Write an essay on Dicken’s vision of crime as portrayed in Oliver

Twist

FOR INTRODUCTION

In Oliver Twist, Dickens presents the everyday existence of the lowest members of English
society and realistically portrays the horrible conditions of the nineteenth century workhouses.

Dickens goes far beyond the mere experiences of the workhouse, extending his depiction of
poverty to London’s squalid streets, dark alehouses, and thieves’ dens. Thus, he gives voice to
those who had no voice, establishing a link between politics and literature with his social
commentary.

Poverty equalled criminality.

The novel reflects the London of the 1830s as Dickens saw it and incorporates his reactions to
it. His own views were complex. There is abhorrence for many laws and accepted practices but
also contempt for law breakers. Sometimes there is criticism of the middle classes and of
criminals, and sometimes there is sympathy.

many suffered under the poverty line and turned to a life of crime and immorality in hopes to
improve their lives and escape their fate, ‘in search of ‘fortune some long way off’ (Dickens,
88).

he Poor Law (Amendment) Act of 1834. The government’s intention was to slash expenditure on
the poverty-stricken and change the previous regime of ‘outdoor relief’ in which paupers had
been receiving aid from the parish. However, it was criticised for criminalising the poor and
creating a cycle of death and criminality, as the poor were forced into crime in order to avoid
such a decrepit place.

CONCLUSION

Dickens helps portray to the reader the real conditions of the workhouses in
the Victorian era,
Dickens was not only the first great urban novelist in England, but also one of the most important
social commentators who used fiction effectively to criticize economic, social, and moral abuses in
the Victorian era (Subuhi, 1466.)

Literature can sometimes help readers understandings of the conditions of certain societies,
this is certainly the case with Charles Dicken’s Oliver Twist. Dicken’s Oliver can be seen as a
picture-perfect depiction of culture and life of the Victorian era, particularly it is a sustained
portrayal of 19th century London’s criminal underworld and urban poverty. The rawness of
the novel allows Dickens to criticise the social system as much as offering a grim story of
crime. He publishes the novel ………….Oliver Twist can therefore be judged as a piece of
social documentation. Dicken’s portrays how different people are connected to or
drawn/lured into crime for various reasons, of which he represents through each of his
characters.

The character of Fagin reveals Dicken’s antisemitic view of crime. He portrays crime
as inexplicably linked to Jewish people/ Jews. The anti-Jewish feeling in Dickens is
intricately connected with the social argument that Dickens is making in regards to crime.

The ironic twist is that while Dickens acknowledges this in the text with his portrayal of the
workhouses and the lure of children into the criminal world, he is himself a Victorian success story,
in spite of his struggles with the workhouse system as a child. The characters of Oliver Twist do not
work themselves out of terrible conditions; Oliver, who is born poor and has wealth at the end of the
book, is plucked out of poverty and criminality because he is discovered to have been wealthy all
along (328). Dickens, therefore, validates the dogmatic Victorian ideas regarding poverty (19).
The character of Fagin reveals Dicken’s antisemitic view of crime. He portrays crime
as inexplicably linked to Jewish people/ Jews. The anti-Jewish feeling in Dickens is
intricately connected with the social argument that Dickens is making in regards to crime.

Fagin
The characterisation of Fagin is worth analysing in terms of Dicken’s vision of crime as portrayed in the novel. As
Dickens worked within society’s long established antisemitic prejudice, it comes as no surprise that he bases one
of his key characters on the Jewish discrimination of the time. Fagin, an underclass villain is explicitly portrayed
as a Jew. The very hideousness of his character is highlighted and made specifically Jewish. Aspects of his
character are emphasised, such as his miserliness, greed, exotic and strange appearance, his effeminacy,
obsequiousness, cowardice and of course, the size of his nose. All of these qualities, align perfectly with popular
antisemitic tradition, and the negative stereotype of Jews in the public consciousness. Fagin was continuously
referred to as “the Jew” in the novel, a new edition was published in 1867, with the reference “the Jew”
substituted with Fagin’s name, lessening the antisemitism nature of the novel (Meyer, 240). Because Fagin is the
most vivid, grotesque character of them all, and made so inherently Jewish, we get the sense Dickens associates
people of Jewish faith with crime. Fagin is certainly far more vivid and fascinating than the “good characters”
(Meyer, 240). Fagin is inextricably involved, as a Jew, and as a character whom the reader must never forget to be
a Jew, suggesting Dicken’s vision of crime is inexplicably connected to Jewishness (Meyer,240). We can see this
connection is portrayal of crime with reference to Fagin’s character by his ethnic identity instead of “the thief”,
Fagin is referred to as “the Jew”, though not necessary to the plot. Dicken’s does not refer to any of the other
characters by their religious or ethnic identity, for example characters such as Mr. Sowerberry or Mr. Brownlow
are not referred to as “the Englishman” or “the Christian” (Meyer,240). Dickens implements the most horrific
language to describe his only Jewish character: “loathsome reptile.” He has “fangs such as should have been a
dog’s or rat’s.” Some characters refer to him in demonic terms as “the old one.” He is seen as sub-human, or rat-
like, or demon-like, throughout. Apart from the animal imagery, right after he finds out about Nancy’s
conversation with Rose and Mr. Brownlow, for example, he “looked less like a man than some hideous phantom”,
or when he’s in prison, when his face looks “more like that of a snared beast than the face of a man”. The
stereotype is that the Jew is inherently evil. Certainly, Fagin is evil, and the language associated with him includes
beasts and the Devil. The fact Dickens makes his only Jewish character the most evil in the plot, as the patron, or
ring-leader of the criminal gang, suggests further his judgment of crime as inherently Jewish vocation.

