Answer the questions about Oliver Twist

 

Summary of Oliver Twist (From Beginning to Arrival in London)

Oliver Twist is born in a workhouse in an unnamed English town in the 1830s. His mother dies immediately after his birth, and Oliver is left an orphan, given the generic name "Twist" by the parish beadle, Mr. Bumble. He spends his early years in an orphanage starved and neglected. At almost nine, he's sent to a  workhouse where he and the other starving boys are subjected to terrible conditions. During a desperate supper, Oliver asks for more gruel, a shocking transgression that leads to him being sold for a small sum as an apprentice. 

 Oliver is sold  to an undertaker, Mr. Sowerberry. He is taunted and bullied by the older apprentice, Noah Claypole, and the maid, Charlotte. When Noah insults the memory of Oliver's dead mother, Oliver snaps and attacks him. This leads to a violent uproar and Oliver is severely beaten and locked up by Mr. Sowerberry.

Feeling completely alone and unjustly punished, Oliver makes the decision to run away. He walks for many days, enduring hunger and hardship, aiming for London, believing he can make a new life there. Exhausted and faint, he is eventually met on the road near London by a boy named Jack Dawkins, better known as the "Artful Dodger." The Dodger is street-smart and immediately takes Oliver under his wing, promising him food and lodging with a "nice old gentleman" in London. Oliver, desperate for help, trusts him and follows him to a house where he meets the criminal Fagin.He is the boss of a gang of pickpockets. He trains boys to steal wallets or handkerchief.

---

Questions About the Text

1. What shocking act by Oliver leads to him being removed from the workhouse and sold as an apprentice?

2. Who are the two individuals that bully Oliver during his apprenticeship to the undertaker, Mr. Sowerberry?

3. Why does Oliver decide to run away from the undertaker's house, and where does he decide to go?

4. What is the real name and common nickname of the boy Oliver meets on the road to London?

5. Who’s Fagin?

Analyzing 'Oliver Wants Some More' from Oliver Twist with a video created by AI

https://share.synthesia.io/d29bc9d0-d5e1-48a5-8a88-2c206d35629a 

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.

 

 

 

Collegamenti Oliver Twist e Rosso Malpelo

       

 ROSSO MALPELO 1881                                                                               OLIVER TWIST 1837

☝                                                                                                                                  ☝

SIMILARITIES

orphans

poor

hard-working in bad conditions

suffer abuse

a deep loneliness

the adults are far away and indifferent

relations based on bullying and extreme poverty

selfishness and ignorance as consequences of poverty 

their destiny is written in their names

DIFFERENCES

A resigned child                                                                                 a strong-willed rebel

He dies at the end                                                                            He's adopted at the end

Through the story of Rosso Malpelo, Verga expresses all his pessimism, his hopeless conception of life. Malpelo does not rebel against the injustices he suffers because they seem inevitable to him: if he dreams of rebelling, he immediately returns to what is real and unchangeable from his point of view. The pessimism expressed by Verga in Rosso Malpelo is absolute, it knows no way out, it leads him to think that never having been born would have been better.

Instead, Oliver lives happily with Mr. Brownlow as his adopted son. Dickens is optimistic. In the midst of corruption and degradation, the essentially passive Oliver remains pure-hearted; he steers away from evil when those around him give in to it, and like in a fairy-tale , he eventually receives his reward – leaving for a peaceful life in the country, surrounded by kind friends. On the way to this happy ending, Dickens explores the kind of life an outcast, orphan boy could expect to lead in 1830s London.

Dickens criticizes the system of workhouses and he denounces the situation and the living conditions in those horrible places.He thought that all the injustices and the violence suffered by the poor occured in the city and that are the effect of it.So he idealized the countryside, because in his opinion it was free from poverty and ugliness.

Verga talks about the living conditions in the countryside, especially in very small towns or villages. He doesn't openly criticize the system, but he describes it as it is with detachment and the total impersonality of the narrator. In contrast to Verga, Dickens criticizes the system by exaggerating some aspects of the descriptions and by attacking single people, more than the entire system.

IRONY

In both texts it stimulates critical reflection on the reader's part through a series of more or less evident contrasts. Its aim is to make the reader aware of the distortions, injustices and contradictions to be found in the reality that is being described.

NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE

Verga speaks in the third person, but it's clear that he does not share the community's point of view.We can find a kind of anonymous narrator, but he does not subscribe its point of view. This technique reflects the one of estrangement.

Dickens uses a third-person narrator who is omniscient, but he assumes the points of view of various characters- In the extract Oliver wants some more he adopts Oliver's point of view

CONTRASTS in OLIVER TWIST

the boys' world and the adults' world

the poor and the rich

thinness(hunger) and  fatness

submission(fear) and power

THE USE OF PARATAXIS

Rosso Malpelo- a marked use of parataxis

Oliver wants some more- the syntax is discontinuous and broken, acquiring a kind of paratactical form

The purpose is to create an atmoshere of suspense or give the narrative a tone that is firm, rigorous, absolute. It doesn't admit any exception.

the victorian workhouses

slide the victorian workhouses 

THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE

the victorian compromise

 the victorian compromise 2

the victorian compromise 3

Themes in Oliver Twist

 

THEMES in Oliver Twist

The powerlessness of children Oliver and the other children are controlled and over powered by wealthy and powerful adults. Poor children are forced to work in the so-called workhouses, where they are treated badly and are constantly starving, or they turn to crime, risking to be caught and taken to prison or to be killed.

The powerlessness of women At the time, women were treated as second class citizens. Like children, women, too, are at the mercy of the more powerful in society. This is especially exemplified in Nancy, who ends up giving her life in her attempt to act against the men who hold power over her.

Poverty Dickens focuses on the terrible effects of poverty on human beings. In Chapter Two Oliver asks for more gruel. He is “desperate with hunger.” He approaches the master and says, “Please, sir, I want some more.” The staff is genuinely shocked. The master hits Oliver with the ladle and the beadle is astonished. The reaction of the adults, reveals the dehumanization of deprived children who are not helped by anyone.

Crime The conditions of 1830s London led naturally to crime. The novel presents a close picture of how one particular criminal gang operates. It’s composed of a lot of  types and personalities. Fagin lives by corrupting children and Sikes is a thug, a housebreaker and burglar. The Artful Dodger is someone who, if born into a better class, would have done exceptionally well, given his high intelligence, creativity, and sunny personality, but, as things are, has been born for a life of crime. Nancy is there because she has nowhere else to go. She’s an essentially good person forced to go with the way the wind blows but finally risking, and forfeiting, her life in her effort to do the right thing.

The Law The novel is also about the effects on the poor of British laws in the 19th Century, as industrialization accelerated. The reasons behind the Poor Law Act passed in 1834 were basically good– the creation of workhouses as a way of dealing with the homeless: giving them food and shelter. The reality, however, was the confinement of the poor in places where they were starved and mistreated with no training or education or any hope for a way out of the trap they were in, intended partly as an answer to the growing crime rate.

On the level of the law as it applied to individuals, we see, in the treatment of Oliver when he is suspected of theft, that individuals of his supposed class had no chance, It was only through the intervention of a middle-class gentleman that Oliver was spared from being flung into prison.

Good versus Evil ‘Good versus evil’ is the one theme that is common to most works of literature.In Oliver Twist there are characters who are completely bad – Fagin and Bill Sikes. There are also characters who are completely good, like Oliver and Rose. Dickens gives us another layer of characters – those who should be models of good, the people who occupy high positions because they are trusted to be social beacons. The reality, however, is that when Dickens shines a light on them we find that they are corrupt, using their positions of trust to line their own pockets at the expense of those they are charged to protect. We also see that those who make decisions about the parish poor, and starve them, eat and drink like royalty.

City versus countryside In Oliver Twist, the city and the countryside each take on symbolic meaning, and stand in clear dichotomy. The city is corrupt, dirty, and seedy, while the country is pure, clean, and healthy. It is in the city that Oliver is forced into immorality, while it is in the country that Oliver is able to recover his health, to get an education, to find peace and happiness, and to live morally. 

This dichotomy is likely related to the danger of the mob mentality that is so prevalent in the novel. In the city, where everyone is so close together, it seems to always be the immoral contingent that wins out and drowns out the few moral voices - just as in a mob the voice of reason is always overwhelmed. In the country, conversely, the people are not a mob, but a community.

