Claypole, the grimy charity boy, reveals some of the stereotypes of the poor that Dickens criticizes.