Social Values in Charles Dickens's Novel “Oliver Twist”
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Charles Dickens' Corruption and Idealization Personified in Oliver Twist
Western Oregon University Digital Commons@WOU Academic Excellence Showcase Proceedings Student Scholarship 2018-06-02 Charles Dickens’ Corruption and Idealization Personified in Oliver Twist Ellie Phillips Western Oregon University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/aes Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Phillips, Ellie, "Charles Dickens’ Corruption and Idealization Personified in Oliver Twist" (2018). Academic Excellence Showcase Proceedings. 150. https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/aes/150 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at Digital Commons@WOU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Academic Excellence Showcase Proceedings by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@WOU. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]. Byrd 1 Ellie Byrd Dr. Lange ENG 218w Charles Dickens’ Corruption and Idealization Personified in Oliver Twist In Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, the depictions of corruption and virtue are prevalent throughout most of the novel and take the physical form in the city and the country. Oliver spends much of his time in London among criminals and the impoverished, and here is where Dickens takes the city of London and turns it into a dark and degraded place. Dickens’ London is inherently immoral and serves as a center for the corruption of mind and spirit which is demonstrated through the seedy scenes Dickens paints of London, the people who reside there, and by casting doubt in individuals who otherwise possess a decent moral compass. Furthermore, Dickens’ strict contrast of the country to these scenes further establishes the sinister presence of London. -
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
School Radio Oliver Twist By Charles Dickens EPISODE SIX NARRATOR: Oliver’s ailings were neither slight nor few; but, at length, he began to get better and to be able to say sometimes - in a few tearful words - how deeply he felt the goodness of the two sweet ladies and how ardently he hoped that, when he grew strong and well again, he could do something to show his grati- tude. He was anxious too to find Mr Brownlow and to give his account of what had happen on the day he had been entrusted with the errand to the book-seller. Dr Losberne took Oliver to London, but the house was empty - a neighbour’s servant informing them that Mr Brownlow had gone to the sold West Indies some six weeks before. This bitter disappointment caused Oliver much sorrow, even in the midst of his happiness. Then after another fortnight, when the spring weather had fairly begun, preparations were made for leaving Chertsey for a few months in a cottage in the country. It was a happy time and every morning Oliver went to a white-headed old gentleman, who lived nearby, who taught him to read better and to write... TUTOR Well, Oliver, this has always been one of my favourite books and I’m inclined to think you’ll like it too... NARRATOR In the evenings, Rose would sit down to the piano and play some pleasant tune, or sing some old song which it pleased her aunt to hear. So spring flew swiftly by. But then, came a heavy blow. -
Critical-Essay-Assignment-1.Pdf
Pettie Perkins Critical Essay Assignment The Dress and Address of the Female Characters in the Novel Oliver Twist English 333 Critical Theory Prof. L Buchholz The novel “Oliver Twist” is the subject of my analysis and was written by Charles Dickens. The women in the novel and how their manner of dress and address associates them with their societal class and status. Dickens portrays the women in this novel as not only symbols of how he views the society, but how he views the government at that time. The patriarchal society views of the women and how their dress and address placed them into particular roles and status classes and there was an actual place in society for women who wanted to uphold the Victorian societal social structure for domesticity. First we must define a few terms: upper-class, middle class, the working class, woman, and lady. The Victorian society was divided in to nobility upper class, middle class and the working class. The upper class were the Aristocrats, Dukes and other families working in the Victorian courts. The Upper Class were privileged with power, position, and better living conditions. The Upper Class designation was usually inherited from a royal bloodline. The Middle class consisted of shopkeepers, businessmen, bankers, doctors, merchants, clerks and etc. They, the Middle Class, “worked with letters and figures and wore morning coats, stiff white collars and top hats.” (Picard) The Working class were those that worked with their hands or worked for others. There were the poor who were under the working class who working in workhouses or became household workers for others. -