AN EASY and SIMPLE SUMMARY of OLIVER TWIST

 

FIRST PART

Sequence of events: 

• Oliver is born, his mother dies 

• Oliver in the orphanage

 • Oliver taken to workhouse 

• The workhouse boys draw lots to see who will ask for more grue

•Oliver asks for more, and is punished 

• Oliver becomes apprenticed to an undertaker 

• Oliver fights with Noah, and is again punished 

• Oliver runs away to London

SECOND PART

Sequence of events: 

• Oliver meets Dodger 

• Dodger takes Oliver to Fagin’s lair

 • Oliver observes Fagin looking at his treasure 

• Oliver is unwittingly taught how to pick pockets

 • Oliver is caught following the robbery of an old man

THIRD PART

Sequence of events:

 • Oliver before the magistrate, Brownlow pleads for leniency

 • Oliver faints in a fever 

• Bookseller’s evidence leads to Oliver’s release 

• Oliver nursed back to health at Mr Brownlow’s house 

• Bill Sikes and Nancy find out where Oliver has been taken 

• Bill and Nancy kidnap Oliver

FOURTH PART

Sequence of events: 

• Mr Bumble reads of the reward for information about Oliver Twist 

• Mr Bumble visits Mr Brownlow 

• Fagin and Sikes agree to take Oliver to burgle a house

 • Sikes and Oliver travel to the house 

• The break-in wakes up the house occupants

 • Oliver is shot, badly injured, and abandoned in a ditch by Sikes

 • At the workhouse, Old Sally tells Mrs Corney about the gold she stole from Oliver’s mother many years ago

FIFTH PART

Sequence of events: 

• Fagin visits Nancy, looking for Bill Sikes 

• Fagin, followed by Nancy, meets with Monks 

• Monks and Fagin discuss their plan to turn Oliver into a criminal – Nancy eavesdrops 

• Oliver regains consciousness and staggers to the house 

• Rose and Mrs Maylie take pity on Oliver, and take him in 

• At their bidding, the Doctor convinces the local policeman to leave Oliver where he is

SIXTH PART

Sequence of events: 

• Oliver recovers at the Maylies 

• Rose falls ill, Mrs Maylie sends for her son Harry 

• Oliver encounters Monks at the inn 

• Rose recovers, Harry arrives 

• Fagin and Monks observe Oliver in the cottage

 • Rose entreats Harry to forget her

 • Mr Bumble, now married to Mrs Corney, encounters Mr Monks in the pub 

• Mr Monks learns that Mrs Corney may have information about Oliver

SEVENTH PART

Sequence of events: 

• Bumble and Mrs Corney meet with Monks 

•Monks hurls the ring and locket into the river 

• Nancy nursing Bill, Bill demands money from Fagin 

• Monks meets Fagin and tells the story of the ring and locket – Nancy eavesdrops 

• Nancy drugs Bill, and goes to find Rose Maylie

• Nancy tells Rose about Monks and his connection to Oliver

 EIGHTH PART

Sequence of events: 

• Oliver sees Brownlow; he and Rose go to meet him 

• Oliver’s friends resolve to catch Monks – to do so they need to meet with Nancy 

• Fagin learns that Dodger has been transported to Australia 

• Fagin tasks Noah to follow Nancy 

• The following week, Nancy meets Rose and Brownlow at the bridge. Noah has followed her and will overhear their conversation.

NINTH PART

Sequence of events: 

• Noah eavesdrops on conversation between Nancy, Rose and Brownlow 

• Nancy gives information on how to fi nd Monks, but refuses to betray Fagin 

• Noah informs Fagin about the conversation 

• Sikes arrives at Fagin’s and is told about Nancy’s supposed betrayal

 • Sikes returns home and murders Nancy 

• Sikes, on the run, is haunted by visions of Nancy

 • Monks is apprehended and brought to Brownlow 

• Brownlow tells Monks that he knows about his true identity, inheritance, and brother

TENTH PART

Sequence of events: 

• Brownlow informs Monks how he knows the truth of his relationship to Oliver 

• Monks agrees to tell the truth 

• Sikes, pursued by a mob, accidentally hangs himself 

• Oliver learns the truth about his brother and inheritance and that Rose is his aunt 

• Oliver visits Fagin in prison

 • Oliver is adopted as Brownlow’s son

The best ways to study Jane Eyre and Oliver twist

 

Hot seating

Imagine you’re Jane Eyre or Oliver Twist or another character in this story.

