The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

Please discuss this section below!

My thoughts:

- Looks like everyone was right in their hints from last week that Fagin is a much worse person than he first appeared.

- Oliver's naivete is quite charming, and honestly rather surprising given his background and years of ill-treatment.

- My favorite line of the book so far: Dickens says that the magistrate could sue his own face for libel. Hilarious.

- Things look up briefly, but chapter 13 makes it look like Oliver's troubles are not over yet. (Well, plus there are still 350 pages left in the book!)

Loretta wrote: "My thoughts:

- Looks like everyone was right in their hints from last week that Fagin is a much worse person than he first appeared.

- Oliver's naivete is quite charming, and honestly rather surp..."

My favorite line of the book so far: Dickens says that the magistrate could sue his own face for libel. Hilarious. Pmsl

How does everyone feel about the pace at which we're reading this? Too fast? Too slow? Just right? Let me know, and I'd be willing to adjust. I figure 3 weeks in (out of 12) is a good time to check-in. Thanks!

For me, we could go a little faster but then I've finished Uncle Silas so I may not be a good resource in this.

Fagan didn't appear any worse for me than he had in the beginning. He just appears to be concerned that Oliver will tell the police about the group. I feel as if these people are just trying to survive. Granted they aren't above using each other to ensure their own survival, but when you are that needy/desperate wouldn't most people?

Deborah wrote: "Fagan didn't appear any worse for me than he had in the beginning. He just appears to be concerned that Oliver will tell the police about the group. I feel as if these people are just trying to s..."

Didn't he kind of imply, though, that "something would have to be done" about Oliver should Oliver tell the police about their thievery?

Maybe I've seen too many gangster movies, but when someone says that "something has to be done," I take that to mean that someone is going to get killed... in this case, probably Oliver.

Loretta wrote: "Deborah wrote: "Fagan didn't appear any worse for me than he had in the beginning. He just appears to be concerned that Oliver will tell the police about the group. I feel as if these people are ..."

Yes, he basically said that. And yes, I believe that's exactly what Fagan means. I'm thinking that this terrible option comes from Fagan's fear that Oliver will tell all to the police and then he and the boys have no way to make a living and maybe given either hard labor or actually killed. Wasn't there a mention of somebody who stole a hankerchief and was hung? I know from other books, a minor offense (or what seems minor to us today), had extreme consequences - especially if you were poor. A wealthier person would get a lighter sentence and/or be able to buy comforts within prison. The poor were either hung, worked to death, or starved because they could not purchase enough food to sustain them. With those options in front of you, what would you choose?

Loretta wrote: "How does everyone feel about the pace at which we're reading this? Too fast? Too slow? Just right? Let me know, and I'd be willing to adjust. I figure 3 weeks in (out of 12) is a good time to check..."

Either way is fine by me. Keep the current pace or add more chapters each week.

Loretta wrote: "My favorite line of the book so far: Dickens says that the magistrate could sue his own face for libel. Hilarious."

Loved that line too! Dickens is great at sneaking in these one liners. True wit.

Deborah wrote: "Fagan didn't appear any worse for me than he had in the beginning. He just appears to be concerned that Oliver will tell the police about the group. I feel as if these people are just trying to s..."

I felt that way too, Deborah.

Yes, Fagin is a very bad person. He treats the boys horribly when he is mad, and obviously, he's training them to be criminals. But the "state" doesn't do much better. Look at how horribly Oliver is treated.

I noticed that when Dickens describes their first meal, that it is quite good...I think it was ham. Much better than the awful gruel he was feed at the workhouse, and the scraps at the undertaker's home.

Life for poor people in 19th century England was a nightmare. As you said, they are merely surviving. You do what you have to do. Not to give them an excuse, but it's easy to condemn when our biggest "nightmare" is when our internet access goes down for a few hours. ;)

As for Oliver, I'm glad that his character is starting to be drawn more closely. Although - and I don't mean to sound callous - but considering that he's been treated terribly from day one, isn't he a bit naive? Wouldn't you think that he'd be a bit tougher?

Lynnm wrote: "As for Oliver, I'm glad that his character is starting to be drawn more closely. Although - and I don't mean to sound callous - but considering that he's been treated terribly from day one, isn't he a bit naive? Wouldn't you think that he'd be a bit tougher? "

I was wondering the same thing myself.

I don't know if any of you have seen the wonderful TV series, The Wire (which many have said is Dickensian in its scope and focus on those living in poverty), but there's this one heartbreaking scene late in the series (tiny spoilers follow for the rest of this paragraph) where we see a child, who we had known as a sweet, smart boy a couple seasons earlier on the show, become a hardened, jaded teen after spending time in the "system."

I find it a tad unrealistic that Oliver's life hasn't had the same effect on him.

