FinalResearchPaper

Blake Thompson Final Research Paper December 8th, 2015

The Inherent Twist of Oliver

When I was young, probably in about 5th grade, my parents took me to a

theatrical performance in downtown Houston, Tx. I had never seen anything like it. I

remember the building looking like a palace. Red carpet, beautifully expensive décor,

drinks, food in abundance, people dressed in their most expensive clothes talking about

things I couldn’t even understand. It felt as if wealth was oozing from the very walls,

oozing from the very existence of the place and the people residing within. I remember

being amazed at the stage, and the boxes up the side of the theatre for those individuals

who were either wealthier or more connected, to be literally ‘raised’ above the rest. I was

surrounded by wealth, and in hindsight I’m sure I was probably in the very room with

some of the city’s most powerful that night. I was confused about who we were for a

while after that. Were we rich? Were we supposed to be there? Should I act different?

Does this change who I am? In my own childhood innocence I saw us as ‘wealthy’

because my parents were good people, and they worked really hard for what we had.

That was just my experience. My parents sheltered me in a way that allowed me to

develop that philosophy before the realities of the world were revealed to me. You see,

around this time my father’s career really took off. It did affect our lifestyle, but my

parents never allowed it to change us. They had come from humble beginnings, my

father from the farmland and my mother from the isolated small-towns of the Rocky

Mountains. They struggled to make ends meet in college, and in their early adulthood

they really relied on each other. Their life was something they had built together and

they were very proud of that, but they were more proud of ‘the journey’ they had to make

to get there. They made sure that no matter our circumstance, my sister and I’s identity

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remained our own to mold into the kind of people we wanted to be. They didn’t force us

to be someone; they just guided us to be someone good. Above all, no matter the

circumstance, doing the ‘right thing’ was most important. That was drilled into us from a

very young age. My father was the protector and the law, and my mother was the saint.

He preached to always protect the weak and do the right thing, and she always preached

to always help others no matter what. We were strong in who we were as a family, no

matter what life presented us with it always provided us with a core sense of identity. So

you can imagine my frustration sitting in a room with some of the wealthiest individuals

in one of the largest cities in the nation. I was confused. Why did these people have so

much more? Were they better than my parents? Did they do something good to earn this

too? Why were those people up in the booths looking down at me? Why does such a

place exist when we drove through ghettos to get here? Who are we, really? It was the

first time in my early adolescence that I was presented with a confliction of identity. I

was overwhelmed. Then, before I even knew what was happening and in the moment

that I needed him most, Oliver walked onto stage.

The 19th century was a polarizing time for many nation-states around the world.

The French Revolution had just recently come to a close, and many of the liberal ideas

that had spearheaded the revolution were slowly making their way to other parts of the

continent. For Great Britain it was a century of social and political reform, as well as

industrialization. For a majority of the 19th century London would become the largest

city in the world, and the capital of the British Empire. The population grew from

roughly 1 million in 1800 to 6.7 million near the end of the century. London was a center

for world politics, economy, and trade. However the quick expansion of the empire,

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accompanied by a number of other events from the time period, led to a host of

inadequacies and issues for the British public, particularly those viewed to be in the

middle and lower classes. Examples of such conditions are overpopulation, slums,

workhouses, unsanitary living, rampant class disparity, poor labor laws and conditions,

restricted individual rights, and massive immigration. The only people allowed to vote in

Parliament were the elite and royalty. This barred the other classes from proposing or

voting on any legislation that would help to improve their conditions. Society and class

are one of the more central themes in most Dickens novels. He believed that class

structures are very superficial, and that each person is equal regardless of the social class

into which they are born. For example, in Oliver Twist the themes of social class, social

equality, and poverty are intertwined into the very settings, conditions, and characters.

Dickens’s focus was on elevating the status of the deserving poor and helpless, I believe

that he planned the plot in a way that it logically moves through societal class structures

and institutions in order to portray what he felt were some of the largest ‘holes’ in society

during the time period. There was a fundamental break in ideology between the highest

and lowest classes of society that was brought about by the intense class (more

specifically economic) disparity of the period. The break in ideology created a one-way

perception in which the ruling class did not empathize with the lower or working classes.

The purpose of Oliver Twist was to bridge that ideological gap and hopefully offer the

Victorian elite and middle class with some means to explore their sympathy or their

empathy in relation to the lowest classes. This would hopefully eventually reverberate in

both governmental policy and social perceptions to aid in improving the even larger gap

in socioeconomic inequality in Victorian London.

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The largest legal issue of the Victorian period was the implementation of the 1834

New Poor Law; an Act that, for many liberal Victorians seemed to criminalize the poor.

Dickens was a harsh critic of the New Poor Law and he relentlessly attacked the brutal

utilitarian ethics behind it – the belief that the workhouse would act as a deterrent so

fewer people would claim poor relief and thereby the poor rate would reach its ‘correct’

level. In short, the amendment was designed to reduce the cost of looking after

the poor as it stopped money going to the poor except in exceptional circumstances. Now

if people wanted help they had to go into a workhouse to get it. We see in Oliver Twist

that what the New Poor Law actually created was a cycle of poverty, mistreatment, and

oppressed representation within the society’s lowest economic class. Very few

individuals were capable of pulling themselves out of the lower classes because the

established institution prevented them from doing so (1834 Poor Law).

Conditions in the workhouse were often appalling, especially for children.

Boards of Guardians frequently became the legal guardians of orphaned children until

they were old enough to enter employment, usually from the age of fourteen. The great

majority of girls went into domestic service, while boys usually entered into whatever

local employment was offered, in some cases, joined the army or navy. I found a number

of personal testimonies in which the conditions of the workhouses are described. In one

instance, a room called the Infant Nursery is said to house twenty-three children who

appear to be between the ages of two and three. They all sleep in one room, and they

seldom or never go out of this room, either for air or for exercise (Children in the

Workhouse). In Oliver Twist he spends months of his childhood in a room such as this.