THE PICKWICK PAPERS Required Reading for the Dickens Universe
THE PICKWICK PAPERS Required reading for the Dickens Universe, 2007: * Auden, W. H. "Dingley Dell and the Fleet." The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays. New York: Random House, 1962. 407-28. * Marcus, Steven. "The Blest Dawn." Dickens: From Pickwick to Dombey. New York: Basic Books, 1965. 13-53. * Patten, Robert L. Introduction. The Pickwick Papers. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. 11-30. * Feltes, N. N. "The Moment of Pickwick, or the Production of a Commodity Text." Literature and History: A Journal for the Humanities 10 (1984): 203-217. Rpt. in Modes of Production of Victorian Novels. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. * Chittick, Kathryn. "The qualifications of a novelist: Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist." Dickens and the 1830s. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990. 61-91. Recommended, but not required, reading: Marcus, Steven."Language into Structure: Pickwick Revisited," Daedalus 101 (1972): 183-202. Plus the sections on The Pickwick Papers in the following works: John Bowen. Other Dickens : Pickwick to Chuzzlewit. Oxford, U.K.; New York: Oxford UP, 2000. Grossman, Jonathan H. The Art of Alibi: English Law Courts and the Novel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2002. Woloch, Alex. The One vs. The Many: Minor Characters and the Space of the Protagonist in the Novel. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2003. 1 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Compiled by Hillary Trivett May, 1991 Updated by Jessica Staheli May, 2007 For a comprehensive bibliography of criticism before 1990, consult: Engel, Elliot. Pickwick Papers: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1990. CRITICISM Auden, W. H. "Dingley Dell and the Fleet." The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays. New York: Random House, 1962. -
Audience Insights Table of Contents
GOODSPEED MUSICALS AUDIENCE INSIGHTS TABLE OF CONTENTS JUNE 29 - SEPT 8, 2018 THE GOODSPEED Production History.................................................................................................................................................................................3 Synopsis.......................................................................................................................................................................................................4 Characters......................................................................................................................................................................................................5 Meet the Writer........................................................................................................................................................................................6 Meet the Creative Team.......................................................................................................................................................................7 Director's Vision......................................................................................................................................................................................8 The Kids Company of Oliver!............................................................................................................................................................10 Dickens and the Poor..........................................................................................................................................................................11 -
Fiction Excerpt: from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Fiction Excerpt: From Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens Oliver Twist was the second novel written by Charles Dickens. It was first published as a serial, with new chapters printed monthly in the magazine Bentley’s Miscellany over the course of two years (1837–1839). The novel tells the story of an orphan named Oliver Twist, who was born in a workhouse and later escaped to join a gang of thieves. This excerpt takes place during Oliver’s time in the workhouse. The room in which the boys were fed, was a large stone hall, with a copper [a large, heated copper pot] at one end: out of which the master, dressed in an apron for the purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel [a watery cereal like very thin oatmeal] at mealtimes. Of this festive composition each boy had one porringer [small bowl], and no more—except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides. The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this operation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as large as the bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed; employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most assiduously [diligently], with the view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon. Boys have generally excellent appetites. -
