Odlar Yurdu University

Group: 752 KM2

Teacher: ULVIYYA ISMAILOVA

Student: FARİZ BABAZADA

Topic: Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens)

Oliver Twist; or, the Parish Boy's
Progress, Charles Dickens's second novel,
was published as a serial from 1837 to
1839, and as a three-volume book in 1838.
Born in a workhouse, the orphan 
Oliver Twist is sold into apprenticeship
with an undertaker. After escaping, Oliver
travels to London, where he meets the "
Artful Dodger", a member of a gang of
juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly
criminal Fagin.
Oliver Twist unromantically portrays the sordid
lives of criminals, and exposes the cruel
treatment of the many orphans in London in the
mid-19th century.[2] The alternative title, The
Parish Boy's Progress, alludes to Bunyan's 
The Pilgrim's Progress, as well as the 18th-
century caricature series by painter 
William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress and 
A Harlot's Progress. In an early example of the 
social novel, Dickens satirises child labour, 
domestic violence, the recruitment of children as
criminals, and the presence of street children.
The novel may have been inspired by the story
of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose account of
working as a child labourer in a cotton mill was
widely read in the 1830s. It is likely that
Dickens's own experiences as a youth
contributed as well. Oliver Twist has been the
subject of numerous adaptations, including a
highly successful musical, Oliver!, the multiple 
Academy Award-winning 1968 motion picture,
and Disney's animated film Oliver & Company in
1988
Publications

The novel was first published in monthly instalments, from February

1837 to April 1839, in the magazine Bentley's Miscellany. It was
originally intended to form part of Dickens's serial, The Mudfog
Papers. George Cruikshank provided one steel etching per month to
illustrate each instalment. The novel first appeared in book form six
months before the initial serialisation was completed, in three
volumes published by Richard Bentley, the owner of Bentley's
Miscellany, under the author's pseudonym, "Boz". It included 24
steel-engraved plates by Cruikshank
 Plot
summary

Oliver Twist is born into a life of poverty and misfortune, raised in a workhouse in the fictional town of Mudfog, located 70 miles
(110 km) north of London He is orphaned by his father's mysterious absence and his mother Agnes' death in childbirth, welcomed
only in the workhouse and robbed of her gold name locket. Oliver is meagerly provided for under the terms of the Poor Law and
spends the first nine years of his life living at a baby farm in the "care" of a woman named Mrs Mann, who embezzles much of the
money entrusted to the baby farm by the parish. Oliver is brought up with little food and few comforts. Around the time of Oliver's
ninth birthday, Mr Bumble, the parish beadle, removes Oliver from the baby farm and puts him to work picking and weaving 
oakum at the main workhouse. Oliver, who toils with very little food, remains in the workhouse for six months. One day, the
desperately hungry boys decide to draw lots; the loser must ask for another portion of gruel. This task falls to Oliver, who at the
next meal comes forward trembling, bowl in hand, and begs the master for gruel with his famous request: "Please, sir, I want some
more"
A great uproar ensues. The board of well-fed gentlemen
who administer the workhouse offer £5 to any person
wishing to take on Oliver as an apprentice. Mr
Gamfield, a brutal chimney sweep, almost claims Oliver.
However, when Oliver begs despairingly not to be sent
away with "that dreadful man", a kindly magistrate
refuses to sign the indentures. Later, Mr Sowerberry, an
undertaker employed by the parish, takes Oliver into his
service. He treats Oliver better and, because of Oliver's
sorrowful countenance, uses him as a mourner at
children's funerals. Mr Sowerberry is in an unhappy
marriage, and his wife looks down on Oliver and misses
few opportunities to underfeed and mistreat him. He
also suffers torment at the hands of Noah Claypole, an
oafish and bullying fellow apprentice and "charity boy"
who is jealous of Oliver's promotion to mute, and
Charlotte, the Sowerberrys' maidservant, who is in love
with Noah.
 Wanting to bait Oliver, Noah insults
Oliver's mother, calling her "a regular
right-down bad 'un". Enraged, Oliver
assaults and even gets the better of the
much bigger boy. However, Mrs
Sowerberry takes Noah's side, helps
him to subdue, punch, and beat Oliver,
and later compels her husband and Mr
Bumble, who has been sent for in the
aftermath of the fight, to beat Oliver
again. Once Oliver is sent to his room
for the night, he breaks down and
weeps. The next day Oliver escapes
from the Sowerberrys' house and later
decides to run away to London to seek
a better life.
Characters