Of course, now that I think about it, I suppose that Oliver might be drawn this way as part of the book's message: Dickens wants him to be as sympathetic as possible.

The very name Dickens chose for the character Oliver suggests his passive nature.

Malcolm wrote: "The very name Dickens chose for the character Oliver suggests his passive nature."

What is the meaning behind the name?

The meaning of Oliver, like Olive is peace. There's also the biblical connotations with reference to the dove of peace from the story of Noah and the Ark.

Also, with regard to Fagin, in the history of the English/British public school system (boarding school), the younger and newer pupils were known as 'fags', basically they took orders or 'slaved' for the older pupils, in particular the Head Boys/House Prefects (but most senior pupils in general could have a younger fag), who were known as 'Gods'.

The system was known as 'fagging' - so Fagin/fagging.

Perhaps an inversion of this, but Fagin is the 'God' of his den or 'school' of thieves where Oliver is receiving his street-wise education.

I agree with you that Dickens wishes his readers are as sympathetic to Oliver as possible. In a way he's saying that it may be a bad world out there, but there's good in everyone. Just because there are bad elements in society one does not necessarily have to be corrupted - not that Oliver is incorruptible. It is goodness which is innate not badness.

Basically, despite the fact that Oliver's mother appears to be a fallen woman in the workhouse, he is, to all intents and purposes, born with a clean slate. Although Dickens knew that some of his readers may hold Oliver's obscure origins against him.

Despite the stigma of illegitimacy and his obscure origins in the workhouse, Dickens is trying to show the more unenlightened reader that no one is born bad, and even if one has had a bad start in life, one can (with some effort of course) still rise above this and get on in the world despite what life throws at you along the way.

Dickens has a purpose behind Oliver's naivety and apparent 'purity'.

It looks like some of you are taking a more sympathetic approach to Fagin than I was able to, and I'm kinda psyched to see it. I'm gonna stay pretty quiet for a while because my reaction to Oliver Twist was so...viscerally negative, but I'll keep reading the debate to see if y'all can rehabilitate the book for me.

No pressure or anything. :)

@Loretta - I agree; Dickens does need for Oliver to be sympathic. We're reading with 21st century eyes; I'm not sure that the 19th century readers of Dickens' time would be moved to address issues regarding children if the Artful Dodger had been the main character.

@Alex - lol! Definitely no pressure. But question - why do you feel that it is viscerally negative?

I'll put a spoiler alert on this because while it won't contain specific plot points, it will explain how the whole of the book came across to me: (view spoiler)[I never thought Fagin developed as a character; he was just a hateful stereotype, again and again. Dickens' insistence on referring to him as "The Jew" more often than not reinforces the bigotry. I didn't like the book anyway - I think Dickens wrote some great books, but this wasn't one of them - but it was the anti-Semitism that hit me viscerally.

I definitely don't want to give the impression that, y'know, if you like the book you must be okay with anti-Semitism or something like that! Like I said, I'm gonna follow this conversation and if some of y'all can help me find a way to like this book, so much the better! But my initial reaction was, "Boy did I not like this book." (hide spoiler)]

Alex wrote: "I'll put a spoiler alert on this because while it won't contain specific plot points, it will explain how the whole of the book came across to me."

Thanks for the explanation, Alex. And we addressed some of your issues in the second week thread, but we ended the conversation, because yes, it does contain spoilers. Eventually we'll come to that more in the book, and we can revisit the topic.

Right, totally, I was very guilty of talking about themes that are really more appropriately discussed later, which is one of the reasons I'm gonna lay low for a bit 'til we're further on in the book. :)

Lynnm wrote: "Deborah wrote: "Fagan didn't appear any worse for me than he had in the beginning. He just appears to be concerned that Oliver will tell the police about the group. I feel as if these people are ..."

I would think he would be tougher, but if Dickens made him tougher, then maybe the strength of the point (what's going on with the poor) wouldn't have been so strong. That's why I am thinking Dickens made Oliver weaker.

Also, I don't think it's unfathomable that someone who had been subject to Oliver's experiences could still maintain that naivete. Sure, maybe only 1% or 2% of people would, but I don't know that Oliver is wholly unrealistic--rather, more "unexpected" or "unusual," given his circumstances.

Loretta wrote: "I don't know if any of you have seen the wonderful TV series, The Wire (which many have said is Dickensian in its scope and focus on those living in poverty), but there's this one heartbreaking scene late in the series (tiny spoilers follow for the rest of this paragraph) where we see a child, who we had known as a sweet, smart boy a couple seasons earlier on the show, become a hardened, jaded teen after spending time in the "system."

I find it a tad unrealistic that Oliver's life hasn't had the same effect on him."