The only mention of education in the New Poor Law states, “for three of the working

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hours, at least, every day, be instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, and the principles

of the Christian religion.” Another case claimed that a thirteen year-old girl was beaten

naked with a birch-broom until blood came out. Her offense was that she had committed

was leaving a little dirt in the corner of a room. There are many cases and court rulings

from this time period that deal with the cruelty of children in the workplace. For

whatever reason, a majority of the workhouses operate unchecked, with inadequate

resources and living space for the children. This is the kind of environment into which

Oliver is born, and this is the kind of environment that Dickens absolutely loathes.

Though, as we will discuss, Oliver’s story helps to bring attention to this corrupt

institution (Children in the Workhouse).

Oliver was born in a workhouse, presumably in the late 1820’s. We will see that

Oliver’s story was meant to be a representation of the overpopulation, corruption, crime,

and conditions of Victorian London. Charles Dickens seeks to prove how superficial

societal class structures really are, all while making Oliver’s experiences seem relatable,

righteous, and necessary. Society and class are one of the more central themes in most

Dickens novels. He believed that class structures are very superficial, and that each

person is equal regardless of the social class into which they are born. For example, in

Oliver Twist the themes of social class, social equality, and poverty are intertwined into

the very settings, conditions, and characters. We see this from the first pages of Oliver

Twist. Early in the novel Oliver’s mom is found dead in the street. The circumstances

surrounding her death are somewhat hidden to us since we are viewing the scene through

a child’s perspective, but through close reading we can surmise that it was some type of

prostitution-gone-wrong or perhaps a rape or murder. In either example, it was meant to

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point out the overt criminal activity that was taking place in low-class London during the

period. After his mom is found dead, Oliver is left at the mercy of the parish authorities.

While this makes obvious sense within the storyline, I think it was also a means by which

Dickens describes how many people in the lower classes were often left at the ‘mercy of

the system’, meaning that they had no way to alter the system so that they may alter their

circumstances. The institution of aristocratic government created the cruel and harsh

conditions for the lower classes, and since the middle and lower classes had no

representation in government they had no opportunities to influence reform or new law.

There is the famous scene in the workhouse in which Oliver asks if he can have some

more gruel, and the overseer takes offense. He declares that Oliver ‘will be hung’. I

think this famous scene has a larger implication for the poor of London during this time

period. I believe that Dickens was using this scene to describe how the policymakers

(aristocracy, ruling elites, and royalty) of the time commonly responded when the less

fortunate classes asked for ‘more’; in this scenario ‘more’ stands in for ideas such as

equality, reform, representation, labor laws, and so forth. The political structure of the

time period was very infatuated with themselves and their lifestyles. The wealth in

London was very concentrated, and they were on the ‘right’ side of that, often to the point

that they discredited the conditions of the lower classes, or just paid little or no attention

to them at all. They were self-satisfied, and believed that the policy systems they had in

place to take care of the lower classes were both the most efficient and the most humane.

The workhouses are just the physical manifestation of how the poor are being treated; the

suffering of the Victorian poor can be seen far outside the walls of the workhouses.

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Oliver’s childhood was spent in workhouses and baby farms. He was

institutionalized to be poor and helpless. He was mistreated, objectified, and barely fed.

He was sold as an apprentice to a chimney sweep, and he was sold underpriced because

he ‘wouldn’t last that long’. This was the norm in London at the time. It was a difficult

and bleak existence, and the lower class had been institutionalized to accept it as life. We

can begin to see here why the liberal ideas posed by the French Revolution were so easy

for the English public to make their own. Charles Dickens himself actually lived only

nine doors away from a workhouse, on Norfolk Street. His dad lost all their money

gambling and was thrown in a debtors’ prison and Dickens had to work in a factory,

which scarred him for life, hence the sympathy for the unfortunate and a sense of the

injustice of the laws. Ruth Richardson states that, “the influence of Norfolk Street, the

surrounding area and the workhouse can be found in much of Dickens' literature and

particularly at the heart of Oliver Twist”. She discusses the New Poor Law Act of 1834

and how that Act, paired with the ideology of the ruling elites, made life so brutal for

those forced to turn to the authorities for support (1834 Poor Law).

Scholars in the field largely uphold my claim that Oliver’s experience in the

workhouse is meant to serve as a metaphor for the experiences of the poor in Victorian

London. However, in my research I found an article in the Journal of British Studies that

attempted to undermine the message being relayed by Dickens. Ian Miller claims that the

workhouse diet fulfilled the basic nutritional needs of ‘inmates’. He believes that the

idea that workhouse dietary regimes were inadequate is the result of ‘mythology’ created

by Dickens and other contemporaries. Miller claims that the famous scene in which

Oliver asks for more gruel is an exaggerated rendering of workhouse life. I do not agree

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with Miller, and I’m fairly positive neither would a majority of other literary scholars.

However, for the sake of intellectual debate I entertained his claim. I’m not quite sure

where he got his facts, because there are numerous historical accounts and testimonies in

which the poor conditions of Victorian London are both explained in detail and recorded.

Dickens didn’t conjure a social movement; he made himself part of what was already

happening. He provided common experiences and discussion points that would aid in

driving the reform debate (Miller).

One of the largest issues that Oliver deals with, more specifically in the beginning

of the novel, is hunger. He and most of the people he encounters that are from his same

social class are slowly starving to death. It’s mentioned time and time again. Oliver asks

for more gruel not for himself, but to prevent another orphan boy from starving to death.