Oliver Twist – an orphan child whose mother died at his birth; father is
dead when Oliver's paternity is revealed.
Mr Bumble – a beadle in the parish workhouse where Oliver was born
Mrs Mann – superintendent where the infant Oliver is placed until age
9 who is not capable of caring for the "culprits" as she is self-centered
and greedy.
Mr Sowerberry – an undertaker who took Oliver as apprentice
Mrs Sowerberry – Mr Sowerberry's wife
Noah Claypole – a cowardly bully, Sowerberry’s apprentice
Charlotte – the Sowerberrys’ maid, lover of Noah
• Mr Gamfield – a chimney sweep in the town where Oliver was born
• Mr Brownlow – a kindly gentleman who takes Oliver in, his first benefactor
• Mr Grimwig – a friend of Mr Brownlow
• Mrs Bedwin – Mr Brownlow's housekeeper
• Rose Maylie – Oliver's second benefactor, later found to be his aunt
• Mrs Lindsay Maylie – Harry Maylie's mother. Rose Maylie's adoptive aunt
• Mrs Lindsay Maylie – Harry Maylie’s mother. Rose Maylie’s adoptive aunt
• Harry Maylie – Mrs Maylie’s son
• Mr Losberne – Mrs Maylie’s family doctor
• Mr Giles – Mrs Maylie’s butler
• Mr Brittles – Mrs Maylie’s handyman
• Duff and Blathers – two incompetent policemen
• Fagin – fence and boss of a criminal gang of young boys and girls
• Bill Sikes – a professional burglar
• Bull’s Eye – Bill Sikes’s vicious dog
• The Artful Dodger – Fagin's most adept pickpocket
• Charley Bates – a pickpocket in Fagin's gang
• Toby Crackit – an associate of Fagin and Sikes, a house-breaker
• Nancy – one of Fagin's gang, now living with Bill Sikes
• Bet – a girl in Fagin's gang, sometime friend to Nancy
• Barney – a criminal cohort of Fagin
• Agnes Fleming – Oliver's mother
• Mr Leeford – father of Oliver and Monks
• Old Sally – a nurse who attended Oliver's birth
• Mrs Corney – matron for the women's workhouse
• Monks – a sickly criminal, an associate of Fagin's, and long-lost half-
brother of Oliver
• Monks' mother – an heiress who did not love her husband
• Mr Fang – a magistrate
• Tom Chitling – one of Fagin's gang members, returned from abroad at
the time of the murder
 Allegations of
antisemitism

Dickens has been accused of following antisemitic stereotypes because of his portrayal of the Jewish character
Fagin in Oliver Twist. Paul Vallely writes that Fagin is widely seen as one of the most grotesque Jews in English
literature, and one of the most vivid of Dickens's 989 characters. [21] Nadia Valman, in Antisemitism: A Historical
Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, argues that Fagin's representation was drawn from the image of the Jew
as inherently evil, that the imagery associated him with the Devil, and with beasts
 The novel refers to Fagin 274 timesin the first 38 chapters as
"the Jew", while the ethnicity or religion of the other characters is
rarely mentioned. In 1854, The Jewish Chronicle asked why "Jews
alone should be excluded from the 'sympathizing heart' of this great
author and powerful friend of the oppressed." Dickens (who had
extensive knowledge of London street life and child exploitation)
explained that he had made Fagin Jewish because "it unfortunately
was true, of the time to which the story refers, that that class of
criminal almost invariably was a Jew.« Dickens commented that by
calling Fagin a Jew he had meant no imputation against the Jewish
people, saying in a letter, "I have no feeling towards the Jews but a
friendly one. I always speak well of them, whether in public or private,
and bear my testimony (as I ought to do) to their perfect good faith in
such transactions as I have ever had with them." Eliza Davis,
whose husband had purchased Dickens's home in 1860 when he had
put it up for sale, wrote to Dickens in protest at his portrayal of Fagin,
arguing that he had "encouraged a vile prejudice against the despised
Hebrew", and that he had done a great wrong to the Jewish people.
While Dickens first reacted defensively upon receiving Davis's letter,
he then halted the printing of Oliver Twist, and changed the text for
the parts of the book that had not been set, which explains why after
the first 38 chapters Fagin is barely called "the Jew" at all in the next
179 references to him.
 In Oliver Twist, Dickens mixes grim realism with
merciless satire to describe the effects of industrialism on
19th-century England and to criticise the harsh new 
Poor Laws. Oliver, an innocent child, is trapped in a
world where his only options seem to be the workhouse,
a life of crime symbolised by Fagin's gang, a prison, or
an early grave. From this unpromising
industrial/institutional setting, however, a fairy tale also
emerges. In the midst of corruption and degradation, the
essentially passive Oliver remains pure-hearted; he
steers away from evil when those around him give in to
it, and in proper fairy-tale fashion, he eventually receives
his reward – leaving for a peaceful life in the country,
surrounded by kind friends. On the way to this happy
ending, Dickens explores the kind of life an outcast,
orphan boy could expect to lead in 1830s London.

Major themes and

symbols
 Major
themes and
symbols

In Oliver Twist, Dickens mixes grim realism with merciless satire to describe the effects
of industrialism on 19th-century England and to criticise the harsh new Poor Laws.
Oliver, an innocent child, is trapped in a world where his only options seem to be the
workhouse, a life of crime symbolised by Fagin's gang, a prison, or an early grave.
From this unpromising industrial/institutional setting, however, a fairy tale also
emerges. In the midst of corruption and degradation, the essentially passive Oliver
remains pure-hearted; he steers away from evil when those around him give in to it,
and in proper fairy-tale fashion, he eventually receives his reward – leaving for a
peaceful life in the country, surrounded by kind friends. On the way to this happy
ending, Dickens explores the kind of life an outcast, orphan boy could expect to lead in
1830s London
Thank you for your attention