Year 7: Oliver Twist Knowledge Organiser
Context
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The Poor Laws were introduced in 1834 as laws
against poverty; Dickens lived next to a
workhouse until he was 19, and wrote Oliver
Twist aged 25 in 1837.
Dickens’ father was imprisoned in Marshalsea
Debtor’s Prison in 1825 and Dickens was sent to
work in a blacking factory aged 12.
Londoners were often prejudiced against Jewish
merchants as criminals.
Crime, especially street robbery and
pickpocketing, were common in crowded
Victorian London, as the population quadrupled
from 1 to 4 million people.
The Metropolitan Police in London were
established in 1829, just 8 years before Dickens
wrote Oliver Twist in 1837.
The law in England was based on justice and a
fair trial; but injustice was more often the reality/
Class in England was strictly divided into upper,
middle, lower and paupers who lived in poverty
and slums.
Kidnapping in Victorian London was rife as
orphans were targeted and abducted into street
gangs.
Victorian London was dangerously filthy, as the
River Thames was both for sewage and drinking
water.
Dickens’ sister-in-law died of a fever in 1837.
Girls and women from the higher classes who
became pregnant outside of marriage were often
cast out onto the streets and forced to become
part of street gangs.
Murder in Victorian London was quite rare, with
only 1 in 50,000 people killed in a year.
Lynchings of suspected murderers by vigilante
mobs happened very rarely in Victorian London.
Transportation for life to Australia was the
punishment for stealing.
Death by hanging was the punishment for the
worst crimes.
Plot
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Oliver Twist, born in a workhouse to a
mother who died, has the courage to
ask for more gruel
He narrowly avoids being taken by a
chimney sweep and ends up in an
undertaker’s funeral business being
bullied by Noah Claypole, who he
strikes, then runs away.
He walks 40km to London and meets
the Artful Dodger
Oliver meets Fagin’s street gang.
He is taken pickpocketing but gets
caught, while the Artful Dodger
escapes.
He is put on trial by the magistrate Mr
Fang, and almost sentenced to three
months of hard labour.
Mr Brownlow, victim of the
pickpocketing, takes pity on him and in
his fever take shim home
Nancy and Bill Sikes recapture Oliver.
Sikes takes him on a robbery where
Oliver gets shot and left for dead.
Rose Maylie looks after him but gets a
fever which nearly kills her.
Nancy communicates to Mr Brownlow
a secret of Oliver’s identity, but she
will not betray Bill Sikes.
Sikes murders Nancy.
Sikes gets pursued by an angry mob
and ends up falling from a roof and
hanging.
The Artful Dodger takes on the law on
trial with courage and humour, but
gets deported to Australia.
Fagin ends up in prison, condemned to
hang; Oliver gets adopted by Mr
Brownlow.
Characters
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Themes
Oliver Twist
Noah Claypole
Artful Dodger
Fagin
Mr Fang
Mr Brownlow
Bill Sikes
Rose Maylie
Nancy
Mr Grimwig
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Poverty & Inequality
Crime and Punishment
Law and Injustice
Childhood and Adulthood
Orphanage and Parentage
Fortune and misfortune
Family and Friendship
Courage and Betrayal
Murder and Evil
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Death and Prison
Linguistic Concepts
Sentence Moods:
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Exclamatory Sentences
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Declarative Sentences
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Interrogative Sentences
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Imperative Sentences
Syntax
Dialogue
11. Mr Sowerberry
12. Mr Bumble and the
Beadle
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Oliver’s Mother
Assessment:
How is Fagin presented in the novel?