Analysis of the Extract Oliver Wants Some More from Oliver Twist by C. Dickens

The extract is taken from the second chapter of Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist, published in installments between 1837 and 1838. The title refers to the main character, a poor child who lives in a workhouse. The word "twist" means also "change": the reader may think that Oliver will do something to change his life or that something will happen to him and will change his life.
The setting of the extract is a workhouse. In the first part of it the main character, Oliver Twist, is presented. The narrator provides the reader of some information about him: he is nine years old and he is very thin and pale, but he has a strong will. There is a reference to C. Darwin's theories, very important in this period: the narrator says that nature or inheritance provided Oliver of his strong will, and it is the element that has been helping the child to survive. Talking about Oliver's will, the narrator uses also irony, because he says that his will can occupy much place in Oliver because he eats too little food. In this way the writer says Oliver is hungry without telling it directly.
Going on reading the extract, the reader understands that the child is in a coal cellar, with two other children, ironically defined "gentlemen". They were hit as punishment and then compelled to stay here because they said that they were hungry. This element shows the violence in workhouses towards he who does not respect rules and wants more. So the function of the first part of the extract is to introduce the main character and the situation of children in workhouses.
In the second part of the extract the setting changes: it is introduced the place where the children have supper in the workhouse. Children are having meal-time under the supervision of another character, the master of the workhouse, Mr Bumble, who serves food, that consists in gruel. The narrator reveals that they eat something more only in particular occasions, as public celebrations. Using irony, the narrator says that it is not necessary to wash spoons and bowls because children polishe them: it shows their poor conditions and their hungry, underlined by the sight of desire that they throw towards the cauldron.
The narrator reveals that they have been being so hungry since three months so children decide to ask for more food and Oliver Twist is chosen to do it. Before dinner children pray: it underlines the religious feature of the Victorian society. The narrator uses also here irony: the long pray is in opposition to the "short commons" they have to eat.
After dinner that evening Oliver goes to the master and asks him for more food. Here the writer describes the master: he is a fat and healty man: the reader understands that he does not suffer of starvation because of his position in the workhouse. It is interesting also his reaction to Oliver's request: he turns very pale and it underlines man's surprise but also his fear. Oliver is here defined "the small rebel" to show his behaviour goes against the workhouse rules, that establish to make living people in the worse condition as possible in order to discourage laziness.
The master, after surprise, reacts with violence, hitting the child with the ladle and helding him with his strong arm.
In the third part the scene changes again: the directors of the workhouse are meeting in a room when suddenly Mr Bumble enters and announces Oliver Twist's request. It is possible to understand that Mr Limbkins is the chairman because of Mr Bumble's behaviour towards him. The directors are distraught by the notice: it underlines again the danger of the child's action and the eventual riots in the workhouse after it. One of the man in the room says that Oliver will be hunged: it is a prophecy about Oliver's future, because criminals and rebels are condamned to be hunged in this period.
The function of this last part is to show that people who rebel to society rules is considered, by the Victorian society, a criminal that wants to destroy the natural order and that must be eliminated in order to preserve it.

Oliver Twist, the main character, is introduced throughout the categories of the name, the surname, the age, the health and the behaviour. The reader is addressed by the narrator to symphatize with the child, but at the same time he finds a distance between writer's rethorical language (that underlines the Victorian contradictions) and the described situation: this causes the laught.
The narrator is a third person omniscient narrator, that leads the reader in the novel. He uses simple language (novels were read during the Victorian age mainly by the lower middle class), but there is also the use of rethorical language and of irony.

In the extract the writer wants to show to the middle and lower middle class readers the terrible conditions of living of children who live in workhouses, probably with the hope they will do something to change the situation.