C. Dickens - Oliver Twist: Analyses

Oliver Twist is C. Dickens’ first novel (1837-38) and it speaks about the ill-treatment of children in the workhouse of the Victorian Age. One of them is Oliver Twist.

Oliver is an orphan brought up in a workhouse, who suffered starvation and ill-treatment, as some other boys who lived with him. In order to escape from this situation, the children held a council, lots were cast who should walk up to the master and ask for more food. It fell to Oliver Twist. But the request was not satisfied.

Oliver Twist’s character is an example of the poverty caused by the Industrial Revolution during the Victorian Age. According to the Victorian novel, the novelist uses pathos to describe the children (it implies a partial identification with them), and the grotesque to describe the adults (it provides a projection screen for the lower middle class, which caused the urban poverty).

In addition of that, comes to surface a 3^rd person omniscient intrusive narrator, who doesn’t let the reader create himself his own ideas about the events.