C. Dickens, Oliver Twist
Oliver wants some more – analysis

The topics of the extract are the poverty and the bad conditions of childhood in living in an hospice. Dickens wants to show the poor classes’ reality to the reader, demonstrating his awareness in the social problems of his time as well as in the narrative techniques of fiction.   
First of all, the setting described by the novelist in introducing the extract is very poor and lacks of details. Indeed, the reader knows in short only one room, a large stone hall, with a copper at one end. The description of the dining room introduces the reader in an atmosphere of poverty, shortage and sacrifice. 
This suggestion is then confirmed by the following narration of meal-times. Indeed, the novelist introduces also a the narrative technique of irony: the expressions festive composition and two ounces and a quarter of bread besides, apparently positive, sounds like a mockery in the atmosphere where the reader is transported. 
Alternating mere descriptions and irony, the novelist helps the reader to imagine the situation. For example, the idea that the boys used to licking the porringers and their fingers, with the aim of catching up any stray splashes of gruel, conveys very well the great sense of hungry that the boys may have felt. Indeed it is conveyed also by the contrast between the excessive economy of the setting and the great voracity of the young boys. The last aspect has a relevant role in the final part of the first sequence, in which the novelist introduce the situation. The image of the boy who could eat one of his friends because of his hunger connotes in a macabre way all the lacks of those boys forced to starvation.
This is the reason why the boys asked to Oliver Twist, after an extraction, to demand for bigger rations. The second sequence is made up by Oliver’s request and his banish. The novelist characterizes Oliver as a child, with the aim to use Oliver as an example for all the childhood. Indeed he uses the expression child as he was to justify his desperation and his hunger as well as his imprudence. In this characterization there is also something sad, probably thanks to connotation of a desperate child, while a child might be carefree.
The novelist gives to his novel a sense of dry wit: the excessive reactions of adults at Oliver’s request are both unnatural and fun and incredible and said. Indeed, the fat master turned very pale and was astonished, as well as his assistants paralyzed. Even  a solemn board was summoned to judge Oliver’s actions. Finally, Oliver Twist was offered to anyone who wanted an apprentice to anything. This reactions, that the novelist proficiently imagine with humor, makes the reader reflecting on how the poor boys’ life was hard in that time.
In conclusion, the themes debate and the narrative strategies used by Dickens are the typical one of a new type of novel, the social novel, in which the novelist tries to give to the reader an picture of what living at the time meant for the poor social classes. Using irony as a way to unload the situations, but also grim and strong images to conveys well the ideas of poverty and sacrifice, the novelist recreates in the contemporary reader’s mind the situation of his time, leaving him in a state of reflection.