On the first night after Mr. Sowerberry takes Oliver as his apprentice he feeds him the

leftovers that even the dog would not eat. Oliver eats them. Now, perhaps this particular

scene could have been a bit of an exaggeration to help Dickens make a point, but

nonetheless people were starving to death in Victorian London. On Oliver’s first day on

the job with Mr. Sowerberry he is again confronted by hunger; the pauper’s wife whose

burial they have come to prepare has died of starvation. The husband exclaims that he

once tried to beg for her, only to be sent to prison for the ‘offense’. This is an example of

what I mean when I say that culturally, and in some sense legally, it was considered a

criminal act to be poor.

Arlene Andrews refers to Dickens as ‘the advocate for people who were poor and

oppressed’. She claims that Dickens aided social work in a number of ways, including

the tireless promotion of compassionate social norms with regard to the poor and

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oppressed, advocacy for social policy reform, and the development of community

programs. He did all of this through his literature. He even mocked Victorian laws

through the eyes of his characters. For example, in chapter eight Oliver is plagued by

hunger, cold and fatigue as he is walking over seventy miles to London. Along the way

signs warn that beggars will be thrown in jail. The reader sympathizes with Oliver, and

becomes aware of just how ridiculous the situation is. Oliver is an orphan. He’s hungry,

cold, and tired as he’s walking over seventy miles to London. He needs help, but he can’t

ask for it because he may be accused of begging and detained by the authorities. So what

is he supposed to do? I’m sure this situation was relatable to poorer economic classes in

Victorian London. The institution punished the poor for asking for help. The poor

remained silent to avoid further ill treatment. Dickens was a voice for the poor. Oliver

Twist was meant to focus public attention on current socioeconomic issues, as well as

invite the public to sympathize with the poor. (Andrews)

In many of his novels the protagonist ‘refuses to accept the poor hand the world

has given them’. This is also true for Oliver. Mohamed Khamis states that, “in Oliver

Twist, Dickens’ main aim is to expose the social defects in his age and the vices which

afflict his society” (Khamis). He claims that Dickens is a social reformer, showing

that the industrial and urban growth creates enormous social problems. The nation as a

whole was at a peak of prosperity, but it was a façade that concealed the depth of poverty.

The changes brought about by the industrial revolution reached even into the social

sphere. It had fundamentally changed the way that English society functions. Dickens

would have argued that in response to this change we must reform the laws that have long

since established a ‘caste’ system, and work to elevate England from its state of social

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corruption. In part, Oliver Twist helped to imbue the British public with certain values,

ideas, and dispositions necessary to mobilizing towards these kinds of socio-political

reformatory ideas in the early 19th century. Dickens was mainly concerned with the flaws

that afflicted all parts of the society in which he inhabited. Thus, he has Oliver go through

the different levels of society that he is concerned with: the workhouse, the criminal

world and the middle class. Dickens attacks social injustice to the poor and the people

who consider poverty a crime. I believe that in the end Dickens was reaching out to the

middle class in some way. He was searching for other voices of moderate privilege, like

himself, who had the resources to stand up to such an institution.

As I stated, Dickens has Oliver move through these different levels of society. So

far we have discussed the role and larger implications of the workhouse in both Victorian

London and Oliver Twist. I will now turn to Dickens’ portrayal of the ‘criminal world’.

We experience the necessities of a life of crime in the lower classes through Oliver’s

experiences with Fagin and the other boys. Upon running away to London Oliver joins

up with a crew of thieves who make a living stealing on the streets. He has trouble

conceptualizing that the other boys are stealing the things that they are bringing back.

I’m sure this is simply a plot event meant to remind us that even though Oliver’s

circumstances are becoming increasingly dire on the street, he is still a child. He is

mentally, spiritually, and physically unprepared for life on the streets in London. The

workhouses had given him no real ‘skills’ that he could use outside of it, both

highlighting the failed institution and the extremes that the lower classes felt pushed to in

order to earn a living. Through an unfortunate series of events Oliver ends up accused of

pickpocketing, and by extension is faced with the consequences of a life of crime early

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on. You can read Oliver’s innocence as sort of a comical aside, or you can read into it as

an extended metaphor for the ‘lost children’ that were forced to call the London

underworld home. I’m sure this was a common trope among young children at the time.

They fall on hard times, find a group of seemingly like-minded individuals, and become

far too enthralled before they really understand what is going on. Such is not always the

case as this logic could be used to excuse some of the character’s adverse behavior,

although I would argue that their condition of life itself might excuse some of their

behavior. In any case, Oliver ends up in front of a magistrate.

In England, they have what the legal fields refer to as a civil law system, or

alternatively the investigative or the inquisitorial system. Lawyers are present but they

represent to a judge or a panel of judges, not a jury of peers. You are guilty until proven

innocent, and there is no use of precedent and no plea-bargaining. In modern practice,

given improved legal oversight, this system actually operates quite effectively. However

in Victorian London the judges often acted quite autonomously, making decisions on a

largely case-by-case basis. We see this through Oliver’s sentencing, as well as how

Oliver’s perceived class cast further doubt upon his innocence. In the eyes of the court

he was just a poor street urchin, so of course it was him who was the pickpocket. Even

when Mr. Brownlow speaks out and says he does not wish to press charges Oliver is still

thrown into a cell. It is only when Mr. Brownlow comes before the magistrate and

explains that he believes Oliver was chased, and is in fact innocent that Oliver is

acquitted. Oliver is portrayed as being weak due to the conditions of the county jail cell

that he had been staying in. In court, he faints. The magistrate claims that he is faking,

and sentences him to three months hard labor. Oliver isn’t even conscious. He has the

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victim, who is also a member of the middle class, speaking out on his behalf and the

magistrate still seems convinced that Oliver is just a delinquent street urchin. At this

point it starts to look like the rest of Oliver’s story will take place in a cell, until a Good

Samaritan bookseller comes in to the court (no background check, or questioning to see if

he is in fact a legitimate witness) and clears Oliver’s name.

