Oliver Twist
Guided study
page E31
1.
Answer these questions about Oliver Twist
1.
What does Oliver Twist fictionalise
• The novel fictionalises the economic insecurity and humiliation Dickens
experienced when he was a boy.
2.
Where is Oliver brought up?
•
In a workhouse in an inhuman way.
3.
Who eventually kidnaps Oliver?
•
4.
Oliver is eventually kidnapped by a gang of young pickpockets and
forced to commit burglary; during the job he is shot and wounded.
Who adopts Oliver?
•
5.
A middle-class family adopts him and shows kindness and affection
towards him.
What is discovered at the end of the novel?
•
It is discovered that Oliver has noble origins and that is half-brother
had paid the gang of thieves in order to ruin Oliver and have their
father’s property all for himself.
6. What is the setting? What social classes are depicted?
• London is the most important setting of the novel. The social classes described
in the novel are: 1.the parochial world of the workhouse, whose members
belong to the lower-middle-class and turn out to be calculating and insensible
to the feelings of the poor; 2. the criminal violent world of pickpockets and
murderers who live in dirty, squalid slums and generally die a miserable death;
3. the world of the Victorian middle class whose members are respectable
people who show a regard for moral values and believe in human dignity.
7.
What were Victorian workhouses like?
• Workhouses had been created to give relief to the poor. However, the
conditions in these institutions were appalling: the poor who lived in
workhouses had to respect a number of very strict rules, they were also
required to work in exchange for food and a bed; finally, families were almost
always separated. Parish authorities were responsible for the running of
workhouses: they should have checked the situation existing within the
workhouses, but, in reality, they let the workhouses officials to exploit the poor
who lived there.
8.
•
What did Dickens criticise about this social institution?
He criticised the hypocrisy, greediness and selfishness of the officials
in charge of workhouses who, instead of alleviating the sufferings of the
poor, often abused their position and authority exploiting the workhouse
residents for their own personal benefits.