OLIVER TWIST CRITIC REVIEWS + CONTEXT

OXFORD AQA

Dennis Walder

The ‘Overall mode of Oliver Twist’ is ‘like one long, oppressive nightmare’

Richard Ford (Dickens’ most vehement critic)

“The abuses which he ridicules are not only exaggerated but in nineteen cases out of twenty do not at all exist.” This can be disagreed upon because Dickens himself has suffered from extreme poverty and harsh working conditions. Thus, the visceral imagery and torment of Twist sheds light on the severity of the matter.

Shiho Hashimoto

"Rose and Nancy represent two girls who hold the same purity and goodness"

Deniela Dumovska

"Nancy is a dissenting woman that falls outside the patriarchal borders and her character subverts the domestic ideologies"

TH Lister - Edinburgh Review (October 1838)

Praised Dicken’s ability to “excite our sympathy in behalf of the aggrieved and suffering in all classes; and especially in those who are most removed from observation…the orphan pauper - the parish apprentice - the juvenile criminal.”

The Literary Gazette

Praised Dickens for “the exposure of evils - the workhouse, the starving school, the factory system, and many other things, at which blessed nature shudder and recoiled.”

Susan Meyer

Dickens “emphasises aspects of Fagin’s character familiar from the Anti-Semitic tradition, namely his miserliness, his greed, his exotic and strange appearance, his effeminacy, his obsequiousness, his cowardliness - and the size of his nose.”

Marxist Approach

The main protagonist, Oliver Twist, may be expounded to be an incarnation of the strident reality of exploitation towards children born into poverty.

Dickens challenged the Victorian idea of charity for the so-called “deserving poor”. He showed convincingly that the workhouse was a failed attempt to solve the predicament of poverty and unwanted children. To conclude, it appears evident that, although Dickens held similar views to those put forward by Marx and Engels, he personally believed that Marxism is more of an ideal than a reality; an optimistic utopia that Marx and Engels dreamed of but Dickens understood wasn’t realistic as during the Victorian era, if one was born into a proletariat lifestyle, that was where one would most likely remain for one’s entire life.

Freudian Dream Analysis - SLEEP

• Sleep serves as a narrative device, protecting Oliver from guilt and providing escape.

• Dickens's fascination with dreams intensified after the death of Mary Hogarth (younger sister of Catherine Dickens), reflecting his own struggles with griefs and hardships