OLIVER WANT SOME MORE

In the Victorian age childhood was generally a cruente experience. Poor children were obligated to work in factories and minies or as domestic servants. Dickens was obsessed by children, indeed he presented them like poor innocents, or, on the other hand, corrupted by adults. The writer’s nostalgia for the innocence of childhood is a critique of the oppressions associated with the word of adults. Indeed, the novel “Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens reflects the economic insecurity and humiliation that the writer experienced when he was a child. Oliver was a poor boy of unknown parents, he is brought up in a workhouse in an inhuman way. Throghout the story, Oliver Twist is kidnapped by a gang and forced to commit burglary. It is a middle class fmily that adopts Oliver. At the end, investigations are made about who the boy is and it is discovered he has noble origins.

It is an extract by Charles Dickens’ novel “Oliver Twist”.

In the first lines the narrator describes the room he is talking about. It’s meal time; children are going to receive their meal. It is a workhouse: a place where poor children without possibilities were welcomed. The master with two women are going to serve the meal to the children.

From the text, the intelligent reader can understand that the tradition in this house is to serve just one poor meal a day to the boys: every child can have just one cup of porridge; they could not have some more, except on occasions of public rejoicing (like Christmas for example).

The narrator is telling us that the boys are so much hungry and as a result when they receive some food they lick at all. “Had performed this operation” is little retorically → it is talking about the children who clean their cups of porridge licking them for hungry. Charles Dickens isused the verb “to perform”: it is a very unusual word near the meaning “clean a cup”. People from this word could expect a big and complicate operation, not just “to clean a cup”.

Moreover, the cup of food is very small, and this could be understood by the use of language:”splashing” is an onomathopeia, Dickens uses irony (it could not be splashes because it was not so much food; the spoons were big just like cups). The “operation” make the reades think to a big operation while eating a cup of porridge was a simple operation that children ultimate very quickly. That use of language express irony, exagerations. Dickens wanted to play irony because wanted to criticize the bad conditions of nutrition (and society more in general) of children. In order to make this, he uses retorical and metaphorical language and he plays irony (everithing seems to be exagerated).This use of language gives to Dickens the opportunity to alleviate the critique through the hyperbolic use of language (through pathos and the grotesque → exagerations).

So, Dickens ridicules the bed conditions of children and criticize the society. He uses the present conditional WOULD SIT to indicate an habit of the past; another way to express it is to use the form TO BE USED TO. Dicken uses many strong words to emphatize and ridiculize the concept. The children’s mechanical actions also contributes to depersonalize them: starvation prevents them to express themselves like an ordinary child would. However, there is an exception: “one boy, who was tall for his age” said that he wanted a double portion of food.

The children’s organization to face the problem is once again a link to industry: more specifically, it may be a reference to organizations of workers meant to face the masters. The boy chosen to ask for a second portion of food is Oliver Twist. The reaction provided is that of Mr. Bumble: it is characterized both physically and verbally in a quite exaggerated way, making Oliver’s request looks like a scandal. Dickens uses the grotesque to emphasize the situation trough the hyperbolic use of language and exaggerations. In particular, it seems that Oliver broke the order that ruled the workhouse.

It is also interesting to notice the contrast between adults condition (“the gentlemen in the high chair”, “waistcoast”→ all words that reflects a high social status) and children condition (“dietary”).

PORTION=porzione

SUCH EAGER EYES=con gli occhi così ansiosi → assonanza (ripetizione di vocali)

PORRINGER=Dickens ha agiunto ER ad un nome, per fare un gioco linguistico per rendere divertente il testo.

BREAD BESIDES=allitterazione (ripetizione di consonanti)