You’ll be questioned about by the group about his or her background, behaviour and motivation.

Freeze-frame

Working in small groups or a whole class, the students create a moment that shows the action in a narrative frozen in time, as if the pause button has been pressed.

Retelling the story

Retell the story from the point of view of a different character, ex Mr Rochester, Mrs Bertha Mason, Fagin, Monks

‘Who Am I?’

Take turns to provide clues about one of the characters in the story; the others have to guess who it is

Retelling in a circle

Retell the story around a circle, each member of the group adding the next part

Play ‘Author’s Chair’.

Take on the role of Charles Dickens or Charlotte Bronte and answer questions in role.

Oliver Twist Story | Bedtime Stories for kids | My Pingu Tv

Oliver Twist Story | Bedtime Stories for kids | My Pingu Tv


summary

Key words
Orphanage
Workhouse
Draw lots
Gold Locket
Gruel
Undertaker
Thieves
Pickpockets
Handkerchief
Wallet
Burglary
To burglar
Half-brother
Hang
Squander money

United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child

Social issues in Victorian Britain
http://learnonline-mgs.blogspot.com/2012/02/social-issues-in-victorian-britain.html#more

Oliver Twist 2005 Trailer

«I wished to show, in little Oliver, the principle of Good, surviving through every adverse circumstance, and triumphing at last» Dickens wrote in the preface to the third edition of the novel Oliver Twist

OLIVER TWIST presentation
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mTfvcgUgNg7wdkBAy_0bsT__n1iLpj-l_C9x0mcDGG0/edit#slide=id.p16

Oliver Twist's characters

Oliver Twist

Fagin Fagin takes in homeless children and trains them to pickpocket for him

Nancy -  A young prostitute and one of Fagin’s former child pickpockets. Nancy is also Bill Sikes’s lover

Rose Maylie -  Agnes Fleming’s sister, raised by Mrs. Maylie after the death of Rose’s father. She ends up marrying Harry Maylie

Mr. Brownlow Mr. Brownlow owns a portrait of Agnes Fleming and was engaged to Mr. Leeford’s sister when she died

Monks  Edward Leeford, Oliver Twist's half-brother; son of Edwin Leeford and his legal wife. With Fagin, he schemes to give Oliver a bad reputation.

Bill Sikes  -  A brutal professional burglar brought up in Fagin’s gang

Agnes Fleming -  Oliver’s mother. After falling in love with and becoming pregnant by Mr. Leeford, she chooses to die anonymously in a workhouse rather than stain her family’s reputation.

Mr. Leeford -  Oliver and Monks’s father, who dies long before the events of the novel.

Oliver's father dies in Rome after having claimed that he intended to pass his inheritance on to Oliver and Agnes.

CONCLUSION

Oliver is revealed to be the illegitimate son of Edwin Leeford and Agnes Fleming. Leeford has fathered the evil Edward (Monks) through a failed former marriage. After seducing Agnes, Edwin dies, leaving a will which states that the unborn child will inherit his estate if "in his minority he should never have stained his name with any public act of dishonor, meanness, cowardice, or wrong" in the event of which all would go to Edward (Monks), hence Monk's attempt to corrupt Oliver via Fagin.

USEFUL WORDS and EXPRESSIONS to talk about the passage Oliver wants some more

• Estrarre a sorte qualcosa= to draw something by lot

ex. Oliver's name is drawn by lot

• Tirare a sorte=To draw lots
• La sorte volle= It happened that..........................
• I tiri della sorte= The tricks of fortune

• Condividere la sorte di qualcuno=to cast (to throw) in one's lot with someone

ex. Oliver casts in his lot with the other boys

• Essere in balia della sorte

Ex. Oliver is at the mercy of fate

• Meritare una sorte migliore

Ex. Oliver deserves a better fate

• Toccare in sorte a qualcuno=To fall to someone's lot

Ex. It (asking for some more food) fell to Oliver's lot

• Affidarsi alla sorte=to trust to chance....