CHARLES DICKENS

Life

Due to his fathers imprisonment for debts, he became the only source of living for his family. He started working in a blacking factory and that was for sure both a dramatic event and a way to understand better the society of his time.

Works

The Pickwick Papers; David Copperfield; Oliver Twist; A Christmas Carol; Hard Times;

Oliver Twist

PLOT: Oliver Twist is an orphan who lives in a workhouse. After the other boys one day force him to ask for more soupe at the end of the meal, the parish beadle offers 5 pounds to anyone who will take the boy away. Oliver runs away and after a series of disadventures arrives in London. Here he finds a benefactor, Fagin, who offers him a place to stay. Fagin is actually a criminal who trains orphans to become pickpockets. So after a period of training, Oliver is sent on one of these missions. Oliver tries to steal a handkerchief from a rich man, but hes terrified and runs away. Although he is caught and, convicted of the theft, he is forced to live in the house of Mr Brownlow, the man whose the handkerchief was stolen. Olivers happy here, but hes captured by two of Fagins gang, Bill Sikes and his girlfriend Nancy. While Oliver is in a burglary with Sikes, Hes shot by a servant of the house and he is taken by the inhabitants of the house. Oliver spends a serene summer there in the countryside, but Fagin and a mysterious man named Monks manage to capture hima gain. Its discovered, in fact, that Olivers mother had left him a gold locket that MOnks wants to destroy. So Nancy tries to explain FAgins plan to the sweet Rose, who now lives with Oliver, but when shes found, shes killed by Sikes himself. Mr Brownlow is now reunited with Oliver and were able to find the truth about the orphan. Olivers mother, Agnes, had a love affair with a married rich man, whos also the father of Monks, and this is the reason why he wanted to destroy the gold locket which would have forced him to split the inheritance with his half-brother. In the end we also find that Rose is actually Olivers aunt and hes adopted by Mr Brownlow. They go to live their happy endings in the countryside.

Dickens criticises first of all the Victorian policy towards the poors. According to the Poor Laws, in fact, when families could not afford enough living, children were declared destitute

and forced to live in workhouses, run by charitable organisations or parish beadles. Workhouses moved from the idea of poverty as a evil and a consequence of laziness, and almost reproduced the same appalling living conditions in which children would have lived in any case. They recevied, in fact, barely enough food and clothing to survive.

All the injustices and violences seem to find their origin in the city. In Dickenss idealised countryside, on the other hand, the poor are free from the squalor of their own conditions. In the end of the novel Oliver moves in the countryside with his new family, as if a happy ending could only have been found there.

Dickens uses Oliver to challange the Victorian idea that poor and criminals are evil at birth, showing the corrupt environment as the real source of evil.

As most of Dickenss novels, Oliver Twist is based on false identities and the rivelation of real ones. Thanks to a twist of fate, were able to understand the real identities and the characters are able to find their own happy ending.

Coketown is the town described by Dickens in Hard Times. It represents the typical Victorian town and it is characterized by alienation, standardization and homologation. We can see this by the structure of the town, by its appereance, but also by its citizens.