Dickens was only 24 when he began writing his first real
novel, Oliver Twist, and his
mastery of the novel form would come in later books. The plot of Oliver Twist is outrageously
coincidental; the two strangers who at different times rescue
Oliver from a criminal gang turn out to have close connections to
him. And how young Oliver maintains his sweetness and goodness through
appalling hardship is unexplained — as well as incongruous
coming from the great campaigner against destructive environments.
Yet Oliver Twist is still a
popular book in the Dickens canon, with such unforgettable characters
as the criminals Fagin and Sikes and the exposition of his great themes
of childhood poverty and child abuse.
Oliver Twist’s happy ending
doesn’t reduce the bleakness of the story. The orphaned Oliver endures
a miserable juvenile home, workhouse, and apprenticeship and
unwittingly falls in with a gang of pickpockets. Although he escapes
from their clutches — twice — he comes close to losing his life when
forced into involvement in their schemes.
Just a few years before Dickens began the first installments of Oliver Twist, England passed the
1834 New Poor Law. Dickens was critical of its attempt to
reduce the number of people claiming relief by making conditions in
workhouses as miserable as possible. The most traumatic experience of
Dickens’s own life was his father’s sinking into debt, sending him to a debtors prison and Charles, at age 12, to a
“blacking” (shoe polish) factory. The experience became the underlying
influence of Dickens’s novels.
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