Oliver Twist
APPENDIX B Summary of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist In a parish workhouse, a nameless young woman dies after giving birth. Her son, Oliver Twist—as named by the beadle, Mr. Bumble—is sent to a separate branch of the workhouse with other orphaned infants and raised by the monstrous Mrs. Mann. Oliver miraculously survives the horrors of the “baby farm,” and, on his ninth birthday, is transferred to the central workhouse. After three months of slow starvation, the boys draw lots to see who will ask for more gruel; Oliver draws the long straw and carries out this unenviable task. Bumble and the board of directors severely punish Oliver and plan to turn him out of the workhouse. After a failed attempt to apprentice him to a brutal chimney sweep, Bumble eventually manages to unload Oliver on Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker. On top of his depressing new trade, Oliver must deal with the bullying of his fel- low apprentice, Noah Claypole. Oliver finally fights back against Noah when his rival taunts him about his deceased mother. This second “rebellion” earns Oliver a stern rebuke from Bumble and a brutal beating from Sowerberry. Consumed by the misery of his life, Oliver decides to run away, though he first returns to the baby farm to bid goodbye to his friend, Dick. Oliver barely survives the seventy-five mile walk to London. On arriving at Barnett, he encounters a strangely attired cockney boy who introduces himself as Jack Dawkins (though he goes by the name of the Artful Dodger). The Dodger invites Oliver to come and lodge with a respectable old gentleman, and he conducts a wary Oliver through the slums of London to a dilapidated flat. -
Encountering Christ in Charles Dickens' a Christmas Carol
DAILY DEVOTIONS FOR ADVENT Encountering Christ in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has been a delightful part of the celebration of Christmas since it was first written in 1843. Dickens deeply, and penitently, understands that Scrooge is really a reflection of himself and so many of us in our sinful state; yet the transformation of this central character, and us, is the blessing we receive from the Child of Christmas. There are five sections, or staves, in this classic, and each of them is represented in part in the selections to follow: The first stave (Marley’s Ghost)—an introduction to Ebeneezer Scrooge and his life before his transformation: The first week of Advent to Tuesday after the Second Sunday of Advent. The next three staves (The Three Spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet-to-Come)—Scrooge’s journey through repentance and renewal: Wednesday after the Second Sunday of Advent to Saturday after the Third Sunday of Advent. The final stave (The End)—Scrooge’s transformed-self that now embraces the joy of Christmas: The final week of Advent. I hope my own reflections for each of these days in Advent will help to lift up the Child who was not ashamed to take upon himself the poverty of our being and makes us all new—for our sake, and for the sake of the whole world! FIRST SUNDAY of ADVENT The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. -
Discourse Analysis of Oliver Twist from the Perspective of Pragmatics
CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Academy Publication Online ISSN 1799-2591 Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 7, No. 8, pp. 626-632, August 2017 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0708.04 Discourse Analysis of Oliver Twist from the Perspective of Pragmatics Min Lian Shanxi Normal University, China Abstract—As a great representative of the British realism literature in the 19th century, Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist is set in foggy city London, but reflects the complex social reality in that time. Many domestic scholars studied and analyzed this novel from different perspectives, while most of them paid much attention to the literature translation and analysis of the characters’ image, few studied it from the perspective of pragmatic theories. In view of it, this paper selects plenty of dialogues from the novel and they are classified and analyzed on the basis of Grice’s Cooperative Principle and Leech’s Politeness Principle. After analyzing the characters’ conversational implicature, this paper aims to provide a linguistic reference for the appreciation of characters’ image and social significance of the novel. The paper consists of introduction, main body and conclusion three parts. Introduction part gives a simple introduction of the author Charles Dickens and the novel, then states the previous researches on the subject as well as the research angle, goal and method. The body (consists of two chapters) firstly gives a detailed introduction of the theoretical framework, then analyzes the selected dialogues on the basis of Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle respectively. Conclusion part puts forward that people always express their ideas indirectly and implicitly in their speech communication to violate the Cooperative Principle, that is out of consideration of politeness to others, namely observing Politeness Principle. -
