OLIVER TWIST

Oliver wants some more

The object of the present text is to provide my personal analysis and interpretation of an extract belonging to Oliver Twist chapter 2.

It is not meant to give a definitive and unique analysis but I am going to make some possible conjectures supported by textual references.

To start with, Charles Dickens was an English writer with an unhappy childhood.

Oliver Twist is one of the most important novel written by him between the 1837 and 1839. 

Considering the title, the intelligent reader understands it is a personal name therefore he asks himself who Oliver Twist is and why the narrator decided to give the novel his name. Anyway he may assume the novel is about Oliver Twist’s life who had probably do something important or unusual which allowed him to be remembered. While considering the title of the chapter “Oliver wants some more” the reader asks himself what is the thing Oliver wants more.

Moving on with the analysis, in order to find if the reader’s expectations were correct or not it is important to consider the extract’s structure.

The extract could be divide into three sequences: the first one has an introductory function indeed there is explained child workers’ life condition, where they live and how they eat, in the second one there are exposed these conditions’ consequences and the third one is a statement of the rigid conditions in which they have to live.

Starting from the first sequence it underline the novel’s extract is set in a workhouse, a place were poor people and workers could stay, in which people have to follow some rigid rules and to live in orribile conditions, as it is clear from Dickens’ acute and detailed descriptions. In addition to make clear the terrible conditions the narrator also used expressions as “ the bowl never wanted washing”, “to have devoured”, “in sucking their fingers” which underline they have very little food and they have to live in the dirt. Moreover, through the sentence “.. out of which the master, and assisted by one or two women..”, it comes to life men’s dominant role above women, who had to stay under men’s control and decisions. 

Moving now to the second sequences, which is also impregnated with expressions that reveal the terrible condition in which children were forced to live such as “they suffered the tortures of slow starvation..” and “they got so voracious and wild with hunger”, the consequences of this life style come to the surface: indeed children are very hungry to become cannibals. In addition there it is nominated Oliver Twist as the child who have to ask to their master, more food. There the reader could answer to his questions and discover who Oliver Twist is and why the title is “Oliver wants some more”. Indeed Oliver is a child worker who has to stay in the workhouse and need more food to live.

Finally in the third sequence Oliver Twist reacts to his master, transgressing the rules, asking for more food. As it is obvious he was punished from his superior and sold to anyone who wanted him. Therefore it is clear people in the workhouse could not transgress rules.

Considering now (the) narrative technique (used by the narrator) C. Dickens used a third person narrator who is an omniscient one. He is intrusive and therefore always presents in the scene and he often inter(view)venes  to comment and to express his personal opinion, as it is clear from the incidental sentences placed inside the parenthesis. As a consequence characters do not present themselves( by themselves) but the narrator presented them through accurate descriptions. The descriptions of characters, places and situations are used to make a (visive) visual scene in the reader’s mind in order to clarify the most important aspect. Also if there is a prevalence of telling, there is the direct speech, in particular in the second part, to give voice to characters and to state and to point out what was said in the descriptions: Oliver Twist gives voice to his problem and his master has punished him.

For what concern the rhetorical level, it is an undeniable fact the use of hyperbole to make the terrible condition in which poor people lived (the first sequence is full of hyperbolic expressions), the presence of the onomatopoeia in the eleventh line “splashes” which reminds to the reader the idea a liquid changing its natural conformation and presence of three worlds with double consonant “generally”, “excellent” and “appetites” which may underline how children are hungry. 

In the whole extract Dickens used strong expression to create the scene in order to make reader aware of the time’s social problems and also words such as “stone hall” and “copper” crate the idea of a cold, inhospitable and terrible place. 

He used a lot of words belonging to the semantic field of cooking such as “meal-times”, “gruel”, “porringer”, “bowls”, “devoured”, “appetites”, “hungry”, “cook’s uniform”, “commons” in order to focus the reader’s attention on the main topic of the extract which is also one of the most important social problem of the time. 

According to the narration’s overall effects, it is created a realistic situation which put into focus poor people and worker condition during and after the industrial revolution. It makes the reader reflects about a topic which one of the most important. 

However the novel is comprehensible to everyone and there is any hidden meaning because he wanted all his readers understand problems discussed. 

It follows that all people, acculturate or not, could read and understand it. Anyway it is preferable an intelligent reader able to read between the lines, to create link and to analysis the way in which Dickens speak about a social problem, therefore a reader who is able to identify metaphors, hyperboles, the language of sense impression.

All thing considered I believe Oliver Twist is child exploitation’s symbol, something that is still present today in some countries.

Charles Dickens, using a strong, accurate and detailed language was able to discuss about the problem to make the people know the society in which they lived.