He might, alternatively, have introduced other Jewish characters who were not associated with
criminality, perhaps even making existing good characters, such as the May lies or Mr. Brownlow,
into Jews! I list these possible strategies for revision in increasing order of improbability, and to
contemplate them is to realize how far outside what Dickens might possibly have imagined - and
how much at odds with the workings of the novel - the latter ones are. (240)

Oliver Twist is of course deeply concerned with the condition of England's poor, and Dickens invokes
the idea of Christianity as a rhetorical tool through which to make the social commentary that is at
the novel's moral center. Yet given the sympathy that Dickens expresses in Oliver Twist for the poor
and the socially marginal, the portrayal of the Jewish underclass villain, Fagin, has perturbed some
readers almost since the novel's first publication. Oliver at first sees Fagin as a benevolent
gentleman, sheltering, feeding, and training homeless children - but of course he is a thief, a pimp,
and a fence for stolen goods. Though Fagin proffers himself as a surrogate parent to Oliver, he is also
villainous and corrupt, and his hideousness is made specifically Jewish. Not only does Dickens
pointedly and repeatedly term him "the Jew," but he emphasizes aspects of his character familiar
from the antisemitic tradition, namely his miserliness, his greed, his exotic and strange appearance,
his effeminacy, his obsequiousness, his cowardliness - and the size of his nose (239).

1867 edition of Oliver Twist, he made some careful revisions of the novel, editing out many instances
in which he had substituted the words "the Jew" for Fagin's name and, in the process, indubitably
lessening the heaviness of the novel's antisemitism

It is instructive to consider what some other strategies for revision might have been. Dickens might,
for example, once having established Fagin as a Jew, have eliminated all reference to him by ethnic
identity except where necessary for the plot, perhaps substituting the terms "the thief" or "the
fence" for "the Jew," just as he calls Sikes, the only other character repeatedly referred to by such a
group designation, "the housebreaker." Or Dickens might have gone so far as to change Fagin's
ethnic identity altogether, to one not traditionally the target of prejudice in nineteenth-century
England. Or, while continuing to refer to Fagin as "the Jew," Dickens might have referred to other
characters by ethnic or religious identity as well, periodically substituting for, say, Mr. Sowerberry's
name, "the Englishman" or "the Christian.". (240)

He might, alternatively, have introduced other Jewish characters who were not associated with
criminality, perhaps even making existing good characters, such as the May lies or Mr. Brownlow,
into Jews! I list these possible strategies for revision in increasing order of improbability, and to
contemplate them is to realize how far outside what Dickens might possibly have imagined - and
how much at odds with the workings of the novel - the latter ones are. (240)

Dickens could not do so, I will contend, because the negative energy in the representation of the
Jewish Fagin is, paradoxically, so deeply involved in what is best in the novel. This is true from a
literary perspective, as many have remarked: Fagin is certainly far more vivid and fascinating than
the good characters.2 But it is also true from a social perspective. Fagin is inextricably involved, as a
Jew, and as a character whom the reader must never forget to be a Jew, in the novel's extended
commentary on the English treatment of the poor. That commentary is worked out through a
symbolic schema in which the categories "Christian" and "Jew" play interconnected roles. (240)

A few other aspects of Fagin's characterization that also draw on antisemitic stereotypes have not
been given as much attention by critics. For instance, Sikes comments that Fagin has been known to
swallow coins surreptitiously to keep them away from his associates (105). Here Dickens commingles
the idea of the Jew as obscenely money loving and the idea of the Jew as filthy: presumably Fagin
searches through his excrement to retrieve these coins. (244)

• Fagin's Jewishness shows us also that in Dickens's understanding of crime and

capital, there has to be a figure deeply implicated in both, and yet available for an ultimate
villainy which is ethnic-racial, as much as it is ethical

• Another way to say this: Dickens wishes finally to attribute crime to some essential or
inner trait
 • Just as Oliver seems incorruptible and never loses his upperclass manners or language, so
Fagin, as a Jew, is irredeemably evil, beyond even compassion

Oliver
The character of Oliver reveals Dickens notion of how individuals subjected to Agamben’s theory of “bare life” are
compelled to or drawn into crime. Oliver’s life begins as “an item of mortality”, a “thing” (Patten, 207). The
conditions of the workhouse he is born into, immediately places him as a merely “living animal” removed and
unconnected from the proper human domains of the social and economic community (Sen,240). From birth he is
socially isolated, and stamped as an outcast, a pauper. He is fully constituted by the workhouse diet, “gruel”, a
“hell broth”, unfit for human consumption, placing Oliver in an animal state of living, of which he cannot be
described properly as human (Sen, 241&253). Mr Bumble cannot even recognise Oliver as humanly possessed of
life or emotions: “What have paupers to do with their soul or spirt? It is quite enough that we let ‘em have live
bodies’ (41). By introducing Oliver in a state of “bare life”, we can understand Dicken’s vision of crime to be
inevitable response by those encapsulated by the wasteful, corrupt system of relief. Dickens is making an
indictment of the New Poor Law, which segregates paupers from a properly socialised community of citizens, only
fuelling the criminal underworld of urban areas such as London. Dicken’s portrayal of crime as an inevitable
response to those failed by the government, is his way of communicating a need for political and social reform.
Dickens is portraying crime as interlinked with poverty, how poor people often have no choice but to turn to
crime to fulfil their financial needs, and are influenced by others creating this viscous circle of crime.