Oliver Twist is based on the experience of its author Charles Dickens, who wrote many popular novels such as Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Bleak House and so on. And the book is mainly about the experience of an orphan named Oliver.
Oliver’s mother dies just after his birth, so he has to spend his first nine years in a badly run home for young orphans and then is transferred to a workhouse for adults. After the other boys bully him into asking for more gruel at the end of a meal, the parish beadle, Mr. Bumble, offers five pounds to anyone who will take the boy away from the workhouse. Oliver narrowly escapes being apprenticed to a brutish chimney sweep and is eventually apprenticed to Mr. Sowerberry who is a undertaker. Oliver attacks his other apprentice because the guy makes disparaging comments about his mom, and he incurs the Sowerberrys’ wrath. Desperate, Oliver runs away and travels towards London.
Oliver is starved and exhausted when he meets Jack Dawkins, who talks and dresses like a grown man though he isn’t older than Oliver. Jack offers Oliver shelter in the London house of his benefactor, Fagin. It turns out that Fagin is a career criminal who trains orphan children to pick pockets for him. After a few days of training, Oliver is sent on a pickpocketing mission with two other boys. When he sees them swipe a handkerchief from an elderly gentleman, Oliver feels horrified and runs off. He is caught but narrowly escapes being convicted of the theft. Mr. Brownlow, whose handkerchief was stolen, takes the feverish Oliver to his home and nurses him back to health. Mr. Brownlow is struck by Oliver’s resemblance to a portrait of a young woman that hangs in his house. Oliver blossoms himself there, but two adults in Fagin’s gang, Bill Sikes and his lover Nancy, capture Oliver and return him to Fagin.
Fagin sends Oliver to assist Sikes in a burglary. Oliver is shot by a servant of the house and is taken in by two women, Mrs. Maylie and her adopted niece Rose. They grow fond of Oliver and spend an idyllic summer with him in the countryside. But Fagin and a mysterious man named Monks are set to recapture him. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Oliver’s mother left behind a gold locket when she died. Monks obtains and destroys it. When the Maylies come to London, Nancy meets secretly with Rose and informs her of Fagin’s designs, but a member of Fagin’s gang overhears the conversation. When word of Nancy’s disclosure reaches Sikes, he brutally murders Nancy and flees London. Pursued by his guilty conscience and an angry mob, he inadvertently hangs himself.
With the Maylies’ help, Mr. Brownlow confronts Monks and wrings the truth about Oliver’s parentage from him. It is revealed that Monks is Oliver’s half brother. Their father, Mr. Leeford, was unhappily married to a wealthy woman and had an affair with Oliver’s mother Agnes Fleming. Mr. Brownlow forces him to sign over Oliver’s share to Oliver. Moreover, it is discovered that Rose is Agnes’ younger sister, hence Oliver’s aunt. Fagin is hung for his crimes. Finally, Mr. Brownlow adopts Oliver, and they retire to a blissful existence in the countryside with the Maylies.
After reading the book Oliver Twist, I don’t think Oliver is a believable character. Although he is raised in corrupt surroundings, his purity and virtue are absolute. On the other hand, Oliver speaks in proper King’s English while other pauper children use rough Cockney slang.
Compared with Oliver, I appreciate the character Nancy more. She is immersed in the vices condemned by her society, but she also commits perhaps the most noble act when she sacrifices her own life in order to protect Oliver. Nancy’s moral complexity is unique among the major characters in Oliver Twist. The novel is full of characters who are all good and can barely comprehend evil, such as Oliver, Rose and Mr. Brownlow, and characters who are all evil and can barely comprehend good, such as Fagin, Sikes and Monks. Only Nancy comprehends and is capable of both good and evil. Her ultimate choice to do good at a great personal cost is a strong argument in favor of incorruptibility of basic goodness, no matter how many environmental obstacles it may face. Nancy’s love for Sikes exemplifies the moral ambiguity of her character. As she herself points out to Rose, devotion to a man can be “a comfort and a pride” under the right circumstances. But for Nancy, such devotion is “a new means of violence and suffering”—indeed, her relationship with Sikes leads her to criminal acts for his sake and eventually to her own demise. The same behavior, in different circumstances, can have very different consequences and moral significance. In much of Oliver Twist, morality and nobility are black-and-white issues, but Nancy’s character suggests that the boundary between virtue and vice is not always clearly drawn.
To be honest, Oliver Twist is worth reading.下载本文
