The text consists of the second part of an extract taken from the novel “Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens, and it can be divided into two parts: the fact (vv. 21-32) and the reaction (vv. 40-52).

The first part consists of a description in which there are shown to the reader both the terrible conditions of life in the workhouse and children’ voracity: “The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery”.

The second one, which is a dialogic part, consists of the reaction. Oliver’s  request has shocked the master, who  paralyzed the assistants with wonder and the boys with fear. So it was organized a board in solemn conclave to judge Oliver’s rebellious act and everyone believed that he would be hang or something like that. At the end of that, 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.”

In conclusion, Dickens uses the external and omniscient narrator to have the possibility to judge each happening and decide if it is “wrong” or “good”. So the narrator, in his description is pity for the children, and he stresses and mocks the adults’ reaction: for a simple request of a hungry child, it had been assembled a “solemn conclave” and Oliver had been offered to anybody who wants to take him.