Exercises about the extract from Oliver Twist

1)    Read the text and briefly summarise what happens.

Oliver Twist lives with other boys in a workhouse. They are hungry because of the poor feeding. They decide to try to ask for more, so they extract the name of the boy who would face the trial. Oliver Twist is cast. As he, after dinner, asks for more, the master (Mr Bumble) immediately informs the board (especially Mr Liblinks).

2)    Now focus on Dickens’ realistic view of the scene.

• Which aspects of the scene strike you as being taken from real life?

The more realistic aspects are the children’s hunger and their attitude between themselves and against their tutors.

• Which group of characters do you think the writer sides with? Give reasons for your choice.

I think the writer sides with the children, because he underlines their brave behaviour, while he condemns the master’s avidity and ridicules his aspect and his attitudes.

• What do you think the main target of the writer’s criticism is?

I think the main target of criticism are the men who rule the workhouse, represented in the text by Mr Bumble.

• Can the reader form a different opinion from the narrator’s? Explain why or why not.

I think the reader can not form a different opinion from the narrator, because the scene is filtered by the narrator’s point of view, which emerges through characterizations.

3)    Focus on language and style.

a.    Consider the general condition/feelings before Oliver’s request. What detail/s has/have a humorous effect in spite of the tragic condition of the children?

The children’s behaviour (whispers, nudges), the poor soup in opposition to the long prayer and little Oliver in opposition to fat Mr Bumble.

b.    Mark the various characters’ reactions after Oliver’s request. What device have been used to describe these reactions?

He uses hyperbole.

c.     Find some more examples from the text for the other features listed above (juxtaposition of tragic and comic details, hyperbole, ridiculing through repetition).

In the first scene there is a juxtaposition of tragic and comic details, while in the request scene the ridiculing is rendered through repetition.