>> From the extract we can understand that Oliver Twist is a nine years old child. He has a diminutive thin stature and a small circumference even if he has a good robust spirit. He doesn't have a home as a matter of fact he lives in an “establishment”, an institution where poor people lived and worked.

>> The “establishment” is a workhouse, an institution where poor people unable to support themselves lived and worked. They were places of hard ship and degeneration where families were divided, there was little food and conditions were uncomfortable.

Comprehension

>> The children are in the room in which they usually eat, a large stone hall with a large metal container for boiling things. Here there are also the master “dressed in an apron” assisted by one or two women.

>> When the children have finished eating, they polished their bowls with spoons till the bowls shore again. After this operation they sat in front of the copper with “such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed”.

>>The children suffered the tortures of starvation so decided that Oliver after the dinner went to the master and asked him more food.

>> The master, beadle and board were both surprised from Oliver's unusual request. We can understand their reaction from these sentences: “There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance”.

Interpretation

>> Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens presents the situation of children in workhouses, about this I am a little bit sad because the reality that children were forced to live is not suitable to the cultural and personal development of the child.

>> Main features of Dickens' style:

example of contrasts: “excellent appetites”; “hungry eyes” ; “long grace.. short commons” ; “alarmed.. temerity” ; “general start.. horror”

examples of hyperbole: “this festive composition” ; “he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next to him” ; “but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small..”

example of repetition: “the boys polished them.. boys have generally excellent appetites.. the boys took their places.. the boys whispered to each other” ; “I want some more.. I want some more.. for more!”

>>The novelist sympathize with the boys and not with the board as a matter of fact we can notice that when he speaks about the board he uses contrasts and hyperboles.

>> Type of narrator: 3rd person omniscient narrator

>> This type of narrator knows everything about the characters even what they think.

>> The novelist's serious aim in telling the episode in my opinion is to denounce the reality that poor people had to face everyday in workhouses.