OLIVER TWIST

After a description of the setting Dickens provides us a narrative scene. The scene is setting in a workhouse, and one of the boys has to ask for more food during lunch time and the choice falls on Oliver Twist. The fate chooses Oliver for the mission.

The sentences are marked and shorts: Dickens wants to creates the idea of hesitation and a moment of climax and suspense. The situation recalls for pathos and the grotesque. The grotesque makes the reader laugh and cry for the condition of poor boys. At the same time the technique creates an alibi for Middle class.

All the eyes are focused on Oliver’s figure and wait for his request. The young boy askes for more food.

The successive scenes focuses on the reactions of the cooker. Oliver’s request scandalizes the whole room. Mr.Bumble stays silent and dazzled while the boys are terrorised.

Mr Bumble even askes for “pardon” for the interruption, underlining the typical social difference between classes during the Victorian Age.

Dickens’ uses of irony is strategic because underlines the contradictions typical of the Victorian Age. In this period there are bad living conditions and misery.

Dickens want to denounce indirectly the injustice of the Victorian society.