The Adventures of Oliver Twist was the second great work for twenty-five-year-old Charles Dickens. This book is an important milestone in his life. After its publication, as they say, the British writer woke up famous.
The young classic did his job: he wrote a deliberately controversial book, risking that it would not be accepted, wrote, according to Pasternakâs later definition, creating a âcubic piece of steaming conscienceâ. In addition to a fascinating romantic plot typical of 18th-century novels, Dickensâs book carries a social function, it reveals the plight of lower-level children, as well as the distance of authorities from solving their primary problems. We will try to summarize. âThe Adventures of Oliver Twistâ is a novel that contains a statement of an obvious social problem. The child is unprotected. His perspectives: on the one hand, state-owned institutions that steal people's childhood and deprive matured children of prospects, and on the other, a criminal world involving children, mutilating, and then killing them at a young age.
C. Dickens âThe Adventures of Oliver Twistâ sets out in chronological order. The boy was born in a workhouse. His father is unknown, and a young mother died at her first birth. His childhood was devoid of a smile, it represented only one continuous discrimination with beatings, half-starved existence and humiliation. From the treasury, he was apprenticed to the master undertaker. Here he faced cruelty and injustice, so he fled.
He goes to London, where he falls into the sphere of influence of the leader of the thieves, the Jew Fagin. He stubbornly tries to teach the boy to steal. But for Oliver Twist, the moment when, in front of his eyes, the âmentorsâ of Artful Dodger and Charlie Bates âgetâ a handkerchief from a gaping gentleman, becomes a moment of truth. Horrified, he rushes away, and those around him catch him like a thief. Unfortunately, all the emotions of the child are not conveyed by the summary.
The adventures of Oliver Twist are finally illuminated by a ray of light: fortunately, Oliver, under these circumstances, met with Mr. Brandlow (still acting as a victim). This man further changed the fate of the boy by examining his pedigree and at the end of the book becoming his adoptive father. After a repeated attempt to involve the boy in the robberies (Fagin contrives to kidnap him from Mr. Brandlow), he, wounded, finds himself in the family of Mrs. Mayley, who has a girl, Rose (the younger sister of the late mother of Oliver), as an adopted niece. Suddenly, a girl Nancy comes to their house, who lives with his accomplice Fijina, and tells the overheard dark plans of the criminals regarding the unfortunate boy.
Realizing that the boyâs life and fate are in danger, Rose, in search of an assistant, accidentally meets Mr. Brandlow. He conducts an entire investigation, attracting other worthy people to him. The plot is becoming more interesting - even a brief summary speaks about this. "The Adventures of Oliver Twist" acquire the features of a good detective. Gradually, "skeletons in the closet." It turns out that the deceased mother of Oliver Agnes, like the boy, after coming of age (provided that he grows up as a decent person) received an inheritance from a lover who suddenly died in Rome. For the late Mr. Lifford, a married man, the girl's love was the only joy. His wife was a real monster, and his son Edwin (later became Monks) from childhood showed a penchant for the criminal path. Upon learning of the death of Lieford in Rome, the legal wife arrived and destroyed the will, then she appeared to the father of her lover and threatened to force him, a weak man, to change his last name and to escape with his two daughters from home. Disgraced Agness escapes from his father to the workhouse, where he dies during the birth of Oliver. Her father, believing that the eldest daughter committed suicide, also dies of grief. The youngest daughter is taken into Mrs. Mayley's family.
We conclude our summary. âThe Adventures of Oliver Twistâ is a novel that shows the ins and outs of the underworld: meanness and self-interest. Having become a complete villain, Monks learns from his mother about his half-brother Oliver. He instructs Fedzhin to make a thief out of an innocent boy and, "stretching through prisons," lead to the gallows. The plan is hellish, but inheritance is at stake. Mr. Brandlow already knows about his personality, who went out on the hiding villain even without the help of the brave Nancy, who was brutally murdered by his accomplice Fagin. He âpushes the villain against the wallâ through irrefutable facts and the threat of justice (in this case the gallows await the criminal). By this, he forces Monks to leave the country without prospects for return and inheritance. Triumph of justice. The criminal who killed Nancy does not live up to the investigation, and the villain Fagin receives a gallows for his âmeritsâ by a court decision.
The novel "The Adventures of Oliver Twist" after its publication stirred up a significant public outcry. A classic book raised a significant problem to the level of national discussion: disadvantaged children, growing up in an indifferent society, turn into its dregs. They wander, and to survive, they go to crime.