Charles Dickens “Oliver Twist”(Audio Book):Summary and Commentary
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Oliver Twist, the second novel by the English writer Charles Dickens (1812-1870), was published in installments - like most of the masterpieces of nineteenth-century fiction - between February 1837 and April 1839. The work, which inaugurated the of the “social novel” in English literature, tells the adventurous story of an orphan, Oliver Twist, who, having escaped from the orphanage, lives on the streets of London, getting by with petty theft and stealing.
Unlike the first novel, The Pickwick Papers (1836-1837), marked by a profound vein of irony and the idealization of English society, Oliver Twist is a work with a more dramatic character, given that it addresses some burning problems of Victorian England at the time of the Industrial Revolution, such as the exploitation of child labor in factories, the degradation of working-class neighborhoods (slums), the issue of social injustice.
SUMMARY
After his mother's death in childbirth, Oliver Twist was raised first in an orphanage and then in a parish poorhouse, only to be sent, at the age of nine, to work in a factory where, together with his little companions, he suffered hunger and mistreatment. Having earned a reputation as an agitator, he is removed from the factory and, after an experience as a chimney sweep, is sent as an apprentice to an undertaker named Sowerberry. Here Oliver doesn't have an easy life with the other apprentices and after clashing with the evil Noah Claypole, he flees to London in search of fortune.
Here, tired and hungry, Oliver meets a boy, Jack Dawkins, who introduces him to a group of petty thieves led by the Jew Fagin and the violent Bill Sikes. Oliver realizes that he has ended up in a bad situation when his friend Dawkins attempts a theft against Mr. Brownlow, a member of high society who mistakes Oliver for the perpetrator of the robbery. Unjustly arrested, the protagonist is however exonerated and even welcomed into the home of Mr. Brownlow, who takes a liking to him and provides him with an education. However one day, during an errand he is carrying out on behalf of his new godfather, Oliver is kidnapped by Sikes and his girlfriend, the prostitute Nancy, who forcefully brings him back to Fagin's services. The latter forces the protagonist to carry out a new theft at the Maylie house. However, the "coup" is unsuccessful: Oliver is injured in the arm and is treated by Mrs. Maylie herself, moved by the boy's confession about his misadventures.
In the meantime, Fagin wants to take possession of Oilver again, and gets help from Monks, who has discovered that Oliver is his half-brother as well as the illegitimate son of one of Mrs. Maylie's sisters, and that he will therefore inherit an interesting inheritance. However, Nancy, who is good at heart and has overheard Fagin and Monks' criminal plan, warns Mrs. Maylie and Lord Brownlow, who in the meantime has returned to watch over the protagonist. Discovered, Nancy is brutally killed by Bill Sikes. Monks, in an attempt to forever eliminate clues that could reveal Oliver's true identity and therefore steal part of his inheritance, comes into possession of a locket and a ring that Oliver's mother had given to old Sally who had assisted at the point of death. Mr. Brownlow manages to catch Monks on whose trail he had been put by Nancy; thus, the criminal plan of Fagin's gang begins to fall apart: the gang leader is arrested and sentenced to hanging, while Sikes, fleeing over the rooftops of London, is also killed.
Oliver thus discovers his true identity: he is the son of Agnes Fleming and Mr. Leeford and Monks is his half-brother. What's more, Mrs. Maylie is Oliver's aunt. Having received his share of his father's inheritance (which Monks instead squanders in America, ending his days in prison) Oliver is adopted by Mr. Brownlow, and can thus begin his life as a bourgeois well integrated into society.
Injustice and suffering: Dickens's melodramatic pathos
As can already be seen from the plot, Oliver Twist, like many other Dickens novels, contains a real universe, which is full of stories and characters. According to the American critic Edmund Wilson, Dickens is:
the greatest dramatic writer the English have had since Shakespeare, and the one who created the largest and most varied world
This great variety and social facet, which depicts and describes the popular strata of nineteenth-century London, is functional to the social criticism that animates Dickens' work. At the center of this world there are in fact the English institutions (the orphanage, the court, the prison), of which the authoritarian nature, the senseless recourse to violence and cruelty (even towards the littlest ones), the narrow-mindedness hypocrite that affects human relationships between people. To counteract this dramatic situation, it is usually - in the value system of Dickens' novel - the exponents of the bourgeoisie (such as Mr. Bronwnlow or Mrs. Maylie), who providentially intervene to save Oliver from a life of crimes and injustices. .
To translate all this into a compelling plot with a simple but effective style, Dickens often resorts to the tools of pathetic and melodrama, inserting "mother scenes" into his plots, unexpected twists, suspense, revelations and happy endings that captivate the public. of the time (fitting very well with the mechanism of "serial" publication). The social criticism that animates Oliver Twist - as well as other Dickensian novels, such as David Copperfield (1849-1850), Hard Times (1854), Little Dorrit (1855-1857) or Great Expectations (1860-1861) - does not do its author a revolutionary or extremist; rather, also in his activity as a journalist and publicist. Dickens calls, often with somewhat paternalistic tones, for a moderate social reform, which does not profoundly affect the industrial capitalism of English society (as the nascent communist movement claimed), but improves the living conditions of the most disadvantaged sections of the population through the charitable and philanthropic initiatives of the "good" and enlightened bourgeoisie.
As the critic Mario Praz summarizes, for the English writer "the correction of social injustices had to come from above, from the rich and powerful converts [...] and not from the subversive hatred of the masses"
COMMENT
Reading Oliver Twist I had the impression that he was a child David Copperfield, and perhaps this was also the case for Dickens. Oliver's story stops with him as a child, while David grows up together with the reader, who sees him mature and make decisions that will change his life.
Oliver faces the evil of the world, first alone and then with some good friends. David, for his part, learns to deal with an often incomprehensible reality, in which good and evil are confused. In particular, the second often acts in a controversial and subtle manner and is not immediately apparent to those who observe it, i.e. us.
I loved these two protagonists very much, and all the other unforgettable characters in Dickens' novels.
When I begin a Dickens novel, the best thing is that I know that a happy ending always awaits me, whatever the adventures and sufferings of the protagonist hero.