Oliver’s entire experience with the court system is skewed, illogical, and unfair.

I’m sure this would have been the lower class’s common interaction with the court

system. The popular thinking concerning the poor during the time period cast them as

criminals, and it is no more apparent than it is in this scene. Oliver’s life was almost

spent in a prison for no other reasons than he was poor and in the wrong place at the

wrong time. Once again, I believe this is Dickens’ testament to court proceedings of the

time. Typically to defend a client a lawyer will seek to cast doubt on the client’s guilt,

not necessarily seek to prove their innocence. There was plenty of doubt surrounding

Oliver’s guilt, but it took definitive proof for the magistrate to accept his innocence, and

even then he blamed the technicality on Mr. Brownlow. He acknowledged his

misconduct, but he did nothing to be accountable for the false ideologies that led him to

sentence Oliver so swiftly. Dickens is seeking to highlight the same misled institutional

policy and ideology in the court systems that he highlighted in the workhouses, which is

that the poor are implicitly criminals by virtue of being poor. Alternatively, there is

another problem that arises out of this court proceeding: the real culprits got away, and an

innocent poor boy was almost charged instead. I would argue that Dodger and Charley

actually enjoyed watching an innocent boy being arrested for their crime. During the

initial chase that led to Oliver’s capture it seemed as if they were joining the crowd in

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egging it on. Child arrest rates were extremely high during this period because many of

the street urchins saw it as a means to survive. Not only were the courts in Victorian

London preventing true justice, but thus were also perpetuating the criminal underworld

that they claimed to be fighting against. They were so concerned with ‘eradicating

crime’ that they could not consider that the system they had in place to control it could be

the very institution that created it. Although my focus is more concerned with Dickens

socioeconomic and ideological influences, it is also important to note that roughly twenty

years after the major reforms of the 1840’s there will also be major court reforms. The

largest of these is being the decision to ban public executions, which was a stepping-

stone towards the UK’s eventual ban on capital punishment. Dickens’ influence can be

argued for in a number of reforms during the century. Although his focus was on

elevating the status of the poor and helpless, I believe that he planned the plot in a way

that it logically moves through societal class structures and institutions in order to portray

what he felt were some of the largest ‘holes’ in society during the time period.

Mr. Brownlow decides to take Oliver home until he has recuperated from the

incident in court. He is given a ‘chance’ to prove his honesty by running an errand for

Mr. Brownlow. While running the errand he takes a wrong turn, and runs into both

Nancy and Sikes. They more or less kidnap him back into the life of crime, and return

him to Fagin. No amount of optimism or determination seems to be able to elevate

Oliver from his situation. Throughout all of these events it is important to remember that

Oliver is being perceived as the ‘bad guy’, but is actually the ‘good guy’. The overseer

assumed he wanted more gruel for himself, the crowd thought he was the pickpocket but

he was actually running away from the pickpockets, the magistrate thought he was guilty,

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and now Mr. Brownlow will perceive him as the irresponsible urchin that Grimwig

argued he was. However, there is arguably nothing Oliver could do to prevent any of

these ill perceptions. They were either cast upon him by the ideology of the institution or

prescribed to him through misfortunes caused by this cyclical process. The way in which

the reader perceives Oliver in relation to how the plot views Oliver is very important to

the claims Dickens is trying to make about the state of society in Victorian London. If

the ‘bad’ consistently outweighs the ‘good’, then the system has lost sight of the people.

Either that or the elite has marginalized a section of society, in this case the lowest

classes, and ideologically affected what society sees as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ within that.

Leaving action out of necessity the only option for the oppressed group, hence the overt

crime that plagued the poorer neighborhoods. If the system loses sight of the people then

it serves the powerful, and if the powerful are corrupt or ideologically blind then the

resulting policy will reflect that and eventually begin to infringe on the rights of the

people. We have seen this since the dawn of civilization, we have seen it in our own

society, and we still see it today. It is not specific to a certain ‘type’ of institution or

ruling system. Thus it comes as no surprise that this was the case in Victorian London,

and by extension the case in Oliver Twist.

Returning to the plot we once again find our ‘good guy’ in a ‘bad situation’. It is

legitimately Fagin’s plan to ‘trap Oliver in a life of crime’. Even given Nancy’s dissent,

he seems to be getting his way. His strategy is to isolate Oliver until he becomes so

grateful for and reliant on human contact that he will do whatever Fagin asks. I believe

there is a much larger implication in this scene, particularly focusing on the ‘grateful’

aspect of Fagin’s strategy. Particularly in the sense that I believe this was the same

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‘strategy lens’ through which the elite were viewing the lower classes. In making that

claim I am not making the assumption that they did this maliciously either. For the most

part, I believe that the elite class truly believed that the workhouse would act as a

deterrent so fewer people would claim poor relief and thereby the poor rate would reach

its ‘correct’ level. It has also been both theorized and statistically proven, from antiquity

through modernity, that there is a positive correlation between poverty rates and crime

rates. In a recent study by the Bureau of Justice, the Household Poverty And Nonfatal

Violent Victimization of 2008–2012, it was proven that Persons in poor households at or

below the Federal Poverty Level had more than double the rate of violent victimization as

persons in high-income households (Berzofsky). Therefore the Victorian elite believed

that by ‘gifting’ the workhouses to the lower classes they would reduce poverty rates, and

thus also reduce crime rates. The problem was that there were no incentives or

regulations that determined how these workhouses operated, and once ‘boots were on the

ground’ the workhouses collapsed into the very cycle that they were intended to fix.