I have a different perspective on how realistic the portrayal of Oliver is. Oliver was raised in a workhouse, but he wasn't surrounded by a bunch of thieves and murderers. He was mostly surrounded by other orphans or people with large debts. Those are very different groups of people. He would have had almost no exposure with what we would consider criminals until he met "the artful Dodger." If he was a little older he might have been more jaded, but he's only 9 or 10 right now.

Poverty does not affect everyone the same way, and neither does abuse or neglect (which he also experienced). There have been a lot of psychological studies on this. Some kids who only got mild spankings can turn out horribly, and some kids who got beaten to the point of being hospitalized can turn out fine. No one can predict what will happen with any individual child. Some people are just born with a little more natural resilience than others. They manage to keep an inherent goodness while others become bitter or cruel. Nature and nurture play off each other in very unpredictable ways.

(I have some personal experience with some of these matters, but I don't want to share that here. I just want to say that for me it does ring true at this point. I've known kids of that age who had similar experiences, and they were still naive and good despite years of abuse. It does happen, even if it isn't the norm. I would agree that Dickens is also writing him that way for literary purposes as well.)

What I find hard to believe, although I'm fine with taking it as a given by Dickens, is how Oliver could be so well-spoken and well-mannered. Even if the people he grew up among weren't criminals, the ones we see aren't very good role models. I think it would be more convincing if Oliver, like David Copperfield, had lived a few years with his mother and had an example of tenderness and gentleness (assuming she would be a good mother).
Why this matters to me is that in general Dickens says that poverty and ill-treatment causes people to become coarse, selfish and criminal. That is, society is responsible. But if some people are naturally good (or bad) that seems to lessen society's responsibility.
All that being said, it makes sense that Dickens wanted a character everyone could admire and care about. Many of Dickens' children seem too good to be true, as do other literary children from the era, such as Little Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin.

@Anne. Good point - not everyone does respond to negative situations in the same manner. Although I might expect him to be a little less surprised when he sees people act poorly since he's been in the company of people who behave badly since day one.

@Robin - More good points. :-) Dickens is saying that society is responsible for poverty and ill-treatment. But I don't think that his point is lessened by making Oliver "good." I think that it strengthens his point. Here is this kind child who is being mistreated by the state - people who should be educated enough to know better. And by doing so, they are putting him at risk by either creating an outcast or placing him in the hands of criminals.

I may change my tune in the upcoming chapters, but right now, I feel more inclined to blame the state rather Fagin and Bill Sykes for Oliver's problems. As others have said, Fagin and company are just trying to survive a system that is brutal. The others are abusing their power.

Robin wrote: "What I find hard to believe, although I'm fine with taking it as a given by Dickens, is how Oliver could be so well-spoken and well-mannered. Even if the people he grew up among weren't criminals, ..."

Funny Robin, I was reading an interesting book review this a.m. about somebody who has studied whether people are innately good or bad or it's all about nuture. Anyway, he used Oliver as an example. The book being reviewed is "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined" by Steven PInker. Here's the quote from the review (written by Peter Singer) re Oliver:

...The empowerment of women does Pinker argues, exercise a pacifying influence, and the world would be more peaceful if women were in charge. But he also thinks that the invention of printing, and the development of a cosmopolitan "Republic of Letters" in the 17th and 18th centuries helped to spread ideas that led to the humanitarian revolution. That was pushed further in the 19th century by popular novels like "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Oliver Twist" that, by encouraging readers to put themselves in the position of someone very different from themselves, expanded the sphere of our moral concern."

So basically, Pinker is saying the same thing we've been saying - Oliver was supposed to bring into sharp focus the plight of the poor.

You might also bear in mind that in Britain during the period (and historically until the 1970s or possibly later) that an illegitimate person (such as Oliver) had no rights by law because they were born out of legal wedlock (i.e. he should never had been born).

It's quite ironic that following the effects of 2 world wars and the swinging sixties when people cared less about marriage, that the only people who cared about illegitimacy were families disputing wills (a bastard was barred from inheriting) rather like Jarndyce vs Jarndyce in Bleak House, so in the last part of the 20th century the laws against being a bastard was removed from the statute books.

Dickens is asking quite a lot of his readers to find Oliver lovable.

Loretta wrote: "Lynnm wrote: "As for Oliver, I'm glad that his character is starting to be drawn more closely. Although - and I don't mean to sound callous - but considering that he's been treated terribly from da..."

I loved The Wire...wish it hadn't ended. I rarely like anything on televison, but that was so well done.

Loretta wrote: "How does everyone feel about the pace at which we're reading this? Too fast? Too slow? Just right? Let me know, and I'd be willing to adjust. I figure 3 weeks in (out of 12) is a good time to check..."

Pace is good for me as I'm reading other books at the same time, but happy to defer if others want to go faster.