oliver twist

Olivers’Luck
Abstract:Charles Dickens created his first social novel Oliver Twist, through which we can know the terrible conditions of the poor in the 19th century in England. By contrasting different life of litter Oliver in nine years ,to read the inevitable fate and coincidence in life and the litery styles—realism and romanticism—of Dickens,who projects his concern and sympathy for the poor into the personlity of the hero of his novel and cause us to observe and think the worldwide and cross-century issue—social weaker groups all-sidedly.
Key words:realism; orphan; poor; sufferings
摘要：通过解读查尔斯〃狄更斯的第一篇社会性小说了解十九世纪的英国社会下层贫困人民的现状，通过对比小奥利弗九年间前后生活的变化看人物命运的演变展现作者现实主义与浪漫主义交叉写作手法的运用寄托对贫苦人民深深的关心与同情，同时引起我们全面思考这个世界性、跨世纪的问题—社会弱势群体问题。

关键字:现实主义；孤儿；贫穷；苦难
1. Introduction
1.1 A brief introduction to the author
Charles Dickens, the greatest representative of English critical realism actually had an unhappy childhood. His father, a navy clerk, amiable but not thrifty, was for years in a debtor’s prison. At th e age of eleven, young Dickens was subject to long and dreary labor in a blacking factory in London. The miserable life at the factory left an everlasting, painful brand on the boy’s mind. Long afterwards, even when he was famous, he would not walk by the place where the factory had been situated. And from his early years he formed the habit of roaming London afoot, often a dozen or miles a day, or preferably at night, observing the life of the poor and oppressed. He
knew what suffering meant. All through his life he was to keep his sympathy for the poor. The rest of his life is a story of work, and work without rest until the last minute of his life.
There is no doubt that all these experiences have a deep influence on Dickens’thought and work in after years because of his intimate knowledge of people of the lowest order and of the city itself.
1.2 A brief introduction to the novel
Oliver Twist is Dickens’ first social novel and is one of the best works of his. The novel opens with the birth of Oliver in a workhouse and the death of his mother who had been found on the road. He is brought up in a baby-farm, and at ten apprenticed to a workhouse undertaker. He runs away, drifts to London, and falls into the gang of thieves whose head is old Fagin. Oliver is found to help pick pockets by Fagin’s crew or to creep into a window of a country house in order to admit the thieves. Luckily, he is rescued both in the street and in the robbery. The luckier is the benevolent old gentleman who rescued him turns out to be intimate friend of his father and the benevolent lady who rescued him later is discovered to be his aunt. What a coincidence!
2. The characteristics of the hero
2.1 The unlucky orphan
Every role in the novel is striking. Everyone’s fate can be sensed bot h by the reader and the role itself except little Oliver. He is an orphan but not a regular orphan. The former parts of the story do not refer to his difference from other orphans, so he has the same sufferings as others, even worse. But he does not lose himself in the rough circumstances, he is kind, optimistic, rough, innocent and polite, even to people who do harm to him, also sometimes sad and lonely. To a nine years old child, what he thirsts for is love from parents and care from friends, but he has neither.
When lonely and hope occupy his mind, he begins his drift to London seeking for the better life but unluckily traps into the gang of thieves and different sufferings fill his life. His life is changed from one suffering to another. We feel so sympathy for
the boy because what a miserable life he lives and how can he bear this, but it is the fact. Though we can afford a smile now and then, we feel more the pitiable state of the orphan boy and the cruelty and hypocrisy of the workhouse board and society.
Oliver has to bear the unfairness because he is not much acknowledged about society. He laughs to tears when he is watching the way old Fagin trains the thieves though he knows that what they are doing is unmoral and illegal. We can feel the innocence from the inner part because for him the training action itself is funny not the theft.
2.2 The luck of the orphan
Life really changed begins from the encounter with the gentleman Brownlow. We seem to find a different color will cover Oliver’s life until he get injured and meet the kind lady Rose we are sure of that. But the bad figures do not diminish from his life, scare him and make him worry and he could do nothing. The old gentleman’s second appearance brings the utmost happy to Oliver. And his birth mystery is uncovered with happier news coming along.
3.Conclusion
From the whole, the main character Oliver seems always pale and helpless, even his innocent laugh. Life is miserable for nine years because he is an orphan; life is changed because of the myserious background. If he has no mystery or the mystery has been kept forever,that is to say,he is a simple orphan,what Oliver’s fate will be? He may become one of the poor and miserable people in the novel. Dickens arranges his work on purpose to reveal the real side of society: terrible life conditions of the poor and ruined moral on the poor, the cruelty and meanness of such officials and authorities, high and low, who functioned under the Poor Law. Oliver is the figure of symbolic significance: he stands for all workhouse orphans, and his situation is pervaded with dramatic symbolic power. Not all the orphans have the mystery of family background. “The realist writter arranges a romanticism ending to voice for the helpless sufferings of the poor and oppressed and show sympathy for the down-trodden people of the lower classes, who, degraded and corrupted by the
parasites or oppressors or fall to be victims of society or even criminal.” The middle class as the old gentleman and the kind lady present us a high moral character. By the sharp contrast and the relations between them , he try to appeal for the public to face the social issue. And “the happy issue which Dickens’ novels usually end in comes about as a result of his optimistic belief in the inevitab le triumph of good over evil.”
That is the condition of 19th century of England, but the realistic meaning lasts for centuries. Much concern and protect to the orphan and the poor are strongly called in the present all around the world. The social problems related to it are world issue. When this issue is solved, the whole world will be hamonious.
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