The Man Who Invented Christmas Film Adaptations of Dickens’ a Christmas Carol Dr Christine Corton
10TH DECEMBER 2019 The Man Who Invented Christmas Film Adaptations of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol Dr Christine Corton A Christmas Carol is now over 175 years old. Written in 1843, it is certainly the most televised of Dickens’s works and equals if not beats, its closest rival, Oliver Twist (1837-39) for cinema releases. It’s had a huge influence on the way we understand the Christmas festival. It was written at a time when the festival was being revived after centuries of neglect. And its impact was almost immediate. A Christmas Carol quickly achieved iconic status, far more so than any of Dickens’s other Christmas stories. You have to have been living on some far-off planet not to have heard of the story – the word ‘Scrooge’ has come to represent miserliness and ‘Bah, Humbug’ is a phrase often resorted to when indicating someone is a curmudgeon. Even, Field Marshall Montgomery concluded his Christmas Eve message to the Eighth Army on the battlefield with Tiny Tim’s blessing. In 1836 Dickens described Christmas at Dingley Dell in The Pickwick Papers in which of course one of the most famous of the interpolated tales appears, The Story of the Goblins who Stole a Sexton and for those who know the tale, the miserable and mean Gabriel Grub is not a million miles away from Scrooge. Both Mr Pickwick’s Christmas at Wardle’s (1901) and Gabriel Grub: The Surly Sexton (1904) were used as the basis for silent films at around the same time as the first silent version of the 11 minute long: Scrooge: Or Marley’s Ghost which was released in 1901. -
Stage 1 Teen Readers Characters
CHARLES DICKENS CHARLES Stage 1 Stage Teen ELI Readers Teen A1 Teen Readers Characters Mr Sowerberry Oliver Mrs Sowerberry Doctor Losberne Mr Bumble Monks Dodger Fagin Bill Sikes Nancy Mr Brownlow Mrs Bedwin Rose Maylie Mrs Maylie Charles Dickens Oliver tells Mrs Sowerberry that Noah said horrible things about his mother but she doesn’t listen to him. She throws him in a cold, dark room. She closes the door but she forgets to lock it. Oliver stays in the room for many hours. It is very late and the house is silent. Mr and Mrs Sowerberry are asleep. Oliver doesn’t know what to do. He didn’t like the workhouse and he doesn’t like Mr and Mrs Sowerberry and Noah. Then, he has an idea. He decides to run away*. He slowly opens the door to the room and quietly walks to the kitchen. Then, he opens the kitchen window and jumps out into the street, but he doesn’t know where to go. He can see the church and the baker’s and the butcher’s in the town centre. Then, he sees a big road. He runs down the road, away from the town and Mr Sowerberry’s shop and the workhouse. to run away to leave a place you don’t like 16 Oliver Twist 17 After-reading Activities Grammar 1 Where does Oliver live? Number the boxes. A ■ Mr Brownlow’s townhouse B ■ Rose’s cottage C ■ Fagin’s house D ■1 The workhouse E ■ Mr Brownlow’s cottage F ■ Rose’s townhouse G ■ Mr Sowerberry’s shop 2 Complete Oliver’s family tree. -
Representation of Angel-In-The-House in Bleak House by Charles Dickens
THEORY, HISTORY AND LITERARY CRITICISM Representation of Angel-in-the-House in Bleak house by Charles Dickens Shaghayegh Moghari Abstract: This article intends to examine the female characters of Esther Summerson and Ada Clare in Bleak House, written by Charles Dickens in Victorian period. In fact, the author has tried to revisit this novel as a case in point to discuss how female characters in Victorian society, who were depicted typically in this Victorian novel, were labeled as “angel in the house”. This work will actually analyze the concept of “angel in the house,” hegemonic patriarchy, Esther Summerson, Ada Care, and Lady Dedlock as Esther’s foil. At the end, this article will discuss how in the Victorian male-dominated society women were easily manipulated by their male counterparts both in society and at home under the label of “angel in the house”. Keywords: “angel in the house”, Esther Summerson, Ada Clare, Victorian society, Bleak house, patriarchy, women 1. INTRODUCTION Esther Summerson, as a Victorian model of woman, is marvelously perfect in numerous ways. The qualities which she possesses in the novel include prettiness, humbleness, modesty, quietness, assiduousness, and thankfulness. She is a good caretaker, and homemaker who usually has a habit of working only for the benefit of others. These qualities are what the society of her time desired from her as a woman and she did stick to these criteria as a woman. Charles Dickens in his book informs us about Esther. The Victorian society advocated ‘Submission, self-denial, diligent work’ since these qualities were considered as the preparations that the society expected from women in order to regard them as qualified for a marriage.