Analysis "Oliver wants some more"

This extract is taken from the second chapter of the novel Oliver Twist written by Charles Dickens. It is about social problems of Dickens' time, during which there were many social inequities and few rights for workers. Particularly it is about the conditions of working children, very used at the time because easily usable in every job. The scene takes place in a workhouse where Oliver Twist lives with many other boys. The boys are very unlucky because are forced to many injustices.

The text can be organized into three sections: the first is the introduction (vv. 1-22), the second is the fact (vv. 23-39) and the last the reaction (vv. 40-67). The introduction is about the condition of Oliver and his friends, obliged to suffer a bad inequities and violence for three months. One night a boy threats to eat the boy who slept next him. The situation is serious therefore is convened a meeting among the boys. Someone had to ask to the master for more food: it is chosen Oliver Twist. The second part is a precise description: it is the moment of the dinner, Dickens describes each character and every role; Oliver is encouraged to come forward but his rebellion is a failure. The last part is the reaction. Oliver's request has shocked the master who brings Oliver to judge by the director of the reformatory. Finally the director of the workhouse, Mr. Limbkins, decided to offer a reward of five pounds to “anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of parish.”

It follows that the story developed into three parts: narration, description and dialogue. The description can be divided into two more parts. The first is the description of a very poor and cold room where the boys were fed. The second is about boys and their condition: Dickens makes a very detailed description of the hunger children, obliged to a “slow starvation for three months”. The description is very detailed because he wants to show to the reader the terrible condition of life in the workhouses. He wants to create pity in the reader so he uses two techiniques: pathos and the grottesque. He uses pathos to arose pity and he uses an exaggerated language to create a grottesque effect. He plays irony to criticized the living condition of the children. He uses metaphorycal and rethorical language like synecdoche and assonance. Dickens uses the external and omniscient narrator therefore the reader has the liberty to judge if the events of history are fair or bad.