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.
