ANALYSIS OF THE EXTRACT “OLIVER WANTS SOME MORE” from OLIVER TWIST BY CHARLES DICKENS

 

ANALYSIS OF THE EXTRACT “OLIVER WANTS SOME MORE” from OLIVER TWIST BY CHARLES DICKENS

“Oliver wants some more” is an extract from the chapter two of the novel "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens. In his novel he underlines the social situation during the Victorian age, in particular in this extract he tells about the critical situation of children at the time.

Childhood in the Victorian age could be an awful experience as many children had to work hard and sometimes even without any money, just to get some poor food and a shelter.

The setting is a workhouse where the protagonist and the other children were forced to live because of the poverty of those years.

 

In my opinion, the extract can be divided into two parts: the first describing the critical situation of hunger for children and the power of the master, the second describing the extreme act of the child to ask for another soup and the reaction of the master.

The narrator in the novel is third-person and omniscient; everything he tells us is filtered through his point of view. Only at the end of the extract the narrator uses the direct speech to tell the story from the point of view of the characters, such as Oliver Twist and the master.

The main theme treated by Dickens is a criticism of the social problems during the Victorian age. In particular in this extract the narrator underlines the inferiority of the children compared to the man (the master). In this extract the narrator tells the story of a child, Oliver Twist, who asks the master for an extra soup after being drawn by the other children. The master's reaction characterizes and explains the purpose of the narrator, that is, criticizing the behavior of the master in front of the children and therefore criticizing the difference of the social classes during the Victorian age.

 Immediately (in the first part of the extract) the narrator begins by presenting the setting, in particular through the detailed description of the room and the master on which all that will happen depends. The narrator uses the adjective cold both to mean the climatic conditions and to indicate the coldness of the situation.

The description of the children is immediately ironic:

The language is exaggerated, and an example is how the meal time is called: “festive composition” It goes without saying that the truth is that the scene is very, very sad indeed.

Another exaggeration is the expression used by Dickens “The bowls never wanted washing”: the children were so hungry and there was such little food that they ate any drip of food. Dickens uses the verb “to polish”, which is normally used for something  shiny and glossy, as if the bowls after meal times were bright and clean. Dickens is indeed using a humorous strategy to create the caricatures of the characters like the master and his helpers, who need to be even three to give out such a little portion to each one.

An unusual verb is “to perform” which belongs to the semantic field of theater and music. This makes the description even more incredible, creating a sense of strangeness in the reader, who frees himself of his bad conscience.

As the readers were mainly the middle class  he gives an alibi to them not to recognize with the bad characters in the story.

The scene described is all a big exaggeration, for example the operation “never took very long” and “the spoons being as large as the bowls”. Dickens's aim is to strongly criticize the living conditions of the children who were exploited, using irony.

 

The narrator also uses irony making the master ridiculous for his exaggerated reaction. In particular, the narrator focuses on Oliver Twist when he has to go and ask for another soup. He is called "rebel" and this once again underlines the inferiority of the child, in an ironic way. The narrator uses the verbs "to rose" and "to alarm" generally used to describe a war or a strong danger. The whole situation is emphasized and exaggerated and this makes it all ridiculous.

The situation can be read as the struggle for democracy: the children decide to take action against the master who behaves as a dictator, indeed he is despotic. The narrator wants to suggest that there is a higher sense of democracy in children instead than in adults.

It is a contradiction the long pray they had to say before eating the poor meal, it is interesting that children exploitation was justified by religious reason. You can notice that religion becomes a pretext to cover the guilts. That shows the doubled nature of the Victorian Age: the Victorian compromise.
Oliver represents a symbol: the change. Indeed he wants to turn upside down the tradition in workhouses. He is energetic and brave.

The expression “Please, sir, I want some” is the emblem of the whole extract, indeed he seems to be the representation of small children. It can been considered as the miniature of contemporary society, where the struggle for democracy brings a delegate to fight for others.