Naturally, the lower classes probably began to express this subtly. However from the

elite perspective, whose boots were not ‘on-the-ground’, their gracious gifts meant to

improve the conditions of the lower classes were being spat on and rejected. Thus we see

the criminalization of the poor in the elite mindset. To them the ‘greedy’ poor just

wanted to steal and stab their way to the top of society. There was a fundamental break

in ideology between the highest and lowest classes of society that was brought about by

the intense class (more specifically economic) disparity of the period. The break in

ideology created a one-way perception in which the ruling class did not empathize with

the lower or working classes. As you contemplate the political implications and effects

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of the body politic I have just described it becomes easier to retroactively see the system

being oppressive in some of the previous claims I have made concerning the plot of

Oliver Twist. If you look at the novel through this lens it becomes easier not only to

understand plot and motive, but also to understand the overall implication of both in the

larger picture of what Dickens is trying to express about Londoner socioeconomic

interrelations during the time period.

Before I delve into the conclusion of the novel it is important to discuss Dickens’s

concept of identity, because identities are constantly being shifted and assigned in the

concluding 20-some chapters of the book. It can be a little difficult to follow, and

increasingly more difficult to try and assess what Dickens is trying to convey through

these twists. As we have already somewhat touched on, the elevated classes believed that

the poor were often ‘criminals from birth’. This is important to Dickens’s notion of

social structures because it means that he believed that in the Victorian era

socioeconomic status was largely assigned at birth, or hereditary, if you will. Most of the

plotlines concerning what the reader pervieves as the ‘good guys’ in the story are often an

outspoken critique to this societal style (Oliver, Nancy, Charley, etc.). However, there

are also characters that fit the typical Victorian ‘criminal from birth’ stereotypes (Sikes,

Fagin, Mr. Bumble, Monks, etc.). The critiques are there, obviously, to critique the

functioning of socioeconomic heredity in Victorian society. The stereotypical characters

could be perceived to stand for a number of different concepts. I chose to take the

approach that they were not in the plot to reinforce stereotypes, but they were there to

portray that some of what the upper classes perceived as ‘going on’ in the poorer classes

was actually justified. Dickens wasn’t out to pardon the entire poor and desolate

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population of London. He was out to prove that among that poor, desolate, and

criminalized population it was possible for deserving and ‘good’ individuals to develop,

and it was the middle/elite class’s responsibility to seek out said individuals and aid them

in their journey into a ‘better life’. Dickens would have been the ‘change your stars, no

prophecies’ kind of guy. He believed that our hereditary socioeconomic status might

determine our circumstances at birth, but those assigned circumstances do not determine

the kind of individual we will ultimately become, or our ‘identity’. I believe that he

portrays these beliefs through a number of different endings and justices that are

delivered in the final chapters. The individual character conclusions happen very

quickly, and a lot of them happen in relation to one another. There are so many different

discussions and directions one could take using the material from roughly about the end

of chapter 37 to the conclusion of the novel. For the purpose of my discussion I have

decided to focus on individual character endings and how they relate to my thesis. My

hope is that by the time I actually reach my paper’s conclusion you will have an

individualized concept of the novel’s conclusion that really helps to focus my final

discussion around how specific character endings relate to a specific claim that Dickens

is portraying. Obviously there will be some overlap, but frankly there’s a lot that

happens at the conclusion of Oliver Twist and this is the most manageable way I could

find for me to discuss it and for that discussion to still be easily understandable to a

reader. As you might have guessed, Oliver is the ‘big one’, so I’ll be saving him for last.

We’ll start with Nancy. Although she met a tragic end, she did it doing the right

thing. I believe it to be the noblest ending of any of the characters, and a true testament

to the idea that circumstances do not determine identity or choice. Nancy is killed by Bill

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Sikes because she reveals Monks’s plan to wrest his deceased father’s inheritance from

his half-brother Oliver, but to understand what makes her ending so ‘noble’ requires a

little more critical thought about her character and her relationships. Nancy is stuck in a

cycle of abuse. Love is what she perceives as keeping her tethered to her way of life.

Albeit it a misplaced love, but a love nonetheless. She remains where she is, abused and

objectified, because she loves Sikes. It is only when Sikes begins to abuse Oliver when

he is staying with them that she starts to even minutely question her affection for him, but

it is enough to compel her to make the choices she does. She is offered numerous times

in the concluding chapters a way to ‘get out’, but she always states that she is ‘stuck in

her circumstances’ and that she loves Sikes too much. So for her to betray what she

views as the only reason for her existence in order to ‘make things right’ for Oliver was

huge. Whether she knew what she was doing in the moment or not, she effectively gave

her life to set things right for Oliver. She elevated herself out of circumstance and found

her true identity: a loving, forgiving, and moral woman. She was a true critique of how

misplaced the Victorian elite’s perceptions of the poor population really was. In a way,

Nancy is my favorite character. No one else showed the fortitude or virtue that she did,

even when facing down all of her demons and ultimately her death in the final chapters.

It could be argued that it was that same fortitude and virtue that got her killed, but I

choose to view Nancy as the character who elevated herself from an abused woman to a

heroine. Perhaps she was a heroine all along, she just didn’t realize and capitalize on it

until her poor circumstances presented her with a chance to prove that part of her identity

to herself. In any case Nancy is truly a ‘good’ character, and Dickens presents both her

plot and her ending in a way that prove circumstances do not determine character.

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Next I’ll move onto discuss Fagin, Sikes, and Monks. While they are different in

their approaches and in their endings they all serve as a representation of the ‘real

criminals’, thus I have decided to discuss them together. First off let me start by saying

that Fagin is extremely obsessive, to the point that we catch brief glimpses of him

throughout the novel in places he just shouldn’t be. It’s alluded that this is because

Oliver is worth a lot of money to him, but I think realistically Fagin enjoys acting the way

he does. He enjoys turning children into criminals, terrorizing them, and then profiting

from their misfortune. For example, a couple times throughout the novel he is spotted

just as Oliver is waking up. Somewhere in between Oliver being asleep and being

awake, and it is never really revealed to the reader whether he was actually there or not. I

choose to think he was. I viewed Fagin as the true villain. Sikes and Monks are violent

to the point that they’re predictable, but Fagin is slimy, intelligent, and unpredictable. He

embodies everything that Dickens would’ve wanted out of a vile Victorian villain. Fagin

found a way to use circumstance to control identity and status, a direct personification of

all that Dickens viewed wrong with Victorian society. He literally trains street urchins to

do crimes for him, and then he lets them take the fall when they are caught. The point is

he’s evil, and not just because he’s ‘the Jew’, but what that says about Dickens’s anti-

Semitism is a discussion best left for another time. Seriously though, that was an

interesting tidbit for an author who preaches about the freedoms of the oppressed.

Anyway, I digress; Fagin is the ‘high class’ of the ‘low class’, the ghostly and the

untouchable. He used the poor circumstances of Victorian London to commit a sect of

low society to his gang and by extension his own selfish aspirations. Fagin is ultimately

caught and sentenced to be hung by the neck until dead. Our final visions of Fagin are of

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a man locked away in a cell. He is slowly losing his mind attempting to come to terms

with his identity, the things he had done, and the lives he had ruined. His final scene

fades as a crowd cheers on his hanging. Sikes was also wrestling to come to terms with

his actions after he killed Nancy. He was, unknown to him, on the run from something

he couldn’t outrun: his conscience. The betrayal of Nancy forced his conscience into

play, and upon realizing what he had done and who he was he broke down. He ran away

from London, and for a moment we thought he too might ‘change his identity’. For

whatever reason he decided to return to London and once there Charley recognizes him.

While he was climbing a rope to escape from the mob that was chasing him he had a

vision of Nancy, and he falls into an accidental noose and hangs himself. Monks’s

ending is a little more drawn out and subtle but no less deserving. After his plot is

revealed and it is also revealed that he is Oliver’s brother he travels to the New World

and squanders away his part of the inheritance, lands himself in jail, and dies; a fitting

end for the first son. The endings of the three villains are important because they portray

the inevitable consequences of the actions of all three villains. They could also be

viewed as the representation of the two types of ‘justice’: the one you can run from (the

systemic justice) and the one you can’t (the spiritual and the conscience). They are also

perfect examples of the Victorian conundrum that Dickens is trying to critique: that high

society uses circumstance and heredity to delegate who is in what class, and the severe

ideological disparity between the two classes forced the elite to perceive, or ‘assign’,

identity to the lower classes. The villain’s characters didn’t have the ability to see this,

and because of this they totally bought into their socioeconomic status and their ‘assigned

identity’. Well it could be argued that Fagin realized this and modeled his super-

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successful ‘crime syndicate’ after this relationship between low class and high class, but

Sikes and Monks were clearly oblivious to this relationship within Victorian London.

They just bought into their assigned identities when they entered into that portion of

society. I think that was the purpose of the scene where Sikes tries to put out the house

fire. It shows that away from the corruption of London these characters would’ve had a

chance, but the identities and influences they entertained while a part of Victorian

Londoner society prevented any chance of evolving out of their hideous ways. They

were the hereditary criminals, the hereditary poor, and possibly even hereditary victims.

However you choose to perceive it, in their world being a criminal was okay because it

was already expected of you, and in low class Victorian London getting involved in a

gang provided sustenance and camaraderie. That was just life for them. It was only

when circumstance removed them from society that they were forced to come to terms

with themselves, and in all three cases that realization led them down three separate paths

of justice and ultimately to their demise.

Mr. Bumble also received a just punishment. After he admits to his part in

concealing Oliver’s identity Mr. Brownlow, apparently having the authority to do so out

of hi status, tells him that he will never again hold public office. Throughout most of the

novel Mr. Bumble holds his position in middle society. He is viewed as a villain at times,

but the least harmful of the lot. In certain moments we even see emotion from him. For

example, in the scene where Oliver pours his heart out on the way to Mr. Sowerberry’s

we see that he does in fact sympathize with Oliver. He doesn’t identify with him, and he

never truly acts on that sympathy. In his ending Mr. Bumble falls into the same cycle of

poverty that he sought to control, and on top of that he is in an unhappy marriage. Mrs.

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Bumble took his position as master of the workhouse from him and beat him. Eventually

they both spiral into living in the same workhouse they once controlled. Mr. Bumble’s

character was the epitome of hypocrisy, and I felt that his ending represented that. I also

believe that Mr. Bumble’s character was meant to represent the middle class. He was a

bit criminalized to represent Victorian middle class as a whole, but I think that was

merely a storytelling mechanism. He saw first hand what was going on, and he

understood it. Yet the fear of losing his social status was more important to him than

doing something about it. The important part of his character is that he didn’t act on his

moments of sympathy. Circumstance provided him with a somewhat veritable situation

at the expense of a lesser class and instead of doing something about it he chose to stay

silent and ‘take his place’ in the system. Yet he, from the very start, could have simply

told the truth about Oliver and prevented all of the misfortunes from thereon out. I

believe that this was Dickens critiquing the middle class. He thought that the middle

class held the key to bridging the ideological disparity between the elites and the poor.

He thought that if anyone could get the elites to begin to sympathize with the poor and to

initiate changes in the system it would be the middle class. However, the system put the

middle class in a tough position. They often had to choose between maintaining their

position in society and ‘doing the right thing’; whatever the circumstances might

determine that to be. Mr. Bumble, the middle class, had the key from the very start. His

silence led to a series of misfortunes that plagued everyone from low class to high class.

I don’t think it is that far of a stretch to say that he was using this as a way to critique the

Victorian middle class’s silence in relation to the condition of the London poor. They

22


had the power to get the elites to notice, but their silence further perpetuated the cycle of

hereditary poverty.

Mr. Brownlow serves to represent the better half of the middle-upper classes. He

was important not only to Oliver’s ending, but also to his moral development throughout

the novel. Who knows where Oliver’s story may have ended up if Mr. Brownlow had not

intervened at the courthouse? He becomes Oliver’s first benefactor and mentor, and I

really think that Mr. Brownlow epitomized the ‘good’ in high society. He influenced

Oliver at a crucial point in his development throughout the story. He helped to break him

from the cycle, and to find his true and moral identity. Mr. Brownlow was yet another

critique of the ‘power’ held by certain individuals in Victorian high society, who had the

means to initiate change but did not proceed to do so until it became of interest to them.

Through his sympathy for Oliver and his resources Mr. Brownlow was able to mentor

Oliver through some of the circumstances that may have ‘returned him to the cycle’, such

as that day in the courthouse when his testimony acquitted Oliver. He was a really

important supporting character, both to Oliver’s success and to Dickens’s conception of

Victorian society. His ending is a bit idyllic. He, Oliver, Grimwig, and Losberne move

to a rural church far from the reach of London. It may seem a bit misplaced given a story

that tells the story of the harsh and unfair London underground, but I think that particular

ending can just be chalked up as a trope of Victorian literature (Victorian Literature). In

any case, the important ending is that he adopted Oliver as his son. He was important to

Oliver’s evolution, his ending, and he was linked to Oliver’s past through his engagement

to Oliver’s deceased father’s deceased sister. He was the relationship that brought all of

Oliver’s disjointed identities together. The ending for the perceived ‘good guys’ of

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Oliver Twist is often critiqued for not necessarily fitting with the rest of the plot. It can

seem a bit unrealistic and ‘fairy-tale’ like. It was a traditional Victorian-style ending, but

I think it still serves Dickens’s purpose of portraying the elites as the class that had both

the means and the authority to do something to elevate this astounding number of

generations that have been stuck in a cycle of hereditary poverty, just as Mr. Brownlow

interfered in the cycle to pull Oliver out of it.

Dickens would have us believe that Oliver is inherently good. He is born into the

same cycle that has corrupted so many around him. The Parish oppressed him, he was

criminalized by the system, kidnapped and locked up by Fagin, abused by Sikes, and left

in a ditch to die during a robbery he didn’t even agree to be a part of. He had every

reason to turn his back on society, so why didn’t he? If Oliver is inherently good, then

doesn’t open up for the discussion for characters to be inherently bad? This idea destroys

my thesis, so I thought it necessary to address my perception of Oliver and his place in

the story. I do not believe that Oliver was inherently good, or that he was incorruptible.

Normal circumstance does not determine identity or choice, but Dickens’s entire point is

that Victorian London isn’t normal circumstance. At some point it becomes the goal of

both the system and certain characters to specifically corrupt and criminalize Oliver. For

whatever reason, Oliver is able to fight this assigned identity until Mr. Brownlow

intervenes at the court and allows him the means to develop his ‘true identity’. I’m not

attributing Oliver’s entire evolution to Mr. Brownlow. I am simply stating that given

enough time, Oliver would have been corrupted and turned. Fagin’s reputation for doing

it to other orphans was notorious, and Nancy is proof that you can only hold out against

Sikes’s abuse for so long before it takes control of you. Mr. Brownlow intervened at a

24


crucial point in Oliver’s adverse circumstances and allowed him to perceive, and in some

ways gave him, ‘a different way’. It was through this that Oliver established a sense of

hope for humanity. So when he was kidnapped back into the London underworld that

hope sustained both him and his innocence. His innocence blinded him, but in many

ways also shielded him until help arrived. I don’t really feel that Oliver had much of an

influence in any of this; he was just the subject of it. Many of his circumstances

throughout the novel are dictated by events and decisions far outside of his control. The

conditions for his inheritance were determined based on the actions of his older brother,

he unknowingly accompanied pickpockets and was arrested for it, the courts entrusted

him to Mr. Brownlow, Nancy kidnapped him, Fagin locked him up and gave him to

Sikes, Sikes abused him and forced him to go on a robbery where he was left for dead in

a ditch. Where in this plot did Oliver actually make any concrete decisions to elevate

himself or even have any sort of goal to elevate himself? He’s being tossed around by

politics, actions, and decisions he can’t even understand because he still has hold of his

childhood innocence. It is only when Mr. Brownlow, the elite, takes interest that Oliver

begins to evolve out of the cycle of false hereditary social status that has been assigned to

him. Truthfully, it is only when characters begin to find out about Oliver’s true identity

that they actually care about the injustices enacted upon him by other individuals of status

and the system as a whole. His ‘elevated status’ suddenly seems to make it matter more,

which I suppose is another critique of Victorian high society in itself. Oliver was largely

just the vehicle by which Dickens tells his story and stakes his claims, but he ends up

being a representation of the indifference between societal classes. The corrupt social

system and the idea that hereditary poverty and criminality not only drove outwardly

25


conflict between all of the characters, but also inwardly. As such the central conflict in

the novel is Oliver’s true identity, both in a material way and a spiritual way. In essence,

I don’t think the nature of Oliver’s true identity really matters. In my opinion Oliver

found his true self through ‘the journey’, and not the ending. What matters is the fact that

the ideological disparity between the social classes was broken, and they found a way to

coexist, cooperate and ‘make things right’ for a common interest, a child who had his

world unfairly wretched from him before he was even given the chance to prove that he

was worthy of it.

The problem I’ve found with attempting to dissect Oliver Twist is that your

beliefs as a reader really affect your perception of the conclusion of the novel. Even as

I’m writing this I find myself wanting to question whether the novel really has a ‘good

and fair’ ending. Did the characters really learn any lessons, or did Oliver’s discovered

status just all of a sudden make him wealthy and important? In any case, I stand by the

idea that you are born into circumstance. You are not born into class or identity.

Choosing to interpret the novel from this point of view it is my belief that Dickens was

trying to bridge the ideological gap between social classes by presenting the elites and the

middle class with a novel that would compel them to view the Victorian poor in a

different light. He felt that the ideological gap led the elites to form false perceptions and

stereotypes of the poor. Oliver Twist was meant to show that those stereotyped

individuals were out there in London, but that there was also a majority of good-willed

and moral people in the lower class who were just living according to circumstance. This

would have been crucial to the mindset of the Victorian elite. A sympathetic perception

of the poor would motivate the powerful elites to take action. They would have started

26


forming laws to help the ‘victimized poor’ instead of the ‘criminalized poor’. It wasn’t

until 1929 that the workhouse system was finally abolished in London, and it wasn’t until

1948 that the Poor Law System as a whole was abolished (Spicker). So obviously it is a

little bit of a stretch to say that Oliver Twist was the sole effector in the shift in elite

perceptions of the poor. However I do think it was a literary piece that helped to lay the

foundation for that shift. It offered a rare perspective for its time period: life through the

story of a ‘good and innocent’ poor boy. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that this shift in elite

perception of the poor is somewhat challenged by Oliver’s true identity, but I think

ultimately Oliver’s story as a whole is a means to allow and invite the Victorian elite to

see the poor in a more circumstantial and individual way. It is the smallest changes in

how we view the world that can affect what we do in that world. In even minutely aiding

in that ideological shift Dickens has contributed to the both the progression of English

society and the progression of world society as a whole.

Critical thinking often implies that we take theories we have learned elsewhere

and apply them in new ways to address new problems. It is about being so open that you

become sympathetic to both sides of an issue, and by extension that knowledge and

evidence, so that you can find the best solution even if it disproves your own

(Willingham). There are clearly social classes in modern America, just as there were in

Victorian London. While our own socioeconomic disparity has not quite reached that

level of that severity and we have nothing near the atrocities of the workhouse, there is

still clearly a growing gap in socioeconomic identity and ideology concerning ‘the other’.

A report released by the EPI this year claims that economic inequality has been

increasingly unequal since the fall of income levels during the Great Recession (Price).

27


Often we see the poor being portrayed as fat, lazy, ignorant, free riding, and wasteful.

We also see whole regions, areas of a city or population, and sometimes even racial and

ethnic groups being criminalized by the elite by the actions of the ‘problem causers’ in

their groups. This line of thinking is often perpetuated in order to push policy that

defunds government assistance for the poor. In reality, there is a portion of our nation’s

poor that are truly stuck in a cycle of material and ideological poverty, just like the

characters in Oliver Twist. There are people that work two jobs seven days a week and

are still having trouble providing for their families. There are people who take advantage

of that system, just like the characters in Oliver Twist. We found out through the events

of Oliver Twist that the majority should not be stereotyped and punished based on belief

of the elite and the example of the criminal. So I think it’s reasonably safe to say that the

same philosophy applies in modern America, and that we can move towards fixing the

problem by shifting elitist perception. In the Salvation Army’s 2012 Poverty Report it is

stated that roughly 40% of Americans are living below the poverty line, and an

astounding statistical majority of Americans claim that they want to help the poor

(Perceptions of Poverty). However, it never seems to happen? Why? Because the system

isn’t set up for them to. Often we give money to charities and we’re not really sure

where our money goes, we’re just told it goes to ‘help’. The ways in which we can

directly help are often inconvenient and costly, especially on an individual level. The

common man has no concrete and easy way to provide for the lesser man because at 40%

of our population living below the poverty line the ‘common man’ is not too far from

being there himself; just as we saw from the fall of Mr. Bumble in the novel. Our

policymakers need to see our poor as the victims, and not the criminals. It is only then

28


that they will become sympathetic to the lower class and begin to reflect that into their

policy and ultimately into society. By extension it is up to the ‘Mr. Bumble’, or the silent

middle class, to reveal their ‘concealed information’ that allows the elite to see the poor

in a different light. There are obvious differences between Victorian London and modern

America, but I am beginning to see the same disparity that tore through the heart of

London in the 19th century. I believe the solutions to modern problems can be found in

the unlikeliest of places, perhaps even at the heart of a story about a good-willed orphan

boy. Dickens aided in the shift in elite perception that freed the Victorian poor from a

hereditary cycle of both poverty and identity confliction. Everything starts with an idea,

and sometimes an idea can come in the form of a story. Oliver Twist proves that the

perceptions of the powerful often dictate the circumstance of the poor, so Dickens has

told us exactly how to solve our problem. You cannot solve being poor. There will

always be poor. In a society driven by scarcity there will always be a group at the

bottom, however you can solve the perception of the powerful, and if the perception of

the powerful favors the poor then it will be reflected in policy, law, and ideology. The

circumstance of the poor will improve, and the gap in socioeconomic disparity will begin

to shrink. The social theory is all there, hidden among the beautiful imperfections of

Dickens’s characters and the violent and unfair circumstances thrust upon them by the

decisions of a few and the perceptions of the powerful.

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Smiley-McDonald. "Household Poverty and Nonfatal Violent Victimization,

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Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co, 1941. Print.

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Khamis, Mohamed. "Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist: Corruption of Society &

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