Analysis according to the section  "Interpretation" page 341

The extract is taken from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. The novel deals with the problems of Victorian society. As a great writer, Dickens is able to use language in order to speak about problems and criticize the society in which he lives in an implicit way, respecting the orthodox standards of the Victorian system.
The protagonist of the novel is an orphan who is compelled to live in a work house. His characterization regards hi physical appearance, since it introduces the reader to the topic of the extract , that is, famine.
Oliver Twist is very thin, pale and weak: as his mates, he is not fed properly in the factory and life is really hard for him.
The third person omniscient narrator guides the reader in Oliver Twist's drama. Using the grotesque, that is, hyperboles "he might happen to eat the boy near him" and exaggerations "spoons being nearly as large as the bowls" he puts into focus the bad conditions of the children, so that the one who reads the novel takes distance from the text (Oliver Twist's conditions are worse than his) with a clear conscience. It seems as if they were animals: they suck their fingers and become aggressive because of hunger. Even if the protagonist politely asks "for more", the beadle cannot accept such a request and he replies that Oliver's deed will be heavily punished.
The narrator focuses on details and uses a rhetoric language to speak about a downgraded reality, a hierarchical system in which there was nothing to do but obey the chiefs. The group of young orphans is a metonymy of the whole working class in the Victorian novel: they were the oppressed and, despite Darwinism, puritanism and utilitarianism, they could not